ORFA Remembers 9/11

Looking back, it started out as “another trip to the Garden”, just be at the Arena by 7:00 am. There was nothing in the air that would foreshadow the events that would change the world.

I landed at LaGuardia the previous night and grabbed a cab to the Southgate Towers, a hotel on 7th Ave, across from Madison Square Garden. It was a hotel that was favored by the NHL referees and Doug preferred it because it had a great free pour bar off the lobby. I loved it because bartender would always top up the pour and he had a very disturbed sense of humor. His name was Ronin, he came with a distinct Irish accent, a love for anything female and had ownership of a great wild laugh.

After checking in to the hotel I always made the trek across the road to the “Employees Entrance” of the building. All that was required was a simple “I’m with Jet Ice and here to see Pat Coyne”, the secret phrase to get you anywhere. I most cases they recognized me and would say “you know where you’re going”. The engineering Department was on the 4th floor and the ice surface was a short elevator ride to the 5th floor. After a brief walk through the engine room and into plant room I found Ed sitting in front of the monitor reviewing the ice temperature. We discussed set points, time frames, confirmed start times and covered all the miscellaneous social hearsay. Everything looked good so I headed back to the hotel to get a bit of rest because 6am seemed to come early.

Upon arrival September 11, I found Frank, Jack, and Jim in the hurry up mode trying to get the colors mixed, the perimeter sealed and checking the Zamboni gates ramp. The floor was down to temperature, so we applied the first three sprays of water then began to mix the white. Bill Martino, the new guy, came out at the center gate to see how everything was progressing. Malcolm showed up from the carpentry department and said that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.

It has always been a great group of guys at the building, and it wasn’t unusual for someone to say something outrageous to pull an individual into some bizarre prank. I shook my head and wondered where this was leading because the statement was so unreal as to be absurd. We finished the white paint.

About ten minutes of discussions ensued about how stupid you would have to be to hit a building in New York. We were all curious about going to have a look at the news but not until the white was sealed in. The talk of a drunken pilot and that he had missed the Empire State Building banter slowed to a crawl when the thought of what had just happened started to sink in.

With the white paint sealed in a few of us from the ice crew headed to the video room. They had monitors set up and we assumed we should at least have a visual of the grisly reality. As we entered the room we saw the plane fly into the tower unaware that it was the second plane. The camera panned back to show the impacts on both towers. I remember how quiet it became in the room as we stood and stared the monitor. It had to be a terrorist attack. At that point no one knew the name Osama Bin Laden. I thought of the attack on the USS Cole but couldn’t come up with the terrorist groups’ name. No one in the building seemed to remember the USS Cole or the bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya in 1998.

I had a flight out that night at 7:00 pm and from what I was hearing I was positive that it wasn’t going to make it, maybe tomorrow I thought.

There was no one giving direction, everything seem to slow down. The truth was none of us could believe this was happening even as we watched it on a loop from CNN.

I tried to use my cell phone but due to the overload of everyone trying to make calls. I called the office on a land line and explained I was all right and asked them to call Julie as I was unable to get through.

Heading towards 10 am that morning everything started to become surreal. We watched the replays a number of times until I decided to go out on 8th Ave to see if we could see anything. Walking out to the sidewalk was an ordeal in itself and as people everywhere had heard or seen the news. People were sitting on the sidewalks, steps and curbs in disbelief. Jerry O’Shea, Bill Martino and I just keep walking unsure of what we should be doing. At subway exit on 7th one gentleman wanders up the stairs at a slow pace. His entire body was covered in what looked like white/grey ash. I asked if he was alright, but he stares through me as if I wasn’t there and kept walking. Up until that point it hadn’t hit me. This is crazy and I feel the hair on my arms rise and a shiver slide down my neck. What is going on?

