Embarassing player encounters

[3rd line Grinder]

I work at a bar at the moxies up by the airport and every once in a while we have personnel come through from different teams mostly to scout the WHL, we get the odd player/former player come through, like just a couple of weeks ago Robyn Regher came through.

Anyways, the night of the memorial cup final this last year in red deer, Im tending bar and around 1045, i get a couple of new guys saddle up to the wood. I go to grab them some drinks, and before i can even say hello, "hey, are you Colby Armstrong?". He played it very graciously and we ended up shooting the #### for the rest of the night, even was very patient when i went on a tiraid about sportsnet's anaylst quality. In particular when the night before, the panel went to nick kypreos for in depth goalie analysis instead of Kelly Hrudey who was right beside him. Him and Jeff Marek loved the fact I knew who rodney dangerfield was for some reason. Everyone who was working that night was laughing at how hard I was fanboying given my reputation for being obsessed with sports. It was by far the best bar shift I ever had.

Also at last year's home opener, I ended up standing beside Robyn Regher with my girlfriend while waiting to go to our seats after the second intermission. I asked him how he was enjoying retirement, and even touched on how he was enjoying the heritage league at winsport (in hindsight kinda creepy). At the end I awkwardly asked
for him to my Flaming horse head jersey i had bought off ebay that summer.

[CroFlames]

That story is impressive for the simple fact that you recognized Colby Armstrong lmao.

[Gundo]

1 - I asked Brendan Shannahan to sign a ticket stub after game 6 in '04 while wearing an Iggy jersey. He was less than impressed.

2 - Ran into Rhett Warrener in the Deer Valley mall during the '04 run when his knee was pooched. Talked for about 30 seconds and said "too bad they couldn't just replace it like my grandpas" he looked like he was about to punch me and walked away haha.

3 - Also had couple Dion run ins at the Roadhouse and Back Alley, one of which he threw an ATM receipt at us and said "eat your heart out". Such a dick.

[J79]

During my first and only visit to Calgary, 3 years ago, I ran in to Gio who had an ankle injury at the time.
I asked him how his ankle was and he responded with 'not good' I replied 'okay, awesome!'
He then said 'no. no it's not'

Yeah... that was embarassing.

[Lubicon]

Not me, but this happened to one of the hockey dad's on my kid's team a few years ago. He was coaching Novice or maybe Atom in Calgary and this was when Gretzky was coaching in Phoenix. His wife's sister is married to one of the Gretzky's so they have met him a family functions over the years and often when the Coyotes were in town and time permitted they would meet up, or go to a practice, game etc. Anyhow, one year the Coyotes were in Calgary for a couple of days and had some time so they asked Wayne if he would come to the kids' practice and surprise them, which he gratiously agreed to. Word leaks out and oddly enough every dad on the team is able to make practice that day so they can meet Wayne. Practice ends and they tell the kids there is someone who wants to meet them and say hi. Wayne walks into the room and not one single kid knows who he is. Awkward.

[Otto-matic]

Originally Posted by Jetfire

I guess not really embarrassing but an awkward meeting. I met Jonas Hiller a couple weeks before his horrible season last year at the mall, he was shopping for a phone and I noticed him from about 10 feet away, and when he was leaving the store I kinda just got his attention, "hey you're..." and he turns back, gives an awkward "yeah" and immediately turns and starts walking away out the store. Kinda caught in the moment of meeting my first NHLer I asked if I could get a picture with him and he was polite and did so, but man he was overall just incredibly awkward and surprisingly shy. Nice guy though, said a couple other small things too "good luck this season" (yeah I cursed him) but that was about it.

I ran into Hiller too, We're both equally as awkward so you could really cut the tension between both of us with a knife. Super nice guy though - didn't really mind talking about things outside of Hockey.

[TheAlpineOracle]

Not really am embarrassing story for me, more the player involved. When we were just articling students fresh out of university, we all used to head over to Joey's Eau Claire most Fridays after work to hammer some booze back and talk about all the #### we had to deal with that week. Joey's Eau Claire is a really big hangout for visiting teams as they stay at the Sheraton across the street (they used to anyways, not sure about it anymore). One of the guys with us is a huge Sergei Fedorov fan and he's all pumped because tomorrow he's going to get to see Fedorov play for the Blue Jackets for the first time against the Flames.

We sit down in the bar side of Joey's and start hammering some drinks back and all of a sudden a bunch of the Blue Jackets start showing up. So my buddy starts to get very excited. Fedorov eventually shows up, goes and sits by himself at the bar, ignoring all his teammates.

My buddy downs a few more drinks for courage and decides he's going to say hello and say how much he enjoyed watching him play over the years. Fedorov proceeds to tell him to get the #### away and followed by some more angry and colorful language. My buddy comes back to our table crushed. A girl at our table, who knows nothing about hockey sees how crushed he is and you can see the rage building in her. It's just happens she's Russian and speaks the language. She's now had a few drinks and storms over to Fedorov and tell him in Russian that he's a complete ####### and that our friend grew up watching him and he shouldn't be treating people like that who just want to say hello to their idol.

She sits back down at our table, and a few minutes later Sergei Fedorov comes on over, apologizes to our buddy, tells us he's had a very bad day, talks the #### with us for a while, buys a couple drinks and heads back to the hotel.

