Road Trip Recap: Part V It's Hockey Night Tonight!

Road Trip Recaps: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV

As we were getting ready for the night's festivities, Heather recommended that we catch the end of the Habs-Sharks game at the hotel bar.  So we headed downstairs decked out in full Bruins gear, eliciting random looks as one might expect in enemy territory.  Grabbed a couple of seats at the bar, only to find the AC Milan - Brescia match on instead.  Hey Ronaldino is still fun to watch.

We downed our beverages, but not before striking up another hockey conversation with some people at the bar.  Did I mention I like this city?

On our way out we noticed a little something hanging on the wall.  I thought this was good sign.

And then it was time to go.  So without further delay, let's get to the good stuff.  And I'm going to use my normal game rundown, adapted for the road:

Just the facts, Jack (Edwards)

• Regular Season game #25, road game #13
• Boston Bruins (14-8-2) at. Toronto Maple Leafs (8-12-4)
• Second game aginst the Leafs (Bruins won 2-0 at home on October 28)

John Blue Plate Special

We hopped a cab down to the Air Canada Centre, striking up a nice conversation with our cabbie.  We asked him if he had any recommendations for a good bar in the area and he mentioned that there was this brand new place just across the street from the arena.  So we checked it out.  For about one minute.

Real Sports is a gleaming new building with huge flat screens and a very tony appearance, like GameOn!, but more chic.  Velvet ropes and bouncers outside, dark wood and glass inside.  Long lines and expensive beers.  We quickly realized that this wasn't our kind of place, so told Heather to follow me to place just up the street that might do the trick.

So we headed to the Loose Moose on Front Street.

Much, much better.

I had been there before, as it was the pregame hangout place for a bunch of us before we saw the Red Sox get absolutely slaughtered by the Blue Jays on August 23, 2008.

This time, it was Leafs fans, not Sox ones, who took over the bar.  And they were good people.  We managed to grab a couple seats at the bar from a couple of guys who were in town on business and sat next to a couple of kids who were at their first Leafs game by way of British Columbia.  I grabbed a beer.  Heather, on the other hand, thinking we were still at the Four's, had a mixed drink.  Unlike the drinks at the Four's, these were kiddie cup size.  I had a hunch that this was going to be the case hence my choice to go with the brews.

Of course, we were getting hungry too, so we grabbed a menu.  What to order?  There were the standard burgers and sandwiches.  And then there was this:

A buffalo chicken sandwich served on waffles.

Heather seemed a bit hesitant.  She wasn't sold on waffles as a bread substitute. But I insisted and she ended up going along with it.

We were not disappointed. This was SO good.

I know that chicken and waffles is fast becoming a popular dish as restaurants have found another foodie treat to beat into the ground.  Usually, though, that involves fried chicken served on top of Belgian waffles and served with maple syrup.  This was a much simpler concept, replacing a roll with waffles, and serving it on top of a pound of fries.

After devouring that fabulous meal, I wasn't really hungry once inside the arena.  But I was thirsty, so I grabbed a beer.  During the first intermission, we took a walk around the concourse again.  That's when we found the Tim Horton's stand.

Large coffee - $1.50.

You read that right.

I love this place.  You're talking $3.50 for a comparable Dunks at the Garden and that's after waiting 5 minutes in line because some pink hat wants whipped cream on her coolatta and another 5 waiting for the guy to get your drink while you hope they got your order right.

The Couture Corner

I'm just going to lay it out here - Toronto is the world capital for sweater porn.

Sweaters of just about every style worn by the Leafs in their existence were on display here.  Better yet, they were for sale here too.

Immediately across from the Real Sports bar is the Real Sports Apparel Store.  Now, it should be noted that the store is owned by Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the same company that owns the Leafs and the Air Canada Center as well as the Raptors, Toronto FC and the Marlies of the AHL.  This place has the absolute best selection I have ever seen at  team run store.

I mean, look at this: Gretzky throwbacks, late 80s Lemieuxs, and loads of different Leafs sweaters, including the late 80s/early 90s Wendell Clark and mid 90s Doug Gilmour ones seen here.

This is just plain sick.  Want a mid-70s Borje Salming or Daryl Sittler? They have it.  Want a late 60s Johhny Bower? Sure.  Late 90s Mats Sundin? No problem.

We almost had this at one time at the FleetCenter, but the guy who used to order all the old Bruins sweaters was fired and his replacements just haven't had the same demand and/or desire to order more of them.  Then again, with the way the current Bruins sweaters are selling out, the store isn't hurting for sales, either.

