I was lost in thought as the plane landed. I hate the feeling that I get when planes are landing. It's like you can feel the plane dropping when it's supposed to be flying. I always tense up when it happens. This was my second landing today, the second and final leg of flights from Edmonton to Toronto and finally to Halifax. My phone lit up signaling a new text message had arrived, as the phone buzzed lightly twice in my hand.
“Have fun in Halifax, Luke!” the bright screen burned into the night. My defense partner at the prospects showcase, Luisa Koller, wanted to wish me a good time in my new city. She had been settled in Montreal for a while now, having played there part of last season.
“Try not to beat up too many people in Montreal, Lui!” I replied, coyly.
The bus rumbled to a stop and the airbags sank the steps to be closer to the ground. I stepped off the Metro Link into the crisp Halifax autumn, unaware of what the city would bring me. Being from Edmonton, I was used to the cool air, however, being this close to the ocean, the wind had more of a bite than usual. My host family’s house is a blue two-story house, right across from a bus stop on South Park street, catty-cornered to the Halifax Public Gardens. It was just after midnight when the bus rolled up and sank to a stop. I was thinking I’d have to knock on these gracious strangers’ door at midnight, when I saw they were on the porch waiting for me, their son Jamie dressed in his Raiders gear.
“How was the flight?” my host, Richard Trufant, questioned as I skip-jumped onto the sidewalk, my rucksack bouncing off of my back. I reached out to shake his hand, his wife Cindy, smiled with both of her hands on Jamie’s shoulders. The boy, aged 8, was beaming at me in his Toivo Kosonen jersey.
“We hit some turbulence over Manitoba, but overall not bad. Nice to finally meet you in person.” I responded, reaching out to shake Cindy’s hand. Richard, a man in his late thirties, used to play hockey, but never quite made it into the SMJHL. Originally from Halifax, he’s a Raiders die-hard and raised his son the same way. Cindy is slightly older at a cool 40, but you couldn’t tell by looking at her that she was older. His hair started to bring in some saltiness in his years, but her roots weren’t even beginning to fade. A happy, healthy couple if I ever saw one. I was flabbergasted when they invited me into their home for the season. I thought I’d have to come in early and find an apartment, but Leetch told me to reach out to the Trufants as they’ve hosted a few players the past couple of years. I am still very grateful for them putting me up for my rookie season, and Cindy is one hell of a cook.
“Go Raiders!” Jamie shouted at me, unaware that people don’t normally shout at midnight. I smiled, laughed, offered him a high five, and said, much quieter, “Go Raiders!” The kid could slap five pretty hard for someone his age. I recoiled my hand, shook it off, and gave an “oof!” to his delight.
“Are you going to score lots of goals?” Jamie beamed at me, his eyes wide open and reflecting some of the lamp posts from the park across the street.
“We’ll see bud. I’m a defenseman, but I’m sure I can get a few behind a goalie or two.” I replied, laughing a bit. I knew he’d be at all of our home games this season, cheering me on from the stands. Cindy smiled and ruffled Jamie's hair, scooting him along, “Alright honey, time for bed, Lukas will be here for a few months. There will be plenty of time for you two to talk.” Richard reached for my bag and said, “Come on. I'll show you to your room.”
The interior of the house was warm and inviting. The bottom floor housed the main living quarters and the kitchen, as well as a guest bathroom. The walls were decorated neatly and you could tell that Cindy definitely held most of the power in that regard. As we went to head up the stairs I noticed a picture of Jamie at about 4 years old holding a stick and taking a picture with Toivo Kosonen. He was the stick kid at one of the Raiders games a few years ago. You could see the light in his eyes and how delighted he was to be holding the stick of Kosonen. I smiled a little as we trudged up the stairs.
Directly ahead of us at the top of the stairs I could see the main bathroom. Blue tile matched the outside of the house and ran up the walls in the washroom. Dark blue towels hung from a towel rack on the far wall. Richard headed to the right and I followed. A linen closet stood at the end of this hallway, no door, just extra sheets and towels staring you down. The room to my right was Jamie's bedroom. I could see that it was painted in Raiders colors and he had a framed and autographed Raiders away jersey hanging above his bed; just below the autographed Toivo Kosonen stick. He giggled while his mom tickled him and tucked him in for the night. As Cindy left the room I could see that Jamie had a night light next to his bed that projected the Raiders logo onto the wall in light.
Richard pushed open the door to our left and it swung ajar to reveal my room for the next several months. Everything was spotless and neat. Some of Richard's hockey trophies sat upon a shelf on the far side of the room. The bed laid directly under a window that faces the street. Morning traffic would be my alarm clock. I thanked Richard once again for the room. He set my bag down on my bed and shook my hand as he said, “Sleep well.”
