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There are plenty of things people argue you shouldn’t do on an airplane (like take off your shoes, recline your seat, or bring any food items containing fish), but when it comes to things you absolutely can’t do, joking about a bomb is probably on the top of the list—a lesson former NHL player Alexandre Daigle once learned the hard way.
Daigle is probably best remembered for what he failed to do after the Ottawa Senators selected a man widely viewed as a generational superstar with the top overall pick in the 1993 NHL Draft.
He technically spent 10 seasons in the league, but his inability to find a team willing to sign him led to him temporarily retiring at the age of 25, and while he mounted a comeback in 2002, he eventually took his talents to Europe after he was waived by the Wild in 2006.
Daigle dealt with his fair share of adversity on the ice, but in 1996, he found himself dealing with a major headache thanks to what unfolded off of it while traveling to a preseason game against the Lightning.
Senators center Alexandre Daigle ended up in hot water for joking about a bomb on a plane during a team flight
Daigle was hoping to bounce back from a rough year when the Senators kicked off the preseason in 1996, and he and the rest of the team were slated to head down to Tampa Bay for a tilt with the Lightning on September 26th.
Ottawa had fallen to the Whalers in Hartford on September 23rd, and in order to get to Florida, they made a stop in Pittsburgh before boarding a connecting US Airways flight for the second leg of their journey to The Sunshine State.
Prior to takeoff, Senators scouting coordinator Trevor Timmons was trying to get some work done on his laptop before a flight attendant informed him he needed to put his computer away. Daigle subsequently pounced at the opportunity to make a joke at Timmons’ expense, saying, “Trevor, watch your bomb there.”
Meet the Parents wouldn’t come out for a few more years, but Daigle probably should’ve known it was a bad idea to utter the word “bomb” on an airplane. That’s especially true when you just so happen to be at the same airport as the President of the United States, as Air Force One was preparing to take off from Pittsburgh around the same time after Bill Clinton made a campaign stop in the city.
While Daigle may not have intended to cause a panic with what he viewed as an innocent remark, the flight attendant who heard the quip wasted no time calling the police to have the player and his baggage removed from the plane.
He was questioned by law enforcement officials who eventually hit him with a $372 fine and prevented him from rejoining his teammates on the flight (which was delayed for close to an hour thanks to his comment), although he was able to get on another plane that got him down to Tampa Bay in time for the game.
That’s one way to learn a lesson about how to behave on a flight.