hockey

A reluctant visitor

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Like many fellow Canadians these days, the thought of a trip south of our border into the United States brings a lot of feelings. Back when I was heading down to Washington, DC for work, I was apprehensive. Aside from being excited for an interesting work-related opportunity, I didn’t have a lot of desire for the travel and exploring aspect of a trip like this that I normally would have had in the past. Maybe some of that was because I had been to Washington previously, maybe some of it was the feeling like I was heading directly into the belly of the beast… but work was calling so I packed my bags and decided to try to make the best of it.

How did that get started? A February day with the temperatures hitting close to 20C made for perfect unexpected patio beer weather and I took advantage one afternoon at Aslin Beer Company. They had a wonderful array of beers across some favourite styles and I luxuriated in the opportunity to do some tastings while feeling the heat of the sun on my skin for the first time in a couple of months.

Beer tasting at Aslin Beer Company in Washington, DC
Beer tasting at Aslin Beer Company in Washington, DC
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Vancouver for the holidays

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Almost eight months later, I have a vivid, yet simple memory. My wife and I were in the Calgary airport on Christmas night enroute to Vancouver for a short vacation. We were happy to be getting away to a favourite city for a few days and to be able to exchange our Saskatoon parkas for lighter rain jackets as we escaped from a prairie winter. My memory now of that night, through a prism of a pandemic that has grounded my traveling in 2020, is just of the simple, unadulterated happiness I get from traveling. As we sat waiting for our flight on to Vancouver, sharing a snack to tide us over before a very late night McDonalds run after we landed, I remember feeling at peace. And I wonder when I’ll be able to enjoy sitting in an airport again.

More than just sitting in an airport, I’m looking forward to eating and drinking in public establishments around the world again. On Boxing Day morning, as soon as it opened, I wandered into La Taqueria Pinche Taco Shop, one of a number of “must visit” places every time I’m in Vancouver.

La Taqueria Pinche Taco Shop

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Until the next visit…

/ Greg / Leave a comment

When I moved away from the east coast more than four years ago, there was comfort in knowing that family back east were just a day and an overpriced airline ticket away. Now in pandemic times and with the borders to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia remaining effectively closed, I haven’t been back to visit family since late fall last year. I’m sitting on a host of Air Canada flight credits for trips that were cancelled with no prognosis on when I’ll be able to use them. Even worse, the small airport in my parents’ home town of Bathurst was taken off of Air Canada’s roster of places they fly, meaning this view I had on landing there last November is something I may never see again.

Bathurst from the air

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Visiting with Mr. Goalie

/ Greg / 1 Comment

On every trip with my dad, something kind of crazy, something memorable, always seems to happen. As we were doing a road trip through the mountains, while we were having an amazing time, we hadn’t yet had that “you’ve gotta be kidding” kind of moment.

Until Edmonton.

Dad and I met a family friend for lunch at the West Edmonton Mall and at one point the conversation drifted to my dad’s time as a goaltender in northern New Brunswick in his younger years. A few minutes later we had a proposition for our afternoon. Did we want to drop in on his friend outside the city? His friend? Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender, one of the greatest to ever play the position in the history of the game, Glenn Hall.

We left the mall, drove west of the city, picked up a six pack and casually dropped in on a hockey legend. As you can tell by the photo, he’s a pretty gracious hall offamer.

In Glenn Hall's basement

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An overtime thriller

/ Greg / Leave a comment

Standing outside the Rogers Arena waiting for the doors to open, huddled with maybe twenty people under an awning to stay as dry as possible during a downpour, I wasn’t too hopeful for the hockey game ahead. The Canucks and Rangers were, in late February, for all intents and purposes outside the playoff race and already thinking of next year. Damp from the walk to the arena and impatient to get inside, I remembered something my wife is fond of saying when we’re watching a football game between two bad teams… sometimes two bad teams can play an exciting game. Little did I know what kind of fun I was in for on this night.

