When we travel, often times it’s seeing the familiar in an unfamiliar place that creates the strongest memories.

 

Tired and crying, I finally collapsed on Rue Dauphine in the 6th Arrondissement of Paris around 5 AM. My wife and I were 4,300 miles from home, and I told her I just couldn’t hold it in anymore.

 

As she helped me to my feet I could feel the weight I’d felt most of my existence begin to lighten. I told her this was one of the happiest days of my life. We were in Paris and had just stayed up all night in the Great Canadian Pub to watch our favorite ice hockey team, the St. Louis Blues, win their first Stanley Cup Championship.

Where once I focused on how this moment made my life as a hockey fan perfect, I now begin to see that it was the spark that made me fall in love with Paris and traveling in general. Recently, I recognized that it might be a great idea to write down these types of experiences so that others may read them and perhaps be inspired to chase their own moments abroad that leave them crying happy tears. Whether that’s finally seeing in-person the places you’ve only read about, witnessing a sporting event far from home, or simply a small interaction with a local that helps you understand their culture: these moments are why we travel.

Beyond making a priceless sports memory with my wife and friends, we also solved a problem that you may encounter during your travels in Paris: how to turn a “non” into a “oui”

Ice hockey has been a passion for my entire life. From watching games in person, listening to broadcasts on the radio with my father, and even being fortunate enough to win recreational league championships myself, hockey is a constant for me. Much to my wife Deirdre’s chagrin, I even lobbied to have our wedding date scheduled to avoid a potential conflict with a theoretical Blues run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018.

They missed the playoffs entirely. As it turned out, I was only a year off with my concerns.

We serendipitously chose France to be our first trip to Europe together in 2019

 We live in St. Louis, Missouri, an American city with a rich French history. And in the previous year, we’d traveled to St. Barthélémy for our honeymoon, and New Orleans, Louisiana — two other great French-influenced cities.

So, with our experiences in former French colonies, visiting the homeland for our anniversary was a perfect way to continue the trend.

We boarded the Air France Airbus A380 at Atlanta’s airport, and I felt excited, but stressed. The Blues lost Game 6 the night before — we wouldn’t be anywhere near our city or our friends to watch the decisive Game 7.

But we would soon be in Paris, so that was plenty of reason to celebrate.

There was no chance I would miss seeing the Blues play for a championship while I was abroad. Distance and time zones be damned. So, I researched bars in Paris that regularly stayed open into the small hours of the morning to show live sports. Sure enough, I discovered the Great Canadian Pub.

This being my first foray so far from home, and being a terrible sleeper on airplanes, I was given a crash course in getting over jet lag. A nice walk near the Seine and a stroll through le Jardin du Luxembourg helped ease the time-based fatigue a bit. Needing something to eat, we decided to pay the Great Canadian a visit to sample the food, and double-check that our plans to watch the hockey game the next day would hold up.

We were soon face-to-face, come to find out, with one of the many meanings of the word “Non” in French.

“It would no longer be possible,” our server said, “to watch the Stanley Cup game at the Great Canadian.”

Thank goodness we were given the bad news in conjunction with a fantastic plate of chicken wings. But it did present a problem that couldn’t be solved by fried food, so we contacted some friends who were also in Paris to brainstorm an alternative.

Much to our dismay, our acquaintances met the same fate. This was the most important hockey game of our lives. We started calling other bars and for good measure, we began commenting on the Great Canadian’s social media and calling to politely ask again if they would be able to show the hockey game later that night.

Luckily for us, when we learned there are shockingly few hockey bars in Paris, the Great Canadian made a critical post on their Facebook:

They would be open for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. And there’s no cover charge.

Turning “Non” into “Oui”

This “non” eventually becoming a “oui” is something fairly common in France, but I wouldn’t learn that until I picked up the book “The Bonjour Effect” by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow. 

“Luckily, non is often a oui in disguise. The trick is figuring out how to turn no into yes. The French don’t take no for an answer, and neither should you”

“The Bonjour Effect” by Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow

Our persistence and politeness paid off. If you read further into “The Bonjour Effect” (and I certainly recommend it), you learn much more about the word “non” being merely a starting point for negotiation in many interactions. That the owner initially said “no” to our request to stay open for the game is understandable. He could have gotten in trouble with neighbors for the noise (or worse, have to answer to authorities why the bar was open so late), and I can’t really fault anyone for not wanting to pull an all-nighter for a team and sport that isn’t theirs. But since our group repeatedly and politely asked, we did indeed turn that “non” into a “oui” and gave ourselves a chance to witness history together.

 

The unlikely scene of our finest hour as St. Louis Blues fans: The Great Canadian Pub in central Paris.

Anticipation loomed large leading up to the 2:30 AM game time in Paris.

We spent our day visiting the Louvre and capped it off with a dinner in the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway at Polidor. As the game crept closer, we made our way through the early Parisian morning past closed storefronts and drunken revelers on their way to grab a French Taco and found a hastily scribbled chalk sign in front of our home for the next few hours: “NHL Tonight.”

Inside, we quickly found our new friends who helped make this possible, along with a surprising amount of other hockey fans who were grateful to find a way to watch the final game. Beers were soon ordered, and we settled in as best we could for a nervy morning of high-stakes hockey.

I’d heard of temporary blindness and insanity but had never experienced them until the first Blues goal found the back of the net in that Game 7.

This was likely a first for Paris and the Great Canadian as well, since we soon received noise complaints and started to find locals on their way home popping their heads in to see what was going on. That the bar was still serving alcohol with a wink and a nudge was a bonus, so a few onlookers decided to settle in for a bit and see what all the noise was about.

Once the next three Blues goals were tallied, any tiredness was gone. We were going to win the Stanley Cup. We were ordering more beers. We never did get to apologize to the neighbors.

 

The St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup a world away from us.

At the end of the game, we couldn’t control it anymore. My wife snapped this photo as theBlues sealed their first Stanley Cup Championship. The entire bar, including a few Boston fans and some locals who wandered in, congratulated us. Before we were politely asked to head home so the staff could finally go to sleep, we took my favorite picture of all time that now proudly hangs in the Great Canadian.

And with that, we stumbled into the Parisian dawn. The walk back to our apartment remains the deepest memory of this experience for me. I was as happy as I’ve ever been, walking with my wife and our new friends along the Seine as the sun was just beginning to awaken this gorgeous city. It felt like a dream.

Saying goodbye to our friends, my wife and I made the turn on Rue Dauphine to head to our apartment, and the tears flowed. Before the game, I was a bit upset that I wasn’t in St. Louis for the Blues’ first championship, now I can’t imagine it happening any other way. When people ask me why I love Paris so much, I usually point to this experience first. Paris served as the backdrop for one of my life’s most incredible sports moments and left me wanting to experience even more in the city.

 

Paris isn’t St. Louis, but this moment turned it into our home in Europe.

I wouldn’t change a single thing from that night. I think about it at least once a week. And although this wasn’t that long ago, I can recognize the recollection changing slightly. Where once I focused on how this moment made my life as a hockey fan perfect, I now begin to see that it was the spark that made me fall in love with Paris and traveling in general. Recently, I recognized that it might be a great idea to write down these types of experiences so that others may read them and perhaps be inspired to chase their own moments abroad that leave them crying happy tears.

And in a way, this single evening turned out to be a bit of a microcosm of the travel experience itself. We were exhausted, up way too late, and a bit drunk in a country where we barely spoke the language, yet we were deliriously happy and ready to find the next adventure.