Oh, the year was 2016. How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now.

It was a good thing I was only an hour's drive from Sherbrooke then. Home to the Phoenix hockey club of the QMJHL, Sherbrooke was one of the six remaining QMJHL teams/arenas I had to visit and they were playing tonight.

Looking at my accommodation choices, there was a hotel right downtown but it was a modern monstrosity that looked like something out of oil-rich Azerbaijan. There were motels and hotels out by the highway, but that was too far from the city centre. The AirBNBs and standard BNBs downtown wouldn't work either.

To the south there were motels in the suburb of Lenoxville 5km away; along with one motel only 3 km away, the Motel La Marquise.

I had some reservations about the Motel La Marquise from its online reviews, but I already thought this was far enough outside Sherbrooke. I definitely didn't want to stay in Lenoxville.

The check-in was all very normal until I opened the door to my room. Did the proprietor stick me in a honeymoon suite? Is this all they had? Did he make a mistake? Were all the rooms like this? Did I enter a portal into 1976?

I guess if anything, he got the right guy for this motel room. I loved the decor and reflective ceiling so much that I posted about it with a selfie, but a lot of my friends didn't think roof mirrors were cool, but instead rather grimy and questionable. A lot of them thought I was staying out in some skeety motel by an airport and/or hooking up with a cheap hooker. This really rained on my parade of sitting in my hilarious room and watching afternoon hockey with a cold one.

Ah screw them. I was living my best life, as I watched out from my window and waited for the city bus to arrive outside this Motel La Marquise.

Since today's game was in the afternoon, I had to rush to Sherbrooke and over to the arena. There was no time to stop in the fun towns of Windsor or Asbestos Quebec; and there was no time for an elaborate lunch or walking around downtown. Before I knew it, the bus was bringing me across the Saint-François River and over to the Palais des Sports Léopold-Drolet (Léopold Drolet Sports Palace).

As the bus almost dropped me off right at the door, I clearly wasn't in Dallas Texas anymore with this degree of great public transportation. I hurriedly snapped my exterior photo, before slipping through the quiet front doors at this early time. As this was a new-to-me Q arena & these arenas are running out, I was here early to explore, take lots of pictures and savour the whole thing.

The Léopold-Drolet Sports Palace was built in 1965 and hosted Olympic handball during the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In terms of the Q, it was home to the Sherbrooke Castors from 1969 to 1982 (who moved and eventually became the Rimouski Oceanic), as well as the Sherbrooke Faucons, who moved to Lewiston Maine in 2003.

The Sherbrooke Phoenix were reborn as the Lewiston Maineacs folded. Following the 2011 season, a new franchise was granted to Sherbrooke and taxpayers spent $4.5-million on renovations for the Palais des Sports Léopold-Drolet.

I've said before that stadiums from the 1960s to the 1980s are starting to brew excitement in me, since we have to tear down everything built by the Romans in the 1930s or 1940s. The thing is that the Q is a different beast though, one where stadiums remain from 1949, limiting my excitement at checking out arenas from 1965.

I'd also read about the renovations here, leading to a good deal of indifference towards this visit to the Palais des Sports Léopold-Drolet.

As much as I love old buildings and lingering old features, I loved Sherbrooke's revamped arena. My favourite feature had to be the concourses lined with wood as if this rink was in Lillehammer or Helsinki. It felt so Nordic and different and I absolutely loved it. It's how I imagine arenas will look once I finally get around to that dream Finnish hockey league trip.

In addition, the Sherbrooke Phoenix were warming up to El Chapo Jr by 2 Chainz, as well as songs by Rick Ross & French Montana. The Phoenix were quickly acquiring points in my book.

I was happy that I arrived early to shoot these halls too, seeing as 4005 people would attend this afternoon's game, putting the stadium pretty close to its 4328 capacity. This was great for the atmosphere of the game - especially one where the Phoenix won 3-0 against neighbouring Drummondville - but not so great for shooting photos of the concourses.

Of course with this being a new QMJHL arena, it was time to get a poutine and update the rankings.

Sherbrooke's poutine was amazing for the first half, but quickly and unacceptably ran out of curds. It was such a shame too, because it had an honest shot at dethroning Drummondville for spot #1, but after about 8 bites, it was hard to gather enough curds for a proper fries-to-curd ratio.

