not that I don't believe your story... but its hard to guage a 3rd hand account.

But... seems he could have done OLCI, or used one of the easy check in stands. IME, when longer lines occur, the agents have sometimes advised somthing like: "45 minutes before the flight to ORD, would all DEN customer, move aside" (I saw this on more then one occasion in LAS).

If he was truly in the line that long.... he should have requested a supervisor once he was denied a boarding pass.

Anyway, IMO he should have been to the airport sooner. For intl (even canada) I get to the airport 2 hrs early (excluding my home airport).