I sat on the bed, looking around the room, exhausted from my day of travel. I reached out and closed the door with my foot. My head hit the pillow and I didn't even have time to take my bag off of the bed. I fell asleep quickly, still in my clothes from the day.
As predicted, the traffic roused me from my slumber. The alarm clock on the dresser read 7:30 AM, but it felt more like five in the morning, coming from Edmonton. The park outside looked amazing with all of the red, yellow, and brown leaves on the ground. I decided I’d take an early morning walk through the crisp September air, and explore some of the downtown sights of my city of residence for the next few months. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, flipped on the light and locked the door. I emerged a few minutes later with an empty bladder and fresh breath (those two statements are not connected.) Stepping out of the bathroom, I could hear Jamie downstairs talking to his mother about what they were planning to do in school that morning. He had a presentation that he was making in front of his 4th grade science class on the meaning of voltage and the difference between voltage and current.
I headed back to my room to change into some walking/jogging clothes. A black zip-up hoodie and some basketball shorts was my outfit of choice. I loved feeling the cool air on my legs during a walk/jog. Careful not to make too much noise, I slinked down the stairs and headed to the kitchen to let Cindy know what was going on.
“Good morning.” I said, trying not to startle anyone. Richard had already headed to his office a few blocks away and Cindy was making a bowl of cereal for Jamie to consume before sending him off to school. She ran a specialty crafts shop out of their home, selling real-looking fake flower bouquets for weddings and other events (which is a real money-maker, I soon learned.) Every morning Cindy walked Jamie to school, which was only a half a kilometer from their house, then stopped by the fitness center on her way back home. She was already dressed for her morning, even though they wouldn’t leave for another hour.
“You’re up early! I figured you would be sleeping in, late flight and all.” Cindy replied, returning the milk to the refrigerator. “Would you like some cereal? Or some scrambled eggs?”
“No thank you. I’m going to go for a walk, maybe jog a little around the park, see some of the city.” I answered, trying to sound grateful for the offer.
“Don’t you have practice today?” Jamie piped up, in between bites of his fruit-flavored grain-circles, not quite finished chewing.
“Not yet. Training camp starts on Friday. I am going to go meet up with some of my teammates this afternoon though. I probably won’t be here when you get back from school.” Jamie frowned at this.
“Do you have training camp on Saturday as well?” He questioned.
“Sure do. Bright and early. I think we hit the ice at 8AM that day, but I’ll double check and let you know.” With that I started for the door. “I’ll see you guys a little later today!”
“Oh, Lukas, wait!” I heard Cindy call for me. “I had a key made up for you. If you come back while I’m still at the gym, you may need it to get in.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. You have a good day at school Jamie. I want to hear about it after I get home from seeing some of my teammates!” I jogged back to Cindy to grab the key. She lightly smiled at me as she handed it over and I headed back toward the door.
I bounded down the four steps in front of the house, taking a right to head down to the crosswalk. I pressed the button to cross Spring Garden road, heading north. Then I did the dance again to cross South Park to the west. The sidewalk was busy, but seemingly normal for a Wednesday morning in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. Waiting for the light to change, I stretched my legs a little before the jog ahead of me. I had my wireless headphones around my neck, not in my ears just yet. I had always taken caution with crossing the street after one of my elementary school friends was hit by a car walking home from school one day. The light changed and a gaggle of people in business attire began crossing the street. Once I was on the other side, I plopped my headphones in and turned them on. I swiped my screen open, entered my password, and opened up my music player. I liked to run to the sounds of Daft Punk and other similar artists, but today felt like a Gorillaz kind of morning. I put on their self-titled album and loosened up a bit.
My phone vibrated with an incoming text. I glanced at the screen, reading what I could of the text from the notification window. It was from my new teammate: Bar Downski.
“Hey man, you in Hali yet?” the message read.
I replied. “Yeah, landed last night. About to go for a run around the Public Gardens.” My phone vibrated again. This time, it was a call from Downski. I answered it, “What’s up?”
“Mind if I join you on your run?”
“Uh, sure? How far are you?” I quizzed.
“I literally live across the street from it. Where are you?”
“South East corner, South Park and Spring Garden.” I retorted.
“Give me five minutes to throw some shoes on, I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Alright man, I’ll wait for ya.”
“See ya.”
He hung up. I sighed. I was looking forward to the solitude my music would have provided, but it would be nice to get to know some of my mates. We were meeting for lunch later anyway, so why not start early? I stretched my legs again. I knew Bar would want to run some of it, and not just jog like I had intended. Might as well get warmed up for it.
He was there two minutes later.
“Sorry for the wait. Dwayne said he might try to catch up to us.” Downski said, extending his hand for a fist bump. I obliged him, questioning, “Dwayne? As in, Dwayne 'the Twane' Ryder?”
