Fate sometimes has a funny way of making the world a better place, one little gesture of goodwill between strangers at a time.
St. Albert’s Rob Ford had an extra ticket in hand when he set out late to get to the Oilers pre-season game on Tuesday. He tried to find another taker but none of his friends were free. Ford himself had already passed up the chance to play in a local men’s league game that night, too.
He arrived at the LRT station near NAIT, just missing the previous train.
“It pulled away while I was standing there. If I’d gotten onto it, I never would have talked to Andrew. But he was standing on the platform, looking at his ticket, looking at the maps, trying to figure it out. I could tell that this was a guy who wasn’t familiar with the system,” Ford said.
“I just approached him and said, ‘Hey, where are you trying to get to?’ He said, ‘Well, I want to go see the sights downtown. I remember a spot from when I was here before where I could look out over the river valley.’”
Imron Andrews prefers to be called Andrew. The oilfield worker is originally from Grenada but just moved here from Toronto.
“I was looking for help. I asked a couple people how to use the ticket machine. Do I validate?” Andrew said.
The two kept talking as they boarded the train, talking about all of the stops downtown, all of the things to do and see.
“He said that he’s going to the third stop: ‘that big building over there.’ I asked him, ‘What’s that big building?’” Andrew continued.
That big shiny building was Rogers Place, of course. It had already caught his eye standing at the LRT platform.
“I said, ‘That’s where the hockey team plays. I’m heading there right now. Do you want to come? I have an extra ticket,’” Ford recalled. “He said, ‘Are you serious?’ I said, ‘Sure, I don’t want it to go to waste if you’ve got nothing else to do.’”
It was Andrew’s very first hockey night in Canada.
“I said ‘Why not? I’m all new to Edmonton. Sure, I’d like to go.’”
They got in line, got inside and had a great time, Ford said. Andrew bought the beers while Ford picked up some chicken strips and hot dogs for the two to share during the game.
“I was cheering. I was pretty happy. I had never seen a hockey game live before. It was pretty nice for me, pretty exciting: the live music, the fans cheering …” Andrew added.
Fate wasn’t done yet
Somewhere in the middle of all the action, Ford snapped a cellphone pic of him and his new friend and tweeted it out with the following Dr. Seuss-like caption to his ‘RobFord99’ account: “This is Andrew. Andrew is from Grenada. I met Andrew on the LRT. I had an extra Oilers Ticket. I gave my ticket to Andrew. Andrew has never been to a hockey game. Andrew is having a blast. Say hi to Andrew.”
The Twitter-verse responded to the heartwarming story and the post went viral, reaching close to 2,000 likes before either of them even made it home after the game. It has since garnered nearly 8,000 likes and the story has been all over local radio and TV.
Even the Edmonton Oilers administration was so touched by the story that they even reached out to Ford and Andrew and gave them new jerseys.
The men are both astounded by the turn of events.
“Likes are amazing but when you read the comments and people say things like ‘Faith in humanity restored’ ‘what a nice random act of kindness’ … it’s not a world-changing act but it’s just nice to know that you bring a smile to somebody’s face and you did something nice,” Ford said, mentioning how much he had always liked the movie Pay It Forward and its philosophy of intentionally doing good deeds for strangers to counter all of the negativity in the world.
“I’ve always liked that idea. I’ve always wished we could get that to take off. If this is my own little part in it … that’s great,” he said.
Andrew said it has all been a magical, wonderful and touching experience.
“It was the perfect time. Even now, I’m just asking myself, ‘What happened? How did all of this happen?’ Edmonton so far is pretty nice,” he said.
“I’m getting a lot of great feedback. Everybody’s happy for me. I’m sure the friendship will continue. He’s somebody that I met that did something great for me. He’s one of the persons that I’ve talked to the longest over here from anyone I have met. I consider him a friend already.”
