Category: Canada

The Ottawa Senators vs Toronto Maple Leafs

Post author By sikander
Post date January 23, 2006
5 Comments on The Ottawa Senators vs Toronto Maple Leafs

thrawn had been trying to convince me to go to an Ottawa Senators game with him for quite some time. i had alway put it off thinking that obtaining tickets three months into the season would be virtually impossible. the Senators have been playing amazingly well during the first few months and have virtually stayed at the top spot since the season started. the new goalie, Dominik Hasek, and the new forward, Dany Heatley have been an excellent addition to the team. this year they must win the Stanley Cup.

the Toronto Maple Leafs have been the Senators’ nemesis ever since the Sens team started playing in 1992. Sens have been kicked out of the playoffs by the Leafs 4 times in 5 years. this year, though, things are different. as Don Cherry said, Sens are no longer intimidated by the leafs. he pointed to a specific instance where a Senator bodychecked a Leaf player in front of the Leafs bench, looked up at the entire Leafs team and grinned at them before skating away.

after beating the leafs 7-0 on january 21st, the two arch rivals had another match scheduled on the 23rd of january. senators had beaten the leafs 3-2, 6-5, 8-0, 8-2, and then 7-0, this next match would be the sixth between the two teams with ottawa winning every single match. awesome! the sixth match would also be the last match between the two teams before the playoffs and since the leafs had just lost a day ago by a score of 7-0, the january 23rd match was sure to be exciting.

so i was very surprised when i found tickets for sale on craigslist. after getting a confirmation from the person that yes they are still available, i asked dooh to go pick up the two tickets. usual price for those seats is actually higher so we were very lucky. dooh was very helpful and went out to get the tickets within half an hour of my calling him. with the tickets in hand thrawn and i were eagerly awaiting for the 23rd.

which also happened to be Election day in canada and the first time i voted in an election. last time i was in ottawa and Elections Canada had my permanent address as the Mississauga so i was unable to vote unless i travelled from ottawa to mississauga. in any case, i was looking forward to this year’s vote and was pretty excited about it.

after taking the day off, thrawn and i went to a primary school close to our house to cast our votes. the whole process was actually quite disappointing. i was expecting something grand and spectacular but it was very quiet and boring.. no mobs, molotov cocktails, music, crowds etc. just a hello, step this way, here’s a pencil and a ballot ( made out of flimsy grey recycled paper that wasn’t event cut properly on the edges ), step behind that cardboard box and choose the person you want to vote for. when you’re done fold it and bring it to me. they didn’t even ask for id.. i just told the old lady at the table what my name was and she used a worn-out ruler to cross out my name from the list of registered voters she had in front of her; a bunch of paper print-outs stapled together. very anti-climactic. but i will definitely vote again.

after voting we started the long 4 and a half hour journey to ottawa. i had seen the Corel Centre before while driving past it but thrawn had never seen it before. the building is huge and i really regret i never went there with lunato earlier when both of us were in ottawa. also, recently Scotiabank and the Ottawa Senator’s owner made a multiyear deal and renamed the Corel Centre to Scotiabank Place. horrible name in my opinion.

the match was to start at 730 and we were inside at 630. the place is huge and so open.. it was almost scary to see so many seats and such a huge open roof. the venue has a maximum capacity of more than 20,000 people and has been sold out consistently for the past few matches. we bought two coke bottles, paying $4.25 each for a single coke bottle.. thats the most i have ever paid for coke. crazy prices in there.

the game itself was awesome. the thousands of people, the incredibly loud crowd noise, the electrifying atmosphere, the GO SENS GO chants, and the Senators team… everything was full of awesome. the intro before the team skates onto the ice is one of the coolest things i have experienced. suddenly all the lights turn off and the crowd starts cheering and then there are bright red lights across the entire arena that turn on and off along with the sound of a beating heart. its very loud and you can feel you body shake because of the defeaning sound. i wish i had recorded more of it but i was worried about filling up my 256 MB memory card.

i didn’t realize that there would be no commentary during the game. 4 years of watching hockey on tv had given me the illusion that every hockey match would have commentary as well. but when we’re watching it live, its quiet.. well not quiet, the crowd is loud enough, but you dont hear the commentators. the seat to our left was emtpy and on the right was an elderly and very friendly couple. the people on our right and left were both SENS fans so that made the experience even more enjoyable. oh and the washroom stalls have an amusing notice in there.. i took a picture so you can see what im talking aboot. overall, both of us had an excellent time… especially when Senators scored first.. and then kept on scoring for a 4-1 lead :)

the game ended at 4-3 so toronto finally managed to score some goals. so far toronto has scored 12 goals and ottawa has scored 36 goals during the matches between the two teams.. woooohooooo go sens go!