One of my favourite things about going to games is the first view you get of the arena after walking in. I still remember my first view of the Colisée in Quebec City when I went to my first NHL game in the early 90s. Maybe more accurately, I remember the feeling. Walking from the concourse to the seating bowl through a corridor and seeing the entirety of the arena open up to my eyes – bright and clean, with seats stretching at a violent angle to the rafters. Even if today’s arenas are all somewhat generic, there’s an element of that same feeling for each and every new one I get to  visit.

Vancouver Canucks game

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Remembering Ron Tugnutt

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I can’t think of the Boston Bruins without remembering what I think was the greatest game in NHL history. March 21, 1991. Ron Tugnutt of my Quebec Nordiques made 70 saves, including a point-blank glove save off of Ray Bourque late in overtime, to preserve a 3-3 tie against the Bruins in Boston. It was one of the few highlights of being a Quebec Nordiques fan before the team moved away and won the Stanley Cup in their first year in Denver. By and large, that means the NHL is dead to me. The one infrequent exception to this is when I’m visiting an NHL city and there’s a game on.

Back in November in Boston, I picked up a cheap ticket on the secondary market (I refuse to directly fund the NHL or any of its teams) and made my way to the rink to check out a Bruins game against Minnesota. Cheap ticket means an upper deck seat, but pre-game I settled into a couple of pricier vantage points to check out the TD Garden.

Bruins game in Boston

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Guys weekend in Montreal

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The idea for a guys weekend in Montreal with my dad started with a desire to relive some old times in the city. Aside from family road trips to visit my mom and dad’s relatives in New Brunswick, my first real travel experiences were with dad visiting Montreal to take in Expos games in the early 1980s. Those trips were fun times and the memories of them still float around in my mind from time to time. The excited feelings I had when I first arrived in Montreal as a child on the train on those trips are pretty much the same feelings I have today when I visit a place for the first time.

So with nostalgia sparking the idea, and a couple of Blue Jays preseason games in Montreal this past March forming the cornerstone of a trip, I invited my dad on a guys weekend in a city we both love. I flew in from Saskatoon, him from Halifax, and we met in the Montreal airport ready to relive some good old times and to see what kind of trouble we could get into. Trouble is all relative of course, and 40-somthing me and 70-something dad were both up for some unhealthy but delicious eating. First order of business was a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s.

At Schwartz's Deli

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Hockey night in Toronto

/ Greg / 1 Comment

I’ve spent a lot of time in Toronto.  Leisure visits, countless in/out trips for work, a longer consulting engagement where I had an address and actually received postal mail for a period of time.  I know Toronto well enough that on the Yonge-University subway line, for most of the downtown stations, I can tell you which subway car to get on so that when the train stops, you’re right across from the station exit you want.  But up until this recent trip to Hogtown, I had never experienced the quintessential Toronto event – a Leafs game.

I had been in the ACC one time before for a Raptors game, but I still got to the arena early so I could look around.   It’s a really great rink.  I would soon learn that even from the upper deck, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house.  I wanted to catch a little bit of the pregame warmup from a good seat, so I made my way down to the lower level:

Centre ice at the ACC

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A night with the Broad Street Bullies

/ Greg / Leave a comment

When I was growing up, although I was a Nordiques fan, I had a soft spot for the Philadelphia Flyers.  Mostly that was due to the fact that I was a big Ron Hextall fan.  As a chubby kid whose dad had a nice set of goalie pads, I found myself in nets a lot, and loved trying to play like Hextall.   Fast forward 25+ years, and on my third visit to watch the Flyers play, little did I know that the game on this night would feature something very Hextall-like:  a full blown goalie fight.  More on that later.

I got to the game just as the gates were opening so I could take in some of the warmups from ice-level.   Slipping past an usher, I made my way down to just behind the Flyers bench as they took the ice.  On the left, the view of the Capitals warming up at the other end.  On the right, Steve Mason warming up with former Halifax Mooseheads star Jakob Voracek looking on:

Pre-game warm-ups
Pre-game warm-ups

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