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Trip of a lifetime: Former Yukoner and son witness Raptors win NBA championship

Sonny Voyageur let the clock run down on the Ticketmaster website while he deliberated his purchase.

It was two tickets to see the Toronto Raptors play the Oakland Warriors in game 6 of the NBA championships. The investment would be about $2,700.

"I let it run down to maybe three minutes left and I was thinking, 'Oh man this is a lot of money,'" he said. "But when I pressed 'accept' there was this calmness that came over me, it was weird. I just knew it was the right thing to do."

Turns out, Sonny had just purchased tickets that would allow him and his 13-year-old son Patrick to witness history, as the Toronto Raptors would go on to win that game 114-110 Thursday night, giving them the championship title.

Going to the game was Patrick's idea.

"We had actually been talking about it before but I told him tickets in Toronto were way too much," said Sonny.

Submitted by Sonny Voyageur
Submitted by Sonny Voyageur

"So our second option was Oakland … I went online and somebody on Ticketmaster sold them at cost, so we were pretty fortunate."

The former Yukoners flew into Oakland, Calif., hours before the game, but it was during their walk to Oracle Arena that the two started really experiencing the buzz of anticipation.

"It just hit us like, 'Wow, we are actually going to an NBA final game," said Sonny.

"Then we started to see the Raptors fans … we really started embracing each other, right? I didn't know any of them, but people in the red and white and black, there was definitely a bond there."

Submitted by Sonny Voyageur
Submitted by Sonny Voyageur

He said there were about 4,000 other Raptors fans in attendance.

Sonny and his son sat in the fourth row of the upper bowl. He said the seats were "excellent," allowing the two to see the whole play.

"It was pretty intense being here," said Sonny. "It was like you are on a rocketship and as soon as the game started it was take-off."

He described the game itself as a heavyweight fight that "kept going back and forth, back and forth."

That back-and-forth play was hard on the two emotionally, said Sonny. But what finally got him to choke up was Raptors superfan Nav Bhatia.

"He got everybody to cheer," he said. "That's what did it for me."

Submitted by Sonny Voyageur
Submitted by Sonny Voyageur

Sonny said he was on "cloud nine" experiencing the win with thousands of other Raptors fans in Oakland.

He and his son were watching the festivities from their seats in the upper bowl when a woman suggested they head downstairs, and that's when he entered a sea of others in celebration.

"How many times did we sing the anthem?" he asked Patrick. "Three times? It was pretty special."

Patrick agrees, and said he appreciates that he was able to see such a historic event with his father.

"It was pretty special for me," he said. "Not just me, and my dad, but for all of Canada too."