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'The worst place on earth': Former NHL star has harsh words for Toronto's Pearson Airport after massive flight delays

Elisabetta Bianchini
·4 min read
'The worst place on earth': Former NHL star has harsh words for Toronto's Pearson Airport after massive flight delays

Former NHL star Ryan Whitney called Toronto Pearson International Airport "the worst place on earth" after documenting his chaotic series of travel delays.

The former Pittsburgh Penguins hockey player was travelling from Edmonton, Alta. to Boston, Mass., on Sunday, through Toronto, when a series of delays left him stuck at the airport well into Monday.

"Not exaggerating I have never seen a crazier scenario at an airport," Whitney's initial tweet on Sunday evening reads. "Pearson has about 100 cancelled flights and hundreds of people in lines with one Air Canada worker at the end."

"There can’t be more than five people working here. I’m gonna have a viral meltdown this is not good."

On Monday, around 8:30 a.m. ET, Whitney updated people on social media that he is still at the Toronto airport. He followed that up with a video update, which now was 1.9 million views on Twitter.

"For people telling me to drive, I can't drive, they have my bags," he says in Monday's video.

He goes on to explain that he landed at the Toronto airport around 3:00 p.m. on Sunday with his second flight to Boston scheduled at 8:30 p.m. It took him about three hours to get through customs but then that flight to the U.S. was cancelled.

"At this point now I go and I see there is a 400-person line with two Air Canada workers," he says in the video.

"I wait in that line about six hours,...near the end of the line they closed it. We had to re-enter Canada, go through Canadian customs."

Whitney says he had a ride to Buffalo, N.Y., all set up but they won't be able to get his bags, so he was put on 8:50 a.m. flight to Boston.

But it didn't end there, when he showed up he was told he was actually booked on a flight to Montreal, then to Boston, that he did not know about and he couldn't get on the plane in time.

"I started laughing, what are you going to do," Whitney says in the video.

The story does have a somewhat happy ending, after Whitney posted an update just after 1:00 p.m. on Monday, June 6 saying he's finally heading onto a plane.

But that did prompt others to share their travel experiences at Toronto's airport, in addition to other airports around the world experiencing extensive crowding, flight delays and cancellations.