He laughed. “The one and only. We're roomies right,” he pointed at a window on the 5th floor of an apartment building, “there. Third from the right.”
“I imagine we'll be seeing a lot of each other then. I'm living with a host family in that blue one right across the road there,” I chimed in, motioning to the Trufant house.
“Oh hell yeah, man. We'll have to run often then. There's a great place for some pizza right down the way from here. Maybe we can meet up with Dwayne and grab some later.” Downski said, stretching his legs for the run.
“Sounds like a plan. I'm meeting up with Ted Glass and Cody Fletcher later. Maybe I'll suggest it and surprise them by bringing you two schmucks along.” I joked.
“Right on. Alright, what did you have in mind for this? Jogging around the outside, running the inside, a mix of both?” Bar beckoned.
“Uh, I figured I'd just lightly jog around inside, see where the paths take me.” I replied.
“You set the pace, I'll stick with ya.” he returned. And with that, I started jogging, headphones bobbing off of my shoulders. In past the gate, we kept right at every fork we came to, until we hit the Northeast corner, and we headed West. We kept it up until we hit the Northwest corner and turned South. I upped the pace a little heading south and then cut back Northeast when we got to the Southwest corner of the park. The rest of the run was a meandering set of twists and turns, letting the gravel paths and wooded bridges take me where they wanted me to go. We ended up back at the Southeast corner of the park, where we met. We both stopped, a little winded from the 20 minute jog, to catch our breath.
“Hey, you wanna see what Dwayne's up to? I'm sure he'd enjoy seeing you in town.” Downski asked between small gasps for air.
I swallowed hard, slightly dehydrated. “Sure thing. You boys have any bottled water? What's the tap water like here?”
“Taps fine, just needs a bit of ice is all. Plus we've got plenty of beer to get us through the day.” he quipped. Obeying the series of red LEDs pulsating in front of us, we waited on the corner for the circuit to flip to the image of the little white walking guy before we ventured across the busy thoroughfare. On the corner was a little old boutique that appeared to sell candy and flowers. Might as well have been called “You Screwed Up” as a small stream of forlorn looking men streamed into and out of the shop, hoping to reconcile whatever problems they had created earlier in the day. Some of the women would be happy to see the acknowledgment of wrongdoing. Others would be tired of the same old routine. Such is life.
We entered the lobby of their building, and Downski was nearing the end of a joke. He pressed the elevator button and delivered the punchline: “Shit dude, how much water did you drink?” in a strangely believable stoner accent. I laughed a lot harder than any reasonable person would have at that joke.
This elevator, last inspected by W. Curtis on June 2nd, was fast. Newly constructed ones could rocket you up several stories in just a few seconds. Before I knew it, we were on the fifth floor and Downski was leading me to the right. Apartment 545 stood before us as he unlocked the door, pushed it in, and stepped to the side as he motioned for me to enter. From behind a wall I heard, “Yo Downski, is that you?” to which I replied, “Put some pants on Dwayne, you have company.” We had hung out a little after the draft and during the prospects showcase, I was hoping he'd remember me. Downski ducked into the bathroom.
“Well if it isn't Lukas Müller, my number one enemy.” he sneered, dropping the facade, and approaching me for a hand-shake hug.
“Good to see you walking and coherent,” I razzed.
“You should have been here an hour ago.” he mused. “You boys are ripe. You have a little fun run while you were out?”
I just realized I hadn't showered in about 24 hours, what with all the travel and the excitement of a new city. “Oof, sorry about that,” I apologized, doing the good old self sniff. “I need to get back and get a shower in before lunch.”
“Where you staying? I'll drive you.” Wyder asked.
“First off: don't you drive a motorcylce? Secondly, it's basically ten meters away from here, I think I can manage.” I informed.
“What's that got to do with anything?” Dwayne replied to my first question. “Anyway, what do you have going on later? Maybe we can all hit the town like at the prospects tourney?”
“Meeting up with Ted Glass and Cody Fletcher for a bite to eat. You guys are more than welcome to tag along. Downski was telling me about this pizza place you guys really like. Maybe we can hit that up?”
“Oh, Girodano's? Hell yeah! Call them up, have 'em meet us there around, say one? Is that enough time for you to get ready?” Wyder queried.
“Yeah, I'll be ready in like twenty minutes, but I can find some stuff to do for the next hour or so. Is it within walking distance?” I grilled.
“Two blocks North, one block East. Just meet us here and we can head over together.” Bar piped in from behind me, turning off the bathroom light and wiping his hands on his shorts.
“Perfect. Let me go take a shower and talk to my host, and I'll head back this way. Maybe kick your ass in some SHL 35, what do you think about that?” I bantered.
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