from Brandon Sneed at ESPN,
The East Side Motel on Kingston Road in Toronto seems like the last stop for dying souls, where you're not quite completely gone but way closer than you ever planned. The place is populated with druggies and their dealers. Hookers work the Kingston Road sidewalks, and when they land clients, this is where they book a room. Its rooms are rented by the government -- a place to put families who can't afford anywhere else -- or by the hour. Faded green paint flakes from the walls like ashes. Filmmakers have used the place to show rock bottom.
This is where former NHL first-round picks Anthony and Chris Stewart grew up. Even now, several miles and so many dollars away from East Side and the things that landed them there, they still feel it every day. It haunts them, a chronic sickness. Theirs was Room 29. Their parents, their five sisters and them. A door near their room led to the hotel basement, which had a stocked kitchen. Late at night the brothers broke in and gorged. "It was a nice break from toast, syrup and ketchup," Anthony recalled. "And you know, some days, just ketchup."
Their favorite ways to get some laughs were to throw rocks at hookers and to watch them through the windows having sex, and then run away when they got caught.
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