after the match we found out that the conservatives were sure to win the election and form a minority government. doh.. that robot stephen harper is not my idea of a prime minister. it took us about an hour to get out of the massive parking lot and we headed home. i drove first thinking i will drive to within 200km of toronto and then give it to thrawn. the weather was ok so the roads were fine. but we almost had a head-on collision with a deer on highway 416. that highway is incredibly dangerous at night. this was the third time i’ve almost been in a bad accident on that highway.

this time the deer was in the middle of the road facing away from the car. i saw some sort of an object in the middle of the road and it took about a second, a long long second, to realize its a deer looking away from me. the deer looked back towards the fast approaching car. as soon as i realized there is a live animal right in the middle of the road my brain stopped thinking and i lost direct control over what i was doing. i really felt as if i had given up control over my body and my instincts had taken over and were guiding my hands and feet. i started turning right to avoid colliding with the deer. the stupid animal also realized that it should not remain standing in the middle of the road….. and jumped right. omfg wtf holyshit godamn.. actually there wasnt even time to utter a single word.. everything was happening so fast. with any voluntary control over myself i felt my hands turn the wheel left and i managed to avoid hitting the deer by a mere 5 or 6 cm.. literally.

the entire episode took about 2 seconds.. one…. two. there was no time to brake but i know i lifted my foot from the gas pedal. the car speed was about 110 km/hour and high beams were on. i shudder to think what would have happened if the front headlights were not on high beam. or if there was snow on the road.. but i wouldn’t be driving at that speed if there was snow on the road. three incredibly short seconds and i missed colliding with a deer at 110 km/h by a mere 5-6 cm. we coasted to a slow 60 km/h while i asked thrawn if he was ok. he was, of course, freaked out as well but he was ok and he kept saying, ‘man, we really missed it by that much.’ very scary incident… but thankfully with no injury to anyone.

the rest of the journey was uneventful. my plan was to drive to within 200km of toronto and then give to thrawn but i started feeling very sleepy after passing kingston so i just stopped the car and handed it over to thrawn. there is no point in risking anything just to get home a few hours early. i told thrawn again and again that just stop somewhere if you start feeling sleepy.. and then curled up on the back seat and amazingly fell asleep. it wasnt a very comfortable sleep since i woke up repeatedly but still the rest was very welcome as i was pretty exhausted by that time.

i should write to my MP and urge him to do something about highway 416. twice i’ve almost collided with a deer; one living, one dead. and once during winter i was carpooling and the car spun out of control and almost landed in a ditch. 416 needs fences around it and needs to be cleaned more often. it doesn’t have as much traffic as 401 so once it snows the snow ust stays on the road and doesnt melt away. please fix this!

we reached home around 4 in the morning and both of us directly went to bed happily knowing that the Ottawa Senators had beaten the Toronto Maple Leafs yet again.. unbeaten since 2004!!

2005 Ottawa

ottawa for a day

a busy day; drove from toronto to ottawa with my dad who had a meeting there. met dooh close to his house. went downtown and had excellent food at the Persian Cuisine Express. watched Syriana at the World Exchange Plaza. met dad near bank/slater. dropped dooh at his house and then drove back to toronto. long day but good movie and a peaceful drive.

2005 Niagara Falls

Screamers @ Niagara Falls

the phone rang at 3 am. i woke up, grabbed the cellphone and heard shekhar tell me that he will be arriving with taemoor in about 10 minutes. ok. i made sure the guest bedroom had two of everything; pillows, male indian actors, and blankets and then went downstairs to open the door. they weren’t going to ring the bell because everyone else was asleep in the house.

we all woke up again close to 9. after an excellent breakfast of parathas with some yoghurt sauce made by my mom we headed towards highway 400 to pick up shweta and her friend. shekhar and shweta usually visit toronto with their friends. i had met taemoor in carleton once before so i knew him but i had no idea who the fourth person was. they were at shweta’s manager’s house. he’s the president of East2West Group ( website : beware of loud music playing automatically on the website ) and shweta is one of his artists. you can hear shweta sing at their website as well; go to music and shweta would be the first artist displayed in the list. click on MP3 then on TRACK 1 and press the Play button… excellent voice in my opinion.