This leaves me conflicted because the good bites were better than Victoriaville or Quebec City, but how can I rank a poutine that high when it fails to satisfy one of the fundamentals?

Therefore I'm putting it #8. Drummondville (#1), Baie-Comeau (2), Quebec City (3), Victoriaville (4), Chicoutimi (5), Gatineau (6), Bathurst (7), SHERBROOKE (8), Blainville-Boisbriand (9), Sydney (10), Moncton (11), Charlottetown (12), Saint John (N/A).

Sherbrooke has been a success story since returning to the QMJHL in 2012. Even through their first 5 seasons where they either missed the playoffs or lost in the first round, the Phoenix have been very near, or in the top 5 in league-wide attendance.

In addition to this great support, there's also solid management and a sparkling arena due to recent renovations, all pointing to the Phoenix not going anywhere in the near future.

Leaving the hockey game, I stopped at the first grimy dépanneur I passed and bought some Colt 45 for fear I wouldn't see another store out by my motel. Next door was a sporting goods consignment store with an awesome JOFA helmet in the window, but unfortunately it was closed for the night.

Angling through hilly streets towards the bridge that would bring me downtown, I brought enough clothes to the game that I was able to stay warm and enjoy this beautiful stroll past tiny, shoehorned small businesses and red brick homes.

I must have been feeling confident because I decided on dinner at the Café Bla-Bla, which was bumping on this Saturday evening. The only problem was the question of where I was going to put this Colt 45, since I wasn't feeling confident to the point that I'd stroll into a fashionable dining destination with a grocery bag of malt liquor.

The above abandoned house was just beyond the restaurant and provided a perfect booze cubbyhole beneath its side staircase. Thinking about it, no one was going to poach my beer on this cold night and it was more likely to freeze and explode than anything else.

Inside the restaurant, the server sat me in a secluded spot where I could peacefully read, while everyone else was busy with their own conversations. I was more than happy with my hour at the Café Bla-Bla, before I then stepped back out into the night.

Walking just a couple blocks towards my motel, I passed a hotel that almost brought about quite the conundrum. In researching Sherbrooke accommodations, the Hotel Wellington came up but it was clearly one of those old-timey places with rooms above a bar and long-term residents. The reviews weren't horrific, but it was still borderline whether I would have stayed there myself.

This was all solved by the Hotel Wellington closing in October of 2016 after being acquired by the city. Sherbrooke planned to flatten this block to build a 4-story parking garage, to support their dream of creating an "entrepreneurial district" with modern workspaces.

Sherbrooke has run into some problems though. Across the street from me was a wide vacant lot, the site of a pub that caught fire in 2011 and was then demolished in 2015. The initial stepping stone of this project was to build a company's new headquarters building on this site, but hydrocarbons were discovered in the soil and the project was put on hold. The discovery of this contaminated land made people think about how many garages used to be in this part of Sherbrooke and the likeliness/truth of how other nearby properties already acquired by the city are also contaminated.

So the whole thing is on hold and in the meantime they've built an ephemeral park on the former pub site.

I didn't know any of this as I stood here on this cold March night, envisioning this whole wall of buildings disappearing and being replaced with a grey parking monolith, lined with street level chain link fence separating you on the sidewalk from parked cars inside.

In addition to the Hotel Wellington, a restaurant beside it and that abandoned house where I stashed my beer, there's one last corner building that's a pub space up front and a strip club downstairs. Standing here, the pub space was vacant and the 3 restaurant iterations shown by Google StreetView were all gone, while the strip club held on. The strip club owners were arguing that they didn't want to leave unless paid market value, while the city was weighing whether or not to eminent domain this "Studio Sex."

Steadying myself to take these night pictures, a beat-up car with three girls pulled up and yelled out greetings of "Simon! Hello!" They then went into some French conversation that I couldn't decipher in the windy night, but soon enough I had to let them know I wasn't Simon. They swore I was him & looked like they wanted to invite me along wherever they were going, but three girls showing up to pick me up in front of a strip club next to an abandoned hotel sketched me out. I think they read this & accepted that I was neither Simon or going to get into their car, so they eventually moved on.

