Thursday 3rd April at about 11pm and I am writing this as Ramona sleeps in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel Restaurant across the road from the Jobing.com, the hockey arena of the Phoenix Coyotes.

Where to begin….this I think will be the longest post to date.

I left the campsite this morning and drove about 45 kms to the Cracker Barrel Restaurant and made sure it was OK to stay the night here. I then went to the ticket office and purchased my ticket for tonight’s game.

I will make no secret of it Wayne Gretzky has been my idol since I first saw him on ice in Edmonton in October 1980. I have followed his career and private life ever since. The convenience store that I owned for 7 years was full of Edmonton Oilers hockey memorabilia and number 99 in particular. Much to the chagrin on my lovely Dad I sport a “99” and a “hockey stick” tattoo. In these days when some mega sports celebrataries head down the path of destruction, The Great One, (as he is often referred to) remained above all that and in my opinion he is the greatest athlete of all time.

Wayne now coaches and is part owner of the Coyotes hockey team and although they are not in the play off race this year they remain a competitive and exciting team. Tonight is their last home game and they are playing the Dallas Stars.

I realized I would be in the Phoenix area and so adjusted my route to attend tonight’s game. My biggest wish was to meet and get 99’s autograph, a mission I knew was impossible.

After getting my ticket I asked for directions to the Coyotes business office to see if my mission might be successful. On arrival at the office on the ground floor was a security office and I had to sign in and wear a visitors tag around my neck. Then took the elevator to their palatal second floor office. Here a lovely lady was manning the front desk. I gave her my sob story of coming from Vancouver, admiring Wayne all these years and was hoping for an autograph.

She smiled and told me the lady who handles these requests is out of the office at the moment and the chances were impossible as these requests are usually done with two weeks notice and also this is the last home game and so much was happening today. She did give me the ladies name and number if I wanted to call back later. I told her I understood and thanked her and left. I was a little dis-appointed but knew I could not walk in off the street and expect my dream to come true.

It was a lovely afternoon sunny and hot so I came back to Ramona and sunbathed a little and then decided nothing ventured nothing gained and went back to the office two hours later.

Had to go through the same procedure of signing in and wearing the visitors pass and I made my way to the elevator and as the doors were closing a gentleman came in and I held the door open for him. As we were going up I noticed he was not wearing a pass so I said to him you must be pretty special not to wear a pass. He laughed and said not really he just knew someone.

Let me digress a little here….when I left my 14-year job as a waiter at the Granary Restaurant in Nanaimo the owners there presented me with a beautiful leather travel journal signed by many of the staff and hordes of customers of mine. This book is a treasure to me and I have so many entries in it from friends and people I meet on my journey. I had this book with me in the elevator.

As we got off the elevator in the front area of the reception the man from the elevator asked me what I wanted and I gave him a very quick outline of what I was hoping for and told how impossible I knew this was. GUESS WHAT??????

He took my book and said I will get Wayne to sign it for you and I could pick up the book here in the office next week. I told him I was on the road and leaving after the game, so he took the seat number from my ticket and said someone will bring my book to me during the game. I thanked him profusely and shook his hand and off he went into the inner sanctum of the offices.

The lady who I spoke to earlier had heard all this and she was smiling and she said to me have you any idea who that was and of course I didn’t. She said he is Doug Moss the President of the Coyotes hockey club; you are a very lucky man. I was dumbfounded and still trying to understand my incredible good luck.

So I came back had a shower had my pre-game meal at the Cracker Barrel, which was excellent and then went across for the game.

The arena is 4 years old and a wonderful atmosphere was all around. My seat was great, and I had only been sat a minute when a gentleman came down shook my hand and handed me my journal. The game was exciting but unfortunately the Coyotes were down 3 goals to 0 with time running out. The purists of the game won’t agree with me but a Coyotes player picked a fight with am opponent, which he won with one punch and that seemed to inspire the rest of the team and within minutes they scored 2 goals with a minute remaining. They pulled their goalie to get an extra attacker but the move back fired as with only a few seconds remaining the Dallas captain, Modano, scored into the empty net to make the final score 4 – 2 for Dallas.

I enjoyed every single aspect of the evening from the signing of the National anthem to the game to seeing the fans have fun and of course getting my photograph taken with the dancing girls!!!!!

I know I am a little old to be getting excited about an autograph and having an icon and a man to look up to, but so be it, this will be a day that will stay with me and these moments make my journey so much more special.

Off to the Apache trail tomorrow, it is supposed to be very narrow and beautiful so I will try and post this along the way.

Sorry for the long and for me exciting post, blessings to all.