someone named lalit sen was there too. i had no idea who he was but apparently he is a famous music director in bollywood, india’s film and music industry. bollywood as in hollywood but in bombay, india.. so bollywood. pakistan followed suit and named their film industry lollywood. i guess it must be located in lahore… wikipedia confirms this. lalit was hillarious and made everyone laugh quite a few times. he was also nice enough to invite us to his office in bombay if we happened to be passing by.

lalit’s cellphone rang while we were sitting in the kitchen talking to each other. it was someone calling him from india. asian countries are so far ahead of north america in terms of telecommunications. samsung recently released a cellphone with a 7 megapixel camera in it.. my god. anyhow, his phone was GSM-enabled something something and the phone had a smart chip inside it. anyone who wanted to contact him would simply dial his local phone number in india and the call would be routed to where ever the phone was. so a person in india was calling a local number but the call was being bounced around by satellites and was finally connected to a cellphone in a kitchen in toronto, ontario, canada. instant global communication!! i know this isn’t something new and has been around for quite a few years but i just hadn’t seen it with my own eyes yet. high tech stuff is so cool

i also met purnima there and it turns out she is aarti’s sister… i met aarti last time shekhar and shweta came to toronto for another of shweta’s performances. hehe cool. there was a dog in the house and purnima was terrified of it and everyone was teasing her about it.. lalit being one of the fore runners :P

the house was huge.. with a movie room and gym and pool table room and blah blah. very luxurious. they were selling it though and the asking price was almost 800k. we left after about half an hour and headed towards niagara falls. shekhar had rented a Pontiac G6 and i was driving so i enjoyed the long drive. it took about an hour and 15 minutes to reach niagara; highway 400, highway 401, and then highway 403.

we parked near the niagara observation tower ( which reminded me of the Seoul Tower because its not as tall as the CN Tower ) and as soon as we parked i saw an adjacent parking lot offering parking for $3 less than how muh we paid. doh.

niagara falls was almost the same as last time i visited it during the 2003 roadtrip. the only difference was that there was lots of snow around the falls. otherwise same same. still, the mist from the falls rejuvintes and refreshes me so that felt nice. it was the first time purnima visited niagara while shekhar, shweta, taemoor, and i had been there before. she left some evidence behind as well :P

after walking around the falls for a bit we headed towards the entertainment sector. i a bought a small souvenir magnet because i didn’t have one from niagara yet. there were lots of amusement and entertainment places. we decided to buy combos and save using the coupons we had picked up earlier. there was a deal for Journey Behind The Falls, 4D Dino Island, and some 4D Marvel Comics ride. we bought 5 of those and went towards the rides eagerly… only to be utterly disappointed by the Journey Behind The Falls. it was a complete waste of money. don’t buy tickets for it if you’re ever at niagara.

Dino Island and the Marvel comics one was much better and quite enjoyable. the Dino Island one was the same as the one shekhar, harry, and i had been on during the Wonderland Graduation trip in 1999. the Marvel comics one was the same as the one lunato, harry, dooh, and i had been on during the Wonderland 2003 Roadtrip. the only difference was the upgrade to 4D from 3D. now one would wonder what the difference was between the 3D and the 4D version and exactly how would they depict the 4th dimension. well, they had these gadgets in front of the seats and riders could feel wind blowing at them and water being sprayed ( i hope to god it was water they were spraying on us .. and clean water ) on their face during the ride. a nice touch

there were lots of other amusement places on that road but it was getting late and we should start going back to toronto. however, thrawn had told us that we have to go to Screamers. so okay, lets do that before we head back to toronto. was he ever right… Screamers was amazing. the most terrifying experience of my life but at the same time one of the most enjoyable rides i have been on. wow. i haven’t experienced anything else like this. i just have to go on this with lunato and with dooh. harry probably already has because he’s been to niagara quite a few times with renny and others. purnima was reluctant to go into Screamers when she saw the notice board behind the counter saying that more than 48 thousand people have chickened out during Screamers. but shweta was quick to point towards the other notice saying that one has to be at least 8 years old to go in and surely purnima was braver than an 8 year old.. surely. the person behind the counter told us that if at any moment we’re too scared just start yelling “Screamers” and someone will escort us out of there. okkay.. i wonder what this is like.

