Please Mr. Heatley, don't get on the bus

The problem with a 50/50 chance of being right, is there is a 50/50 chance you’re wrong.

I thought about this as my son and I stood for over an hour outside the Metro Centre in Halifax after a Team Canada hockey game.

The point to our loitering? So my son could try and get an autograph from Dany Heatley, his favourite NHL player. We were either at the right door, or we were at the wrong door.

This was the third time we had been in Heatley vicinity. A couple of years ago we had watched an NHL exhibition game in Halifax between the Senators and the Maple Leafs.

Last year we went to Ottawa to take in a Sens game. Did I mention we traveled 42 hours return on the train because I hate to fly?

Now we were back in Halifax at the IIHF world hockey tournament. Heatley was playing because our beloved Sens had failed miserably in the Stanley Cup playoffs. We saw his being here as our silver lining. An autograph would put things over the top.

I admit as a parent, I had always dreaded the ‘Heatley moment.’ The moment my son would ask about his hockey idol and the crash that resulted in the death of his friend and teammate years ago. The crash attributed to speed. When that moment arrived – my son came across a photograph of the car on the Internet and naturally had questions – I used it as a teaching experience. To teach my son about right and wrong, about being truly remorseful for your actions and about being blessed by the forgiveness of others.

We’ve talked about it a few times since, but mostly the focus is on the ice.

Now our focus was on this door that had a ‘security personnel only’ sign affixed to it.

I, being the queen of un-spontaneous moments, had a lot of time to plan our Heatley moment as we stood on the sidewalk. I would snap off a half dozen shots as Heatley signed Jacob’s poster. Maybe get a posed shot of them together. Remember to say thank you, I told him, and call him Mr. Heatley.

The 50/50 chance that we were at the right door seemed to tip in our favour when four Team Canada players came out. Fans flocked for autographs. We waited for Mr. Heatley.

It’s funny how when you’ve stood somewhere for so long in anticipation of a moment that you don’t dare to leave. Because you just know the minute you leave will be the minute the door opens and out steps the person, or the moment, you’ve been waiting for.

But alas no Heatley. In fact no anybody else.

Yep, we were at the wrong door.

We decided to admit defeat. We had a long drive ahead of us. It was time to go home.

We rounded the front of the Metro Centre and as we did, down the street, there was the Team Canada bus and throngs of fans. And there was Dany Heatley surrounded by the throngs of fans and steps away from the bus.

Yikes! This was our moment and we were missing it.

We ran down the sidewalk. There were rows of people seven-hockey-fans deep between my son and Heatley. Move in, I told him, and hold up your sign. But with every step Jacob took, Heatley inched closer towards the bus.

So I kept pushing him into the crowd. ‘”Hold up your sign so he sees it,” I’d say. I think I heard him murmur “Mr. Heatley.” A woman stepped aside so he could squeeze in.

The bus was running and we were running out of time. Heatley was almost on board.

“Dany,” I yelled out. So much for my Mr. Heatley show of respect.

He saw Jacob’s sign. I doubt he saw Jacob. And I’m pretty sure Jacob couldn’t see him.

I had time to snap off one quick picture.

In it you see Heatley autographing the poster Jacob had made, and you see Jacob’s arms holding the sign outstretched over his head.

That’s it, his arms.

Later I noticed both of them had their hands on the poster just a few centimetres away from each another.

Oh my gosh, they were practically touching!

It wasn’t quite the picture I had planned an hour and a half earlier, where they’d be side by side, maybe in an embrace, smiling.

Still, what a moment.