I walked the narrow cobblestone streets, looked at the signs in French, and smelled the aromas of delicious cooking.  The sky above was pink from the setting sun. The temperature couldn’t have been more perfect: about 72 degrees, matched to my light t-shirt.

I sipped some coffee, not because I needed the warmth, but simply because it seemed the right thing to do.  Drinking coffee is a time-honored tradition in Paris.

Except I wasn’t in Paris.

No, I was in Quebec, the city that is the capital of the province of the same name.

I strolled to the edge of the city wall and gazed out across the wide St. Lawrence River, 100 ft or so below.  I watched the flocks of birds in the sky.  I watched the ferries go back and forth and the freighters chug towards the Great Lakes. I relaxed as I saw many others relaxing on the benches, quietly taking in the spectacularly beautiful night.

A view from Quebec City at sunset

Not even the memory of the huge backlog of hockey-related writing I needed to do could spoil my content with the moment.

I’ve filled up Sam’s tank about 50 times so far on this trip, so I’ve spent a good chunk of time at gas stations.  As a result, I’ve seen a lot of gas prices.  No matter what, gas prices in the United States always end in 9/10 of a cent on the price per gallon.  I have yet to hear a satisfying explanation for why that is the case.

Not so in Canada. I have noticed something during my recent time north of the border: prices per liter in Canada end in all sorts of tenth-of-cent values.

See how the price per liter ends in 7/10 of a cent? You'd never see a gasoline price end in anything other than 9/10 of a cent in the states. (Toronto, Ontario)

I don’t think it’s the different units of measure.  My best guess is that it has something to do with taxes.  Gasoline taxes in the US are all a fixed number of cents per gallon, but when HST is applied to gasoline in Canada, it is done on a percentage basis.  Since the prices are shown with taxes included, perhaps there is something about the way the taxes are calculated that makes it difficult to get the total price to end in 9/10.

All of this presumes that a price ending in $0.009 is desirable for the retailer, which, as mentioned earlier, is not a sure thing.

Google doesn’t seem to have an explanation, at least not with the searches I’ve tried  Somebody must.  What’s the answer?

It’s no surprise that Minneapolis has a vibrant hockey community.  Even Huntsville, Alabama has long been known as a hockey enclave of sorts.  But would you expect to find the same enthusiasm in Louisville, Kentucky or Charleston, West Virginia?  I didn’t.  I was pleasantly surprised.

My first hint of hockey’s popularity down there came several months ago after I posted a link to my Saskatoon sub goalie story to reddit.  A redditor named Phil read the story and invited me to play in Louisville.  He explained that the Louisville Adult Hockey Players Association was the center of an enthusiastic group of adult hockey players. “Sure,” I thought, “how many enthusiastic adult hockey players could there be in Louisville?  I bet they’re Minnesota transplants working for UPS.”

Not so, I later discovered: native Kentuckians play hockey, too.  It turned out that the LAHPA has run a “never ever” hockey program for adults who have never played hockey (or even skated).  The “never ever” program is so popular that it is run multiple times per year, often selling out the 40 or so slots.

Think about that.  The closest NHL team to Louisville is in Nashville, 175 miles away.  There are just a few indoor rinks in the Louisville area, and kids are more likely to grow up playing football than hockey.  Despite those challenges, the hockey community in Louisville is thriving and growing: in the past decade, the number of registered hockey players in Kentucky has increased 58%.

The day I arrived in Louisville happened to be the second night of the current Never Ever session, so I stuck around to offer moral support and take photos.  Two things struck me: everybody seemed to be having a really good time, and most (but not all) of the participants were relatively young (maybe mid-20s or so).  Back in 2004 when I did the AHA’s beginner hockey program in Minnesota, it seemed like the average age was much older, perhaps mid-30s or so.

Participants in the LAHPA's Never Ever program practice stickhandling. Phil is the coach in the gray shirt.

A couple days later, I subbed for Phil’s team, and while I wish I could tell a different story, the reality is that this goalie lost the game.  I was a split-second behind the play, a bit off on my angles, and a hair short of closing up the holes.  Sorry about that one, guys.

Unfortunately, this was the story of my game in Kentucky: not stopping pucks.

Nonetheless, I shook it off and pressed on with the trip.  After an interlude in Indiana, I found myself in Charleston, West Virginia.

West Virginia is beautiful in the fall.  I’d been there a few times in the past to go rafting on the upper Gauley River, always in the autumn, and the sights of the changing leaves covering the rolling hills were spectacular.  I’d never thought of it as a hockey state, and with good reason.

From a decade ago: one of my rafting experiences in WV

There were just two rinks in West Virginia with ice in late September.  One, used by the University of West Virginia club hockey team, was in Morgantown, and the other was in Charleston.  I considered trying to finagle my way into one of the club team’s practices in Morgantown, but after a conversation with a man at the Charleston arena, I decided to go there instead.