Even the customers bring it here:

A late 60s Lanny MacDonald.  Although the other one may be an Andrew Raycroft 3rd.  But, damn, if those aren't sweet.

Have I mentioned that we hadn't even stepped foot in the arena yet?

After looking around and finding some sweet (if not outrageously expensive) Hockey Night in Canada branded travel mugs (we'll be getting those online, thanks), we made our way into the rink.

Wide open concourses.  Loads of food choices.  Even free beer samples!

We walked around downstairs for a bit then headed upstairs to take a lap around the place as the teams were warming up.

Toronto fans bring their "A" game when it comes to wearing their colors:

Tie Domi 3rd, circa 2005

Pound for pound, Domi was one of the toughest goons I've ever seen.  Sure, I hated him when he was playing against the Bruins, but I always kinda liked him as a player.  He would have been an interesting Bruin, Jay Miller meets PJ Stock.

Mid 80s Wendell Clark

If there was one thing I took away from this weekend, it's that Leafs fans absolutely love Wendell Clark.

The first overall pick in the 1995 entry draft, Clark had 3 separate stints with the Leafs, serving as captain from 1991 to 1994.  He was a decent scorer, but was also known to be very physical ala Cam Neely.  He was traded to the Nordiques in 1994.  As part of the deal, Toronto received a young Swedish centre named Mats Sundin.  I think they made out ok in that one.

The Leafs honored his #17 in 2008.

1994 Wendell Clark Nordiques home and 1995 Islanders Away

This completely blew my mind.

As I said, Toronto fans love Wendell Clark, but this took it to a new level.  Clark played one season each for these two teams before returning to the Leafs midway through the 1995 season.  Those Quebec sweaters were beautiful in their simplicity featuring the fleur de lis.  As for the the Islanders one, aka the Gorton 'fishsticks' ones, they were so ugly that they have a certain charm to them.

Going, Going, Gondola

This was my first time visiting the Air Canada Centre.  I had heard from numerous people, both friends and on TV that this was one of the best places to see a game in the NHL.  So I would be remiss if I didn not share a little bit of the building with you.

There weren't a lot of memorabilia type displays (most places in the concourses were taken up by food stands and merchandise vendors), but this one stood out to me.  Photos of every player who wore the captain's C for the Leafs.  I wish the Bruins would do something like this, but then again, they'd have to have pictures of Jason Allison and Joe Thornton.  So maybe not.

The sightlines were great.  No columns and the balcony seats were set at a fairly steep angle putting you closer to the ice than a comparable seat at the Garden.

Hockey is presented in a fairly pure form here.  No t-shirt cannons. No crappy music.  Trivia questions based on the history of the Leafs.  I loved every bit of it.

I really like how the Leafs honor their Stanley Cup winners.  Simple banners with a picture of the cup featuring the team logo at the time and the year on the bottom. 

The other interesting thing they do is that they  really don't retire numbers in the traditional sense.  Only the numbers 5 (Bill Barilko) and 6 (Ae Bailey) have been taken out of circulation.  Great players have their numbers 'honored' instead, much like what NFL teams do with their rings of honor.  Hence you have the number 1 worn by hall of famer Johnny Bower and Bruins reject Andrew Raycroft.

One other really interesting feature is the Foster Hewitt media gondola.

Hewitt was a longtime radio broadcaster in Canada who gained fame calling the national hockey night in Canada broadcasts for 40 years.  The old Maple Leaf Gardens featured a gondola hanging at the top of the building where broadcasters were stationed.  When the Air Canada Center was built, the pressbox was named in his honor.

The Row 12 Rundown

Well, seeing that we were on a road trip with just the two of us, 307 wasn't represented all that well.  We had seats in section 323, row 11 and they were fantastic.

Doosh of the Day

Even north of the border, there are societal losers to be found.

Honorable mention goes to the bunch of college age kids in front of us who went from mild mannered clowns when the Leafs were trailing to full-fledged asshats once they tied it up.  Also need to give a shout out to the 12 year old girls in the train station after the game who tried to talk trash to us, despite the fact they've never seen the Leafs even make it to the finals in their lifetime.

But the winner goes to the self proclaimed Penguins fan outside the train station on Front Street who said the happiest day of his life was when Ulf Samuelsson took out Cam Neely's knees.  Very few taunts tend to get me worked up like someone who glorifies a player getting injured, regardless of what team they play for  (yes, even the Habs).

To her credit, Heather suggested we hop in cab and get out of there before things escalated.  So we headed back towards the hotel.

