Two Hockey Bloggers, Strange Coincidences

Have you ever had one of those days/weeks where everything just goes haywire?

My summer started off in an interesting way with an unexpected call back to work on Tuesday. Of course I missed the breaking news of the Plekanec signing, but worked an article ready for Wednesday morning when a neighbourhood power outage wiped the unsaved document and two others that were in the works. That accounts for the absense of content here since then.

When I returned online, there was an e-mail from unhappy camper Kevin van Steendelaar, who scheduled a day off to attend the Joe Carter Celebrity golf tourney. Our friend was on his way there when his sub at work failed to show and he was called back in, missing a chance to meet and greet with Ray Bourque, Claude Lemieux, P.K. Subban and others.

Later that afternoon, we had a small earthquake in eastern Ontario. A mild little 5.5 on the richter centered northeast of Ottawa that was enough to be felt in Cornwall but otherwise harmless in scale. Mother Nature wasn't so kind up in Kevin's neck of the woods in Midland, where they were hit with a tornado that tore up good chunks of property west of Toronto. Luckily, he was not around at the time.

Now I don't wish to scare the beejesus out of Kev, but that's some weird coincidentals at play between us! 

First work intereferes with some intented blog content for both of us. No biggie there, the world keeps turning. Then our town gets a little tremor before Kevin's corner gets walloped.

Seems that whatever I get a little taste of, Kevin has gotten worse.

I hope it stops now, because today in Orleans, I came within seconds of being killed by a five ton truck that pulled out directly in front of me without warning, on a 70km stretch of highway 174.

Pulling out of a mall, the truck never saw me at all. It was pourring rain hard at the time, and I wasn't going any faster than 50km. The truck sped out, blocking both eastbound lanes I had. I went into an immediate right skid and swerved parallel to his truck, maybe ten feet away. With the wet road, the momentum of my slide carried me into two oncoming lanes of traffic. By the grace of God, the woman heading my way had seen everything and stopped 15 feet shy of the truck on the other side, allowing me just enough room to correct the direction of my car and avoid hers, turning the right skid into a second left skid. I was heading straight for her front bumber with my driver side door.

Somehow, I managed to avoid that second collision by mere inches, hitting the gas to straighten my car out. I pulled over to the roadside, on the gravel for a minute, thinking about what had just occurred. I remember hearing a voice running through my head, my own words, suggesting "So this is how I die!"

My destination was three buildings away, so I pulled into there to do my business, and as I was about to leave, a woman I had never seen before walked up to me and hugged me tight. It was the woman driving the car that I had avoided hitting. She wanted to make sure I was okay, thank me for my alertness, and show me her two grandchildren strapped in the backseat, ages two and three.

Part of my Thursday evening plans were to somehow revive the lost articles from the day before, but I never got close to getting my head into hockey, especially after reading Kevin's article. I'm hoping the coincidences between us are over - pray to God!

Be careful out on those roads, people. No matter how confident a driver you know you are, your alertness and skill at the wheel may not always be enough to make up for the close calls caused by others. All of us everyday, run into bad drivers, but in the end we are simply human beings being imperfect.

I don't have a hockey column for you this morning, but there will surely be one later in this afternoon as the 2010 entry draft approaches.