I was surprised by two things at the Sunday night drop-in session.  First, a lot of people showed up.  I was the only goalie, at least until one of the skaters decided to give net a try for the first time ever, but there were plenty of skaters.  Second, everybody in attendance seemed to be quite enthusiastic about playing and watching hockey.  The rink manager even mentioned that he was a big Gophers fan.

Sure, some of those present were transplants from elsewhere in the country, but a good number were raised in the area.

Playing hockey in Charleston, WV

Was the hockey at the highest levels?  No, but that’s not the point.  It was just a drop-in game, after all.  The goal was to have a good time, and everybody was.

It was raining and dark, and there I was, standing outside of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit without a ticket.

I had driven in from Ann Arbor, where I played at the Ice Cube earlier in the day, since I really wanted to experience the cross-border rivalry between the Red Wings and the Maple Leafs.  My plan was to do as I’ve done for many past NHL games: buy a ticket off a scalper by the arena.  What I didn’t plan for was Detroit’s anti-scalping law, which seemed to be keeping the scalpers away in spite of being struck down by a federal judge last month.  There were none in sight.

I had been hanging around the arena entrance for about five minutes, trying to figure out what to do, when a lone scalper finally appeared.

“How many you lookin’ for?” he asked.

“Just one.  What have you got?”  I replied.

Before the scalper could respond, one of the fans streaming by me spoke up.

“You just need one?” said the man.

“Yeah.”

“Here you go,” and the man put a ticket in my hands, turned and kept walking.

I looked down.  It was lower-level, section 114, behind the goalie on the end the Wings attack twice.  Face value: $110.

“Wow, thanks!” I shouted.  The generous fan and his two companions looked back, smiled, and told me to enjoy the game.

In the Joe: Leafs versus Wings

It turned out that the fan was Dan Merrill, father of Jon Merrill.  Jon is a defenseman on the University of Michigan hockey team and was taken by New Jersey in the second round of the 2010 NHL draft. I chatted with Dan throughout the game, and as you might expect, he was quite knowledgeable about hockey in general and the Red Wings in particular.

Dan and me. Dan hooked me up with the excellent seat.

The game itself had decent, entertaining hockey.  About half of the fans seemed to be cheering for Toronto, and half for Detroit.  It was particularly amusing when the chants of “Go Leafs Go” and “Let’s go Red Wings” alternated in such a way as to fill each others pauses.

When the game finally ended in overtime on a Maple Leafs goal, half of the crowd jumped up in joy, and the other half jumped up to get the hell out of there.

If you’ve taken a look at the map of my trip progress, you might have noticed a strange southern loop from Wisconsin down into Alabama and back into Indiana.  That wasn’t accidental; instead, it was a byproduct of my strong desire to go to Rose-Hulman‘s homecoming on September 24.

Cheerleaders for R-O-S-E at the homecoming football game

I got my BS in Electrical Engineering from Rose in 2004, and I’d been back for homecoming three times in the intervening years: 2005, 2006, and 2008.  It seemed time to make another appearance.

Why do I go back?  It’s not really to see the school.  Rose-Hulman is great, and it means more to me than my other alma mater (Stanford), but the real reason I go back is to visit with my fraternity brothers.  OK, OK — the homecoming bonfire put on by Rose is fun, too.

The bonfire is fueled by hundreds of railroad ties stacked in something resembling a log cabin configuration.  Back in my day (get my cane!), the fire was better because we used actual creosote-soaked ties, but even with the recent years’ untreated lumber, the fire is pretty entertaining.

A few hours after a great speech by noted physicist Michio Kaku, the school put on a rousing display of fireworks before igniting the blaze.  Thousands of alumni, students, and hangers-on flooded the IM soccer fields to watch the spectacle.

A sea of people watch the bonfire blaze

A few daring people even ran up to the extremely hot fire to tag some of the unburned wood.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they singed their hair, as it was nearly impossible to spend any length of time within 100 ft. of the blaze.

One guy did plan ahead.  He made what looked like a proximity fire suit out of foil (sort of), got a roasting stick, and browned some marshmallows in no time flat.

Roasting marshmallows the quick way

Back at the fraternity house, the mood was festive.  For context, you should know that my chapter’s house sits on about 23 acres of wooded land about a mile down the road from the college campus.  The space provides the opportunity to have a bunch of buildings, several fire trucks, and some big bonfires of our own.

I stood around the bonfire chatting with my Brothers, new and old.  We told stories, laughed at past misadventures, and pondered the future.  It had been 10 years since I first spent a homecoming at the house, and it was jarring to see how much older than the actives my classmates looked.  I could see the passage of time in my face, too, and that made me all the more glad that I chose to do this trip before I aged even more.

A photo from 2000: me (as a freshman) and the rest of the guys in Alpha Eta class

There were no ice arenas within 70 miles of Rose-Hulman, so I had played in Indianapolis the Friday before Homecoming.  That left me with nothing on my to-do list except to reminisce and have fun.

That said, part of the appeal of Homecoming is that it ends before it wears out its welcome, and this one was no exception.  Sunday morning came, and that saw me departing for more hockey, seven hours away in West Virginia.