A weary Dom Zator sat back in his seat.

Just one more flight - from Amsterdam to Stockholm - and he could finally settle into his hotel and catch up on some much-needed shut-eye before joining up with his new team-mates at Vasalunds IF. It had already been an exhausting journey from Calgary, the trek not helped by the Covid-19 cloud hanging overhead. Psychologically, it was tough: travelling during a pandemic and leaving loved ones behind at such a vulnerable time. But, he'd made it through.

Almost.

Just another couple of hours and he'd be at ease.

And then...

"As soon as we're taking off, the wheels leave the tarmac and you just hear this boom," Zator begins.

"Everyone's looking at each other like, 'What's going on'? and after a few minutes there's this smell that's lingering and everyone's thinking, 'Okay, this isn't right'. We're looking at the front - up the aisles - to see if the stewardess is going to say anything. And then the captain comes on and says, 'A seagull just blew up one of the engines.'"

"Everyone is thinking, 'Oh crap, this is serious.' But he was so calm about it and said all the controls were fine but that we were gonna loop around and do a quick emergency landing. That was a pretty stressful moment. But everything was under control and we were able to land."

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