23.10.05
Canucks Hockey
Last Tuesday i was heading to Karl’s to look after Amy and Molly while Leah and Karl headed off to the Canucks game. They were playing against Chicago and the game was only on pay-per-view that night so i would be unable to even watch the game while i was looking after the girls. I was a little jealous that Karl was going to be heading to see a Canucks game before me. Karl had bought tickets of Ebay so he could take Leah to a game. As Karl and I already had tickets to two games later in the season. The Canucks have basically sold out all their 41 home games for the season, so the only way to get a ticket is by luck or be prepared to pay a lot for them.
I was just about at Karl’s when my phone rang. I knew it would be Karl, i was expecting him to be checking on my arrival, even though i was running ahead of time. However, he said that plans had changed and Leah was unable to go to the hockey so it would have to me me stepping into the breach. I only had to think about that for a split second. However, i said i’d have to stop in at home first as i wanted to grab my Canucks Jersey to debut it at a game. I had set it aside for the November 2nd game which i was expecting to be my first.
Anyway we jumped on the bus and headed down town. Like Docklands Staduim the two Major Staduims in Vancouver are right on the edge of the city. General Motors Place is the hockey stadium and right next door is B.C. Staduim which is where the B.C. Lions play Canadian Football. As we did before we went to the Lions football a few weeks ago, Karl and I stopped at a street Hot Dog vendor to aviod paying twice the price for something in the staduim, so we threw down two hot dogs each, well i did at least, Karl had veggie dogs what ever is in those?? That’s more of a mystery then the “beef” hotdogs i was consuming.
So we headed down to GM Place and joined the other 18,500 Canucks fans for the game. After the teams leave the ice after the warm up the lights go down and the music goes up and then teams retake the ice in dark. Then it’s time for the national anthems. Firstly one of the worst renditions of the Star Spangled Banner i have ever heard and then a less then inspiring version of O Canada but i wasn’t there for the singing i was there to see the Hockey.
It was just as i’d imagined, fast and hard and energy packed. You pretty much sit on the edge of your seat for each of the three 20 minute period as the game moves so quickly and it does not take much for a goal to be scored. The place is deathly quiet when the away team scores, but explodes with pure passion when the Canucks put the puck into the back of the net.
Despite sitting in the nosebleeds you can see everything and you get a great view of the ice and the action as it unfolds.
The price of beer was marginally better then at the Lions football games, but at $7.25 each it’s still not conducive to consuming to many of them. Besides the pace of the game doesn’t lend itself to drinking to much anyway, unlike the football or i can only imagine how bad baseball must get.
Anyway i am becoming quite the fan of the Hockey and am impressing the boss at work with newly acquired knowledge of the game.
I also went to the Giants game again on Friday night too, just to keep the live hockey action coming. There i managed to get a seat sat right down the front a few rows back from the glass and it gives a completely different view of the games and how hard they hit, and that was just the junior WHL. You have to mortgage your house if you want to sit down the front at a Canucks game.