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“I just knew I had to be in Ottawa at a certain time. I didn’t even know where we were going exactly. When I show up to the airport and the first guy I see is Scott Thornton, I just started laughing. That’s crazy, I remember watching him play.”

But that was just the first of a delegation that included Brian Skrudland, Dave ‘Tiger’ Williams, Troy Crowder,Ryan VandenBussche,the country-music duo The Lovelocks, Montreal Alouettes’ John Bowman and Marc-Olivier Brouillette, TSN’s Kate Beirness and venture capitalist Arlene Dickinson, to name a few.

“You look over and there are some other hockey legends, a couple of my buddies in the CFL and the commish is there,” King said of CFL commissioner Jeffrey Orridge. “So it was cool to see the crew they put together and see everyone volunteering their time to go out there and do this trip, I knew it was going to be a special one and I was just really happy to be a part of it.”

King joined Eskimos kicker Sean Whyte, who went on a similar trip to Afghanistan during his time with the Alouettes.

“He got here last year and told me about this trip,” said King, who grew up in Sherwood Park alongside his brother and new Eskimos teammate, Neil. “I got him to spill every single detail of the entire trip and everything they did.”

As luck would have it, King got a chance to meet the organizers during Grey Cup week in Winnipeg.

“One thing led to another, the dates all worked out and I was on a plane to Kuwait,” King said. “They did a good job of organizing it and doing all the due diligence on their end to keep us all safe over there and let us be able to experience exactly what’s going on over there.