From the red carpet treatment files …
I had just secured an interview I’ve been looking forward to for sometime and was about to hunker down in No. 25 stall in the Rogers Place press box to watch the Edmonton Oilers game.
All it I needed was one more tug to get my wheelchair in position.
Not even a foot.
But, then, all of a sudden, I could not move my wheelchair.
So I tried again with a little more armpower.
Same thing: no movement.
I never like to bother the world’s best sister when she’s watching a hockey game.
Danger zone — if you know what I mean.
“Am I stuck?” I asked my sister Joan.
She looked down and a look of horror washed over her face, the similar look Joan has when an Oiler shot misses the bad guy’s wide open net … to, either win, or tie the game.
“Your right front wheel,” Joan said, bending over to pick the right castor in her hands, and then sat back in her seat, “came off and was lying on the floor, impeding my forward progress.”
“Has this ever happened to you before?” asked Joan.
In 55 years of using a wheelchair and many different models, I have never had a wheel fall off.
Oh, wait.
I can’t write that.
In 1992, I was pushed around in the Edmonton Marathon in a ultra slim racing wheelchair, a wheel — the rear right one — fell off with six kilometres left.
Joan looked at me.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“No problem.
“We’ll go see the Zamboni drivers.”
A few years back when I was working part-time for the Oilers Entertainment Group, my wheelchair wasn’t rolling the way it should.
Jason Rimmer was a Zamboni driver at Rogers Place and a great guy.
He plunked me into an office chair at my desk at OEG so I could continue working while Jason took my wheelchair down to Zamboni control.
“Hope we don’t have a fire drill,” I piped up as my vehicle of mobility was taken away.
A little over 30 minutes later, Jason returned with my chair in great shape.
Joan and I, with the front right wheel, made our way from the eighth floor of Rogers Place down to the Zamboni bay of the two gigantic ice machines.
Nobody was around.
A Rogers Place security guard noticed our look of concern.
And, of course, the obvious broken caster.
The security told us the Zamboni drivers would be back in a few minutes. And, indeed, Richard Horn and Taylor Thorn came around the corner.
“I’m wondering if you can help,” I asked, holding up the caster.
Both men got down on their knees to look at my wheels and discovered a nut and bolt were missing.
“No problem,” Richard, “I’ll go get what we need and I’ll be right back.”
Now: there were many things they had to do before they flooded the ice after the first period. Zambonis, despite their state-of-the-art technology, don’t drive or maintain themselves.
Yet, both men, who had this most unorthodox monkey wrench thrown into their part-time shift on the Rogers Place conversion crew, shared their time to help a complete stranger.
They weren’t impatient. Or in a hurry.
Within 10 minutes, armed with new parts, I was rolling back up to the press box to watch the rest of the game.
There’s a red carpet along the cement where my wheelchair was fixed.
But, alas, the red carpet was for the two men who clearly did something … they didn’t have to.
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