Thursday, November 18, 2010

[private flight]

Reading the recent Ottawa Citizen story Melnyk Deflects Hurricane Slapshot reminded me of a similar situation my husband and I had when meeting Melnyk over 3 years ago on our honeymoon.

We chose Barbados as our honeymoon destination since we are huge Senator fans and wanted to visit Bert's Bar. We had dinner reservations at the bar for the last night of our trip to watch the season opener game, Sens vs Leafs. While watching the game we noticed Melnyk sitting at his favourite seat at the bar, and by the time the game was done my husband had decided we needed to have our photo taken with him. What we got was a lot more.

He was happy to take a photo with us, and started asking us where we were from and why we were in Barbados. After finding out that it was the last night of our honeymoon he inquired as to what flight we were taking home - and then offered us a flight home on his private jet. After a few moments of astonishment on our part, we accepted the offer. What followed was a whirlwind of making plans with the pilot to be at the airport early the next morning.

We woke up early, and made sure to have a cab get us to the charter airport on time. While waiting in the lounge with Bert, we learned that Melnyk is never on time for his flights! Getting on the jet and having our own seats near the front of the plane left us awestruck. Melnyk, his wife, and Bert made sure to chat with us throughout the flight and made us feel more then welcome. We were offered movies and drinks, but the one rule was that you weren't allowed to use the washroom for anything but number one. Melnyk has a great sense of humour.

Once we landed, Melnyk insisted we posed for some photos in front of the jet.


After he arranged for a private town car to drive us home, we returned from our honeymoon with a great story to tell our family and friends. It was the perfect ending to our trip and something we'll remember forever.

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