[Erick Estrada]

I was in a small town Alberta bar with some buddies and was shooting the breeze with Clint Malarchuk in the bathroom while urinating and one of my drunk buddies came in just after we wrapped up the small talk. I pointed to Clint while he had his back to us washing his hands and said silently to my buddy; "That's Clint Malarchuk!". My drunken buddy then stumbles up to him and says in a slurring voice; "You're Clint Malarchuk? Lemme see your scar!"

[dirk diggler]

I saw Roberts and Niewendyk sometime late 80's early 90's going into Mistys by the old westgate, cant remember who was driving, but they were driving an Acura NSX at the time.

[AltaGuy]

Because I'm a jerk sometimes, and especially when I'm drunk (like most), I spent a whole night calling Michel Goulet, "Guy Lafleur" because I thought it was hilarious. He didn't think it was very funny at all on reflection.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle

A girl at our table, who knows nothing about hockey sees how crushed he is and you can see the rage building in her. It's just happens she's Russian and speaks the language. She's now had a few drinks and storms over to Fedorov and tell him in Russian that he's a complete ####### and that our friend grew up watching him and he shouldn't be treating people like that who just want to say hello to their idol.

She sits back down at our table, and a few minutes later Sergei Fedorov comes on over, apologizes to our buddy, tells us he's had a very bad day, talks the #### with us for a while, buys a couple drinks and heads back to the hotel.

Ah, the unforeseen benefits of a mail-order bride.

[CroFlames]

Come to think of it, I chirped Theo Peckham pretty hard in downtown Edmonton after the Flames stomped the Oilers.

[calumniate]

Alright at the young stars tournament this past month a number of us were getting pretty tarped. We move from the game to a cool pub, then to 'the mule' (the one club in town apparently). Initially it's pretty dead but their drink specials are great. Eventually though a group of guys show up and they're mostly pretty cut, and one of them has to be 6 foot 8 or something. So I turn to the whole group of them and ask them 'are you guys on a basketball team or something? What gives? Or is it all of these Kelowna grapes doing a body good?'

Blank stares.. and I move on. Yeah, they were the hockey players (Was wearing a flames shirt at the time as well.. dumb dee dum!)

[Flames4LifeFLA]

Not particularly embarrassing, but a nice story:

Probably around 2010 or so... there is a relatively large waterfront lounge/bar/bistro in Tampa that's close to the arena and visiting team hotel. When I say close, probably a 10-minute walk or so at most. Every January, there's an enormous pirate-themed parade/festival that encompasses downtown Tampa and surrounding. This waterfront restaurant is right in the middle of it; party central, boats docked all over the place, just crazy.

Anyways, the Ducks had played the Lightning Friday night (at the time I was working for the Bolts). So I had an idea there might be some hockey players out to enjoy the festivities on Saturday. Who has the table next to us- Ryan Getzlaf, Bobby Ryan, George Parros, Corey Perry. Of course nobody recognized them. I knew immediately, especially since Getzlaf was distinctly bald and Parros had his mustache going. Eventually as the afternoon wore on our groups kind of meshed and mingled. All four of them were extremely nice and pleasant, I particularly remember Bobby Ryan being real outgoing and friendly. After I told some of the girls in our group who they were, they of course wanted pictures and all that. Parros didn't want to take any, but the other guys all did and were great about it. I should've asked them to let the Flames just win ONCE in Anaheim, haha.

[Nufy]

1. I was at the US immigration office at the airport with Mike Vernon years ago. he had just been hired by Tampa as a Goaltending Consultant.

Young US border guard wasn't going to approve his work visa application because he didn't have the required number of years as a "Consultant"...Once he brought I to his supervisor...it was quickly approved.


2. I was at Ceilis on 4th a few years back just as the lockout was ending with a few work colleagues. We see Regher there sitting by himself so we send over a pint. He comes over and thanks us, sits and chats for a while. After a half hour or so he goes back to his table as some friends have arrived.

Fast forward a few hours and just before I leave I am walking back from the pisser right by his table. I nod and say hi again and he does the same...I say I am just leaving as my friends had left a bit earlier and I was finishing my beer.

End result is that I end up sitting with him, Rhett Warrener and a bunch of other guys for the rest of the night.

The only thing I can really remember was Rhett saying..."Don't touch my f'n phone"
I think I stuck em with my bar tab too...

[The Hendog]

As a child, Mike Vernon's large dog scared the poop out of my cousins and me as it ran down toward us bearing its teeth. Mike kept yelling he was friendly but when the dog got to us, it ripped two beach balls out of our hands and then proceeded to destroy them until Mike finally arrived to restrain him. Mike apologised and said he would be back the next day to replace our beach balls - he never showed and to this day he still owes me a beach ball.

[squiggs96]

I remember this one time a guy who was a huge Flames fan from Florida, or maybe it was Alabama, came to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. The end result was pretty embarrassing.

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by The Hendog

As a child, Mike Vernon's large dog scared the poop out of my cousins and me as it ran down toward us bearing its teeth. Mike kept yelling he was friendly but when the dog got to us, it ripped two beach balls out of our hands and then proceeded to destroy them until Mike finally arrived to restrain him. Mike apologised and said he would be back the next day to replace our beach balls - he never showed and to this day he still owes me a beach ball.

This is almost to classic a goaltender story to pass up... you never checked between his legs in the net?

[Table 5]

I've never met the guy, but Mike Vernon never seems to come across well in any of these stories.

[Jordan!]

I've only met like 4 other Jordons since 2002 in a business or public setting. Much less NHLers.

Eat it CP. eat it