Tonight I attended the Senators vs. Capitals hockey game at the Scotiabank Centre here in Kanata. I was surprised to see so many men in military uniforms walking towards the stadium and figured it must be an Armed Forces night, which it was. I was settling in to my company’s season tickets, right on the glass in section 115 and turned around to see almost two whole rows of men in their fatigues and berets. I asked one of our fine soldiers if his boss was attending. He said yes, he’ll be about four or five rows behind us.
Having worked hard on Gordon O’Connor’s campaign, I was quite excited to be able to rib him about having better seats than he got. I turned around every few minutes and then noticed a big group of men in dark suits and coats huddling as they came down the row. I espied our Minister of Defence among the throng, but then realized that he wasn’t the highest ranking official in the place. Beside him was Peter McKay and right there, five rows behind me and 7 seats over was Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his son.
I was awestruck, and joined a few people in snapping some cell phone shots.
At the first intermission, Mr. Harper walked down and stood in the corner beside the penalty box to get some pictures taken of himself and some of the troops. He was cordial as many well wishers stopped by to shake his hand, me included. I introduced myself and told him I was pleased to help on Gordon’s campaign and that I thought he was doing a bang up job so far and that I was both proud and pleased that he was leading our country in the right direction.
He asked me what my blog was and I told him. He said he is pretty sure he had heard the name from his wife and repeated what many of us know. She is a blog reader. Whether or not he was just being cordial, I appreciated his friendliness and was, especially, pleased to see him sitting in a seat and not tucked up in a box. I also must say that considering the game was a 7-0 blowout at one point, the whole entourage stayed for the whole game which ended with a 7-1 score. Alexander Ovechkin scoring the lone Caps tally.
I mention this last goal because I really respect Ovechkin for his skill, but tonight during the warmup, he saw a youngster sitting a couple of seats over from me and flipped the lad a puck over the glass. With the puck and a quick handshake from Mr. Harper, this will be a game that young man remembers for a long time.
I think I will probably be floating around on cloud 9 for the next few days after meeting our illustrious leader. Ironically, I was wearing my OfficiallyScrewed.com baseball hat tonight (shameless promoting in a throng of 19,000 plus. When I went up to the concourse at the second intermission I gave Gordon a wave. Upon passing him I said hi and shook his hand. Peter McKay gave me a funny look. Maybe it was the hat….maybe it was me in a sweatshirt and jeans and being greeted nicely by our Minister of Defence. In any case, it was nice seeing Peter get a stick from someone in the penalty box and giving it to Ben Harper. A nice touch on a nice evening.
