Destination: Denver...WCBN Style (Part 2)

Continued from part one

7:55 PM CST

After our new Michigan friend boards the plane, Andrew notices the Arizona Sundogs logo on the jacket of the young man sitting down the row from us named Mike Bartlett. He goes over and asks about it, discovering that this guy graduated from Notre Dame last year and was on the hockey team. Despite the obvious rivalry with Michigan set to take on the Fighting Irish in the national semifinal game we got to talking and discovered that he was trying to do the same thing as Andrew – get to Denver via stand-by to watch the hockey games.

8:06 PM CST

Andrew and Mike find out that the 8:00 flight is completely full, so the three of us head down to the gate that my flight departed from. That flight was the next and last chance for them to get to Denver that night.

9:25 PM CST

I board the plane for Denver, leaving Andrew and Mike behind. Andrew was planning on spending the night on the floor of O'Hare, so Mike offered to bring him back to his parents’ house which was just 20 minutes away to get a few hours of sleep on an actual bed before they tried to get out on the 6 AM flight the next morning.

Upon boarding, my hockey jersey yielded another friend as the man and his son sitting in front of me on the plane start talking to me about Michigan hockey. I find out that the family is from Buffalo and the kid takes hockey lessons from none other than the father of disgraced ex-Michigan defenseman, Kevin Quick.

10:57 PM MST

I arrive in Denver to find that I’ve missed the last shuttle to the airport. Not wanting to take a $50 cab I decide to look around and see what other options I can find. Eventually, I encounter a friendly shuttle driver who agrees to take me to my hotel for $20. It sounded like a good deal so I jumped in and waited for it to leave. After sitting for 20 minutes I feel asleep and proceeded to doze until the now empty van stopped in front of the Marriot which was not where I told the driver to take me. “Oh, I thought you were here for the frozen food convention.” My fault for falling asleep I guess.

4/10

3:45 AM CST

Andrew wakes up in Mike’s basement and gets a ride to the airport from Mike’s dad. Andrew starts his city-hopping strategy planning to Denver via Omaha while Mike holds out hoping to get on a direct flight.

6:35 AM CST

After a 35 minute delay, Andrew’s plane is finally ready to set off for Omaha…or is it? The captain comes over the PA system asking five people to move from the front to the back because the plane was too front-heavy. Then, the door reopens and a mechanic comes onboard to fix the headset of the pilot who had been unable to hear anything.

8 AM CST

Andrew arrives in Omaha to find his connecting flight to Denver delayed by three hours

12:00 PM MST

Andrew has finally joined Tony, Christian, and myself in Denver despite needing two different shuttle services to get out of the Denver Airport.

4:00 PM MST

We watch in shock as Nathan Gerbe, I mean, Boston College, destroys North Dakota 6-1. Gerbe picks up a hat-trick as BC jumped out to a 4-0 lead after the first period and never looked back.

6 PM MST

Ouch. That was a rough one.