The last National Hockey League game played in Missouri this season meant that, whether we were heading home or to Boston on Monday, us scooters would be leaving the land of motorized scooters.
You need to see these things. They’re almost everywhere in downtown St. Louis. You can’t walk for a minute without seeing one sitting there on a sidewalk, available to hope on and ride. All you do is download an app, give up your credit card number, scan a bar code and off you go.
Suddenly, a 20-minute stroll on a hot day from the hotel to the rink is a five-minute breeze. It’s the only way to travel.
Ryan O’Reilly, do you ever fly around town on one of those scooters?
“I have, but not here,” the Blues centre said. “In other cities. They’re pretty cool. It’s easy to get around places.”
Sure, Vince Dunn, the 22-year-old Blues defenceman who surely gets ID’d when he tries to buy beer, also said he scooted outside St. Louis. Here he has a car or a truck. Probably a pretty nice one, too.
Dunn tried to console me when I told him no scooter company had started up business in Ottawa.
“I’m sure they’ll be there soon,” the Mississauga native said. “Maybe they’re not in Canada yet.”
Maybe they’re nowhere that has busy downtown streets. Biking is dangerous on Yonge Street in Toronto.