The Clothes Line

I was a little concerned that with a scarcity of tickets available, there would be few Bruins fans there for the game.  Boy was I wrong.  There were plenty.  Including this guy:

1972 Wayne Cashman home

I've seen a lot of early 70s Bruins replicas.  But those tend to feature the same players: Orr, Bucyk, Esposito, Cheevers.  But this was the first time I've ever seen a Cashman, the career Bruin who served as captain form 1978 to 1983.

As for what we wore, I went with the 1970 Orr and Heather went with the late 80s Neely.  We figured we'd get along with more fans if we wore players that are Hall of Famers that are universally (well, almost) respected among hockey fans.

The Lobel Prize

We all know that the Leafs have Phil Kessel.  What we also know is that Kessel has never scored against the Bruins sinced he was traded.  And he still hasn't, sort of.  The box score shows that he had no goals or assists and landed 6 shots on net (all of which were saved by Tim Thomas), but it was his goal scored in final round of the shootout that gave the Leafs a 3-2 victory and landed him the first star of the game award.

That hurt, real bad.

It also didn't help that Kris Versteeg, a pretty decent player who was once a Bruins minor leaguer (traded to Chicago for the forgetable Brandon Bochenski), tied the game at 2-2 at 19:18 of the third period.

Ugh.

The Home End

Though the Bruins got a point, this felt like a bad loss.  Giving up 2 points to a division rival was bad. Having Phil Kessel be the one to seal the deal was worse. Furthermore, a good portion of the good will and camaraderie we felt druing the day was a bit diminished by the way a few classless fans acted towards us after the game.

I really hoped to go out after the game and celebrate with a pint or two, but we headed back to the hotel bar and relaxed instead.  Besides, we had to be up early to catch the bus back to the airport. So we went back to the room and watched the late game on the CBC and headed off to bed shortly thereafter.

Though the game didn't go exactly as we had hoped for and that we almost never made it up there in the first place, it was a pretty good birthday weekend.

Next year, I'm thinking the Windy City for a B's-Blackhawks game.

Special Edition: Part IV - Donuts, Doonies and Don Cherry

Road Trip Recaps: Part I | Part II | Part III

Ah, Saturday.

After the debacle of the night before, we managed to get a few hours of shuteye in before we got up early in the morning.  If we were so hell bent on getting up there, damn if we weren't going to get in a full day taking in what the city had to offer before the game.


First stop? Tim Horton's in College Park.

Being the native New Englanders that we are, some of you might scream heresy. But remember, this is Canada.  There really aren't any Dunking Donuts here and Tim Horton's is basically their version of Dunks.


Make no mistake, their coffee pales in comparison.  And their idea of a large barely matches a medium back home. What they lack in java offerings is more than made up by their donuts, however.  I introduced Heather to the wonder that is the sour cream glazed donut. I'm a big fan of Dunks' glazed donuts, but those are yeast donuts.  Tim's are cake dounts, with a distinctive richness to them courtesy of the sour cream.  Needless to say, Heather is now a huge fan.  I only got a single donut at this store.  I knew that we would be back later.  Besides, we had another stop to make where we'd be sure to satisfy our appetites.


But first we had to make a quick side trip.


On our way to Tim's from the hotel. I noticed the Best Western Primrose hotel in the distance as we came upon the intersection of Yonge & Carlton.  I immediately remembered it as I had stayed there the last time I was in Toronto to see the Bruins.  That was on January 9, 1999.  The Bruins lost to the Leafs 6-3.  It was the last time the Bruins played at Maple Leaf Gardens. 


As this was a hockey trip, I would be remiss if I did not make an effort to show Heather this one-time temple of hockey. The building has not been used since the middle of the 1999 season, but the building is still there, devoid of lettering on the marquee and behind some scaffolding.


From there, we made our way south on Yonge Street towards the Eaton Centre.  The Eaton Centre is a huge multistory downtown mall that spans many city blocks.  If there is chain store you can think of, this place probably has it.  Seeing that it was just after 9:00 in the morning, the vast majority of the stores weren't open yet, so we made our way through the place.  Besides, do so provided a nice warm respite from the 20 degree wind chill.


Eventually, we made it down to Front Street and headed west.  Our next stop was but a short distance away: St. Lawrence Market.


When we were planning out this trip, we wanted to hit up more than just bars and typical tourist traps like the CN Tower.  And I solicited opinions from friends as to where we should go.  It was almost universally agreed that a trip to the market was in order.


With the exception of Boston, many of the great cities in North America have large central indoor marketplaces where local merchants, farms and purveyors sell their goods to the public.  Seattle is known for it's famