Goodbye Canada!

Since Day 5 of the trip ended around 2am on Day 6 for the midgets after a trip to Ernie's, most of the players slept in. However, the plan was to check out at noon, but the hotel notified us that we had to be out of the room by 11:00am. So some players were awakened a bit earlier than planned.

The buses were packed and the players loaded up for their Toronto tour. The weather was cold and a bitter breeze was blowing as the players walked several blocks to the Hockey Hall of Fame's entrance from the BCE Place, a downtown shopping mall. For two hours, the players marveled at their heroes, learned hockey history, played interactive games and shopped for souvenirs.

It was then off to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. Gretzky's didn't work out since they wanted the team in too early. Four players on the three teams shared a 12/31 birthday and was treated to ice-cream adorned with sparklers. After finishing there, the buses transported the team to the CN Tower since it had began to rain. At 44 degrees, this was more miserable weather than fun.... At 1,400+ feet high, the players and families, along with the Cambridge families who joined us for the trip, enjoyed an evening look at Toronto from the tallest building in the world. The weather worsened as the tour continued. Even those afraid of highs braved the tour.

Then it was off to Niagara Falls where the plans started changing. With the bad weather and several kids under the weather, bus driving regulations and an early game start in Pittsburgh, that visiting the falls to seem them was the wise thing to do rather than trying to stay past midnight. Given how hard the players have played, they won't miss the big party.

Traffic around the Falls was horrid. The buses parked about a mile from the Canadian horseshoe of the falls, but was in position to make a quick exit onto the Bridge to the US. The team was given about an hour to make the trip in, which was basically enough to get to the falls, say “Yea! I've seen the Falls” and return. Soaked, the team returned to the bus and headed back to the United States where a very irritated and gumpy US Customs agent awaited our buses.

Putting on his best John Wayne attitude, he wanted to visually ID everyone on the bus with their Passport and ID. This meant handing the passports back out to the kids temporarily. The “Duke” left the bus to give us time to get the passports in each players hand, and low and behold a different agent came aboard who was much more reasonable and after a quick scan of the passports we were underway.

The stroke of Midnight on 2007 fell in route to Buffalo. About 10 minutes later, the buses pulled into the Ramada Inn. The teams were given their room assignments and told to be ready to go at 8am.