Day Three Hundred and Sixty-Four - The Hangar

One of my previous ETs was watching a hockey game. In the comfort of my own home, with my remote control in hand in case things got too deadly boring. I ended up watching well over one period of "the hockey" and, although I found it quite confusing and dull - I was proud of myself for giving it a chance. Well, through the magic of my workplace, yesterday I was given some tickets to a Toronto Maple Leaf game and tonight I went to see a professional hockey game. I guess this is somewhat of a "big deal" as tickets are very hard to get and people in this city are hockey crazy, even though the Leafs do suck. A lot. This was also my first trip to the Air Canada Centre, the new-ish sports and entertainment complex where they play hockey, basketball and have concerts [I'm also not a fan of basketball or live music]. It was...not at all what I expected. But first - here's some photos of the hockey, the arena and, my favourite - the dueling zamboni [what is the plural of zamboni? zambonis? zambonii?]!




So, yeah. I'm from a hockey town in rural Ontario [seriously - they won this contest where they were declared THE Hockeyville in the whole of the country]. I've been to my share of Junior C hockey games and while I never really watched the game [why watch when you could instead ogle public school boys and be awesomely jealous of all the hip, fashionable public school girls]...the environment was so different. The main thing was everyone was *so* quiet. I felt like I had to whisper to Joseph [which, given my extremely limited hockey knowledge - was probably a good idea so as not to embarrass myself]. There were small bursts of excitement, but Blue Jays games are much more rowdy. The food selection was admirable - with lots of vegetarian choices - colour me shocked. There was some random lights that would flash a few times each minute, rendering us both temporarily blind for a few seconds each time. The best part were the long intermissions when they did goofy, non-hockey stuff on the ice [like racing RC cars - I swear people were more audibly into that than the hockey] and turned down the lights. As to the hockey? Yes, it was still largely incomprehensible and difficult to follow [lots of starting and stopping] and still - quite dull. We arrived a bit late and left early, which I'm pretty sure is absolute sacrilege in this city/country.