A week & a half or so ago, on a Saturday, we were going to go to the hockey game with my friend Allison. Jim & I are of course, Leaf fans & Allison cheers for Edmonton. Since the Oilers were in town, we had picked that game to go to. We didn't have tickets. They are extremely difficult to get most times, so we just went down to the ACC to see what the scalpers had. It's the best way to get decent seats really. When we had originally picked this day, way back in October, we didn't know that there was going to be a big ceremony honouring the '67 Stanley Cup champions, which is the last time the Leafs won the cup.
Also, Dave Keon was coming back for the first time in 40 years. Big long story, but this was going to be a big event. We thought we'd take our chances anyway.
We quickly discovered that this was probably not going to happen. Ticket prices had soared and were completely over inflated. $250 for the cheapest seat. For a decent one, these guys were asking $600! Usually, $100 will get you a pretty good seat with a good view. No way were we going to pay $250 for nosebleeds. Our plan was then to waste some time and come back after the game had started and see if we could negotiate a better deal. By the time the game is underway, if the scalpers have tickets, they'll sell them cheap. What could we do for a few hours?
Let's go here! The Hockey Hall of Fame.
It's located at the corner of Front & Yonge Sts. in an old bank. I love the outside of this building! The City of Toronto has done a magnificent job in maintaining a lot of the historic buildings. The design of the city is such that the old looks good with the new. And anyone visiting that I've shown around a bit has always commented on the fact that for a very large city (pop. over 5 million) it's extremely clean.
This shot doesn't do it justice, but this is the ceiling inside. The vaults are still there, so this was probably the main part of the bank where the tellers were and patrons would come do business. This is when they knew how to build impressive!
If you're a hockey fan, this place is great! It's so chock full of hockey information & memorbilia (except for the bathroom, which could have been "one of a kind", but was disappointing).
Anyway, we got to see the original Stanley Cup that is kept in one of the vaults and got to get up close to a replica.
Above is the Conn Smythe trophy that is awarded to the MVP of the playoffs. Jim loves this trophy because it has a giant maple leaf on it and Maple Leaf Gardens. It was donated by Conn Smythe, obviously & you might remember a bit that I mentioned of him before.
Here's a shot of Allison in a mock-up of the old Habs dressing room. We were looking for the showers, but alas, no luck.
It got to be dinner hour and we were all getting hungry. We walked over to The Old Spaghetti Factory, but they told us a 45 minute wait! Geez! I hate having to wait anywhere, let alone a restaurant, so we walked next door to Scotland Yard and got a seat right away and a TV we could watch the start of the game on.
I had a house salad to start with balsamic dressing. It was full of baby greens & chickpeas. Mmm - quite delicious.
I was really hungry and we were out for a good time, so I opted for the veggie burger and a side of fries. I love fries. I know they are soooo bad for you, but they taste sooooo good! As far as veggie burgers go, this was pretty good. We then headed back to the ACC to see if we would have any luck with tickets. The scalpers were gone, sold out! Ah well. We decided we might as well catch the rest of the game on TV, so we hiked down Front St. to a place we had passed earlier called The Bottom Line. It looked quite nice, so we hung out there, sat at the bar and watched the game.
Allison & I were wanting some dessert, so we splurged.
She got some chocolate, caramel cake mousse thing. It was a massive hunk of cake.
I decided on the brownies & ice cream. I really just wanted ice cream, but the brownie part just sounded soooo good.
As expected, neither one of us could finish.
The game was almost done & who should walk in with some friends? Former Leafs captain, DOUG GILMOUR! We really wanted to meet him, but he was out for drinks with his wife & friends and we didn't think it would be appropriate to butt in and bother him. After much debating, Ali & Jim thought it best if we just leave and not interupt his evening. Jim said "I'll probably regret it." I was thinking I would too, so I decided to take my chances and go over. OMG! He was soooooo nice! I apologized and he was all "Oh no, don't be silly. It's quite all right." He signed autographs, chatted with me, chatted with Allison, chatted with Jim - turns out they have a mutual business acquaintance - and took his time and was very attentive & really focused on who was talking. What dreamy chocolately eyes. I've seen him play hockey a gazillion games. He's been on TV & in photos and the newspaper more times than I dared to count, but never realized that he looks REALLY good. Very healthy looking.*wink*
He was most agreeable in posing for a photo. (click pic for larger view)
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So our night for the hockey game that turned bust was, in the end, a very exciting evening indeed!
We started out with some bubbly! This sparkling wine is from a fantastic Ontario winery, 
For dinner, we had 
That was then