Normally on a good day in New York you are frequently reminded of the city by the wail of a siren. It was as though every ambulance, fire truck and police car were off to the disaster, the sirens came and went sliding down the streets, the wail became a constant. I walked back to the Garden wondering, what I do now, how many people are dead and is this some very weird real dream that I’ll wake up from and say “it was so real”. Bill Martino came over and said to hold everything as there is going to be an announcement.

As it headed towards noon it was announced that MSG had been chosen for use as a morgue! When you realize that “weird” is now the new normal, you laughed then wondered again, is this is all real? It must be a dream because it’s too farfetched to be real and you sort of expect to wake up and get out of bed. We head down to engineering to watch and see what’s on the news. Every channel is running the plane shot of the impact into the twin towers.

No bodies arrive. We wonder why. We wait and watch the TVs’. The afternoon disappears into short questions and answers that are only guesses. We wander out to the front of the main entrance to an ever-quieting street, less people, less cabs and even the sirens seem to be more distant. To those that know what New York is like it’s impossible to believe the absence of noise or the hum of the city itself.

We continue to put the ice in, the white was down, there were no bodies, so we rushed to put down the hockey markings and logos and started to seal the surface.

As 5:00pm approached we continued to be glued to the incoming news about the Pentagon explosion and the other flight that had gone down in a farm field. You kept asking yourself what is going on?

I realize that I have no room for the night. I had checked out and expected to be on the 5:00 pm flight to Toronto. With what had just happened I realized I was flying anywhere. Jerry calls down to engineering to see if Pat can find a room. Turns out Jerry has enough pull to get me a room at the Holiday Inn two blocks away. Bill, Jerry and I were in need of a drink, the streets were near empty, but the bars were full with people with a thousand questions. I was tired and quickly beat down a double and order another. We agree to meet in the morning and see what the options are but with all airlines grounded my methods of leaving town looked slim.

After I checked in to the hotel room I found myself watching the same airplane impact loops on all of the channels. Change the channel and it comes back to the same airplane impact loop, only the talking heads were different.

Called Julie again and told her not to worry and that everything was fine. I drifted off to a restless sleep in New York City.

The next morning, I met with Jerry and Bill to look at my options to get out of town. There were no options nothing was moving, airports were closed, trains sat idle and rental cars were just unavailable.

I spent another day in the fog of a true disaster. Between waiting on hold with the airlines and trying to grasp on to the reality of my situation the next day dragged slowly. The streets of New York remained strangely empty the point you could simply walk out onto 7th Ave look both ways and not see a taxi. The ambulance’s, fire trucks, and police cars were the only autos on the roads. The wail of sirens almost was a constant fading in and out as the units passed to who knew where. The day dragged slowly at the Gardens, lunch wit Pat Coyne at the Cellar Door and dinner and drinks at the hotel. By 10 pm I was beat so I headed to bed to watch CNN and the constant replays/updates and to drift off to a second restless night

Up early in the morning and I realized my only real choice to get out was by train by way of Montreal. I headed down the stairs at Penn Station to a controlled crowd soldiers were all through the station. Nothing like seeing a kid that looks like your paperboy dressed in camouflage and an automatic rife to give you a sense of pending doom.

Three hours of waiting I had my ticket to Canada. It was a short 12-hour trip with 3 passport checks the last one was at the Vermont boarder where the army stopped the train and spoke to each person with an abrupt “passport now”. Where are you going? Why? Then a long look at each passport and they went through the back pages to see where you have been. It was all a little unnerving. After the inspection the train slowly picked up speed and headed to Montreal. There was a big relief to my mental well being as we crossed the US border into Canada.

I got a good night’s sleep at the Hotel Bonaventure. The next morning, I was able to get a Via train to Toronto then finally home.

It was all dream like, a fog that I still find unreal.

Dave Loverock

The Ontario Recreation Facilities Association provides leadership in professional development, and in products and services for its members who operate and manage recreation facilities in municipalities, educational institutions, government agencies, First Nations communities and in the private recreation sector.