After taking a satisfactory picture of the exterior, I had to go inside in the name of historic documentation. The interior was pretty standard, while they inexplicably frowned on creating photographic record. (It was actually so dark that I accidentally tipped a quarter and the bartender started to lose her mind before I profusely apologized, haha.)

Soon it was time to attack the remaining walk back to the motel. I retrieved my bag of beer from the bouncer and exited into the freezing night, trudging along past auto body shops, rock walls and working-class apartment buildings with rundown porches. It felt like I was walking in some rust belt Pennsylvanian city so much that I became a bit nervous. Then again, if Sherbrooke was the type of town where I wouldn't get into a car with some random girls, maybe I was just a coward.

Earlier on the bus I noticed the next building up the road from my motel was an abandoned house. Now that I was out here all alone on this dark highway with no chance of any other pedestrians coming along, I took the opportunity to see about any means of ingress.

Since I didn't know about this house until I saw it from the bus, I wasn't prepared and was stuck turning on my app phone's flashlight after I saw a way inside. From the faint light I discovered within a step or two, that every wall and surface was covered with ramblings via paint, marker or pen. Every step was met with no other sound on this wintry night, while more and more writing appeared from behind my foggy, cold breath.

The reassuring voice in my head quipped that no one would be sleeping in here with these low temperatures, something that led me into the living room and kitchen, but all the time keeping a path between me and the back door. There were stairs leading upwards presenting more exploring to be done, but the other voice was very much against going up there and possibly not having a path down the stairs. I tried to remind myself how many times silly writing like this comes from edgy Tumblr teens, although that still wasn't making me leave the staircase and go into the actual rooms upstairs.

Eventually it was time to cover the last little bit of the walk back. I was cold and ready for a warmup anyway.

Ahhh my beloved Motel La Marquise, with its warm interior and hilarious ceiling mirror views.

Looking at Google StreetView, my abandoned house hadn't changed much since 2009. About the only noticeable thing is the front porch tree's sizable growth.

It was time to go upstairs today.

By the cool light of early morning, the inside of the house was much more relaxing and inviting. It looked like someone had taken up residence here in the not-too-distant past, but nothing indicated them sleeping out here anytime close to this recent -25°C/-13°F spell.

Looking around at the graffiti, it wasn't necessarily the dumb nonsense you get from visitors trying to write "scary" stuff to pose in front of for the gram, but some of the stuff was so intense and elaborate that I had to wonder about drugs and/or extended lonely periods spent here.

This house had good bones, which made me think it might have been bought and abandoned due to its proximity to the city works depot, the rail line and/or the busy boulevard.

Of course like a lot of abandoned houses, you're only going to know the story if you're a local and hear it by word of mouth. This isn't exactly the type of place that would get a dedicated news story about it in its derelict state or even in its eventual demolition.

I'd been to Sherbrooke before, albeit only briefly when I stopped to buy Bishop's shirts for Geordie & I, to make fun of Tyler and his rambling about how Bishop's College was basically Spring Break Miami Beach all year long. I didn't remember particularly liking the city or much about it, which also contributed to my overall indifference about paying another visit.

I now realize that I only went to Lenoxville, and where I came via Thetford Mines, I don't think I even saw Sherbrooke. Spending the morning walking around their abandoned prison and briefly cruising downtown, I was enamored at this Pittsburgh of Quebec, with its hills and rugged beauty. Sherbrooke went from an afterthought and a forced visit to see every Q arena, to a place I look forward to revisiting someday. A place I quite enjoyed.

Even though I wanted to sleep in at the Motel La Marquise and meander about Sherbrooke, I had to get to Montreal if I wanted to have one last indoor skatepark session before heading back to the soul-crushing snowfall amounts.

Following a great session at Le Taz where I was in broken record-mode trying this flat ledge trick and then a pro showed up and unknowingly warmed up with the same trick down the biggest ledge there, I still had some time afterwards before my flight home. With Blainville-Boisbriand playing in their Montreal suburb, I headed over there for a couple of periods of Pierre-Luc Dubois action, before departing for the airport and taking my bike apart in the parking lot of some nearby building supplies warehouse.

For just one weekend up in Quebec, this was a damn good time.