so we bought 5 tickets and headed towards the entrance. by chance i happened to be in front of everyone. and when i parted the curtains i couldn’t see anything inside. it was pitch black. for a second i thought there was a major malfunction and the ride was broken.. but the guy told us to just go on inside and follow the red lights. so easy to say… so hard to do. purnima followed me followed by taemoor followed by shekhar and shweta. i stepped inside in the darkness and could not see anything at all.. literally. i dont think ive been in complete darkness before.

shweta started getting scared right away and purnima wanted to get out. i wasn’t too sure about going on inside either but i took a step. and then another. and another. either the red lights turned on or we passed some kind of barrier because all of a sudden i could see a very faint red light on the ceiling. there was no glow from the light.. it wasn’t shining on anything else.. just a lonely red dot in a sea of darkness. okay now i know what do. come on gang lets go towards the red light. we might even be on a yellow brick road without knowing it. and then all hell broke loose. we heard horrible horrible growling sounds from the right, left, top, bottom, 45 degrees, 73 degrees.. everywhere. and someone grabbed my ankles. omfgkjdhgsdkjhgiurendf.. i stared running towards the next light and purnima and taemoor followed. but i bumped into someone and whoever it was pushed me away and everyone is screaming and running and theres howling noises and grunting noises and holy crap it was terrifying. finally, after two thousand years had passed by i reached a safe spot without anyone lunging at us or breathing down our necks. i started laughing.. couldnt stop laughing. and laughed throughout the rest of the journey. i guess thats my way of dealing with fear. laugh in its face :D

after taemoor, purnima, and i stopped there we realized that we had lost shekhar and shweta. we could hear shweta yelling her head off and we could hear whatever monsters were around them growling at them but they were eons behind us. we yelled their name and urged them to come up and join us but all we heard in return was shweta’s screams. after a few seconds i decided to go back and get them and relayed my plan to my fellow adventurers. i turned as best as i could in complete darkness and started heading back… only to be grabbed by the shoulders by something or someone so close to me that i could feel its breath on my face and i was told with as much menace and evil he could muster into his voice, “follow the red lights” …. okay sir, whatever you say. just dont kill me and sell my body parts to doctors trying to clone human beings. we turned around and started following the red lights. the rest of the journey was quite awesome. i think we mustve spent 10 minutes in there. the truck and the crypt parts were the coolest and most scariest. awesome awesome stuff. at the very last turn we can see the exit a few paces ahead of us.. but at the same time you hear someone starting a chainsaw and you just know theyre not going to let you walk out in peace :)

but we did make it out alive. purnima wanted to quit quite a few times and was even asking me “whats the secret word ? whats the secret word ?” but taemoor and i somehow managed to convince her to continue on with us on this insane journey. and she completed the whole thing.. awesome :D

when we walked.. i mean ran out.. of the exit we saw shweta sitting on a chair sipping water and shekhar standing near the entrance with a sad look on his face. shweta completely lost it and started yelling Screamers just a few steps from the entance so someone led both her and shekhar out of the maze. they have a special Chicken Exit and they both walked out from there hahahaha. it just shows how powerful our basic emotions can be and once the flight switch is turned on and the fight switch is turned off the brian doesnt listen to any rational arguments and wants to get out as soon and as fast as possible. theres a caveman and cavewoman in all of us.

the management was nice enough to let shekhar go in again. so i bought another ticket and went with him. taemoor and purnima declined to experience it again. but i went again and shekhar told me to shut up and stop laughing hehe. he was terrified.. especially during the crypt part.. he fell on the floor and was yelling like a little girl :) :) but wow.. what an experience. have to have to do this again. i only wish i knew of it earlier than now.

after Screamers we kept talking about it all the way back to the parking lot and then finally headed back to toronto. the sun was going down but the day wasn’t over yet. in toronto we headed straight to gerrard street and had some snacks there. after buying some music cds and some dvds we headed north on DVP towards scarborough for dinner. we went to Lin Garden restaurant and had some indo-chinese food. excellent stuff. the chinese waiters there actually spoke in hindi… which was one of the weirdest things i have seen in my life. a chinese person speaking fluently in hindi. whoa..

after being fully-filled up we headed back to mississauga and everyone came upstairs to my room to relax for a bit. we went through Merivale Highschool yearbooks and looked at how young and stupid shekhar and i looked in them. i had graduated from Merivale when shweta joined it and purnima and taemoor aren’t merivaliens… boooooo. they left at around 1 in the morning to go back to ottawa. i suggested staying here for the night because it had been a long day and a 5 hour drive wasnt really the best of ideas.. but shekhar has done this numerous times before so he was confident they would be fine. okee. and yes, they are fine :)