The Story Of How I (Kind of) Met A Buffalo Sabre In Boston

In the entire amount of time that this player has played in Buffalo, I've never seen him here.  I went to Boston for one day.  Guess who I saw...

Buffalo is a pretty big city.  But it's still pretty common to run into sports stars here.  When I was a kid, I saw Bruce Smith and literally ran into Darryl Talley in the same day.  But that's a whole different story.

Football players tend to stand out.  They're normally larger than life.  Hockey players are little different.  They're normally not as obvious.  This is why it would have been easy to miss this guy when he walked right by me.  I've never met him in public.  I've only seen him on the ice and on TV...until I went to Boston.

My family hopped in the car last week for a road trip up to Beantown.  We've never been to Boston Before so we were just there to be tourists.  They have these really cool tours called Boston Duck Tours.  We bought our tickets to see the city and learn about some of their history. But then we had some time to blow. Our tour didn't go out for another hour and a half and I was getting hangry (as I often do...) so my wife insisted that we go into the mall that was right next to us and hit up a food court.

While I was waiting in line to get food, I noticed someone walk in front of me.  I didn't pay much attention at the time.  But when I sat down to eat, that guy was on the other side of the window eating at a small table outside.  I immediately said out loud, "Holy S***!!  That's Jack Eichel!"

It must have been louder than I thought because the girl sitting at the table next to us even turned around to see.

I sat there struggling the whole time wanting to go over and meet him but not bug him while he was eating.  After going back and forth I realized that I might not have this opportunity ever again.  I worked up the courage to stop over and just say hi.

As I walked out the door and started heading in his direction, he literally had two hands in front of his face.  It didn't look like a good moment.  Abort! Abort!

That was when I realized he had his ear buds in and he was on the phone.  It wasn't a good time...so I kept walking.

It was one of those moments where I wondered if anyone would believe me. Should I have clicked a picture? It felt so strange at the time to meet one of the most talked-about athletes from my city in a city that was 6 and a half hours away.  And then not actually meet him after all...

I couldn't help but wonder...was he on the phone with his agent?  Did he just hear about the Ristolinen trade?  Was he just putting his hands on his face because he saw me looking and wasn't in the mood to meet someone (which I actually have no problem with...we all need our space)?

Would YOU have walked up to him to say hi?  Do you have a crazy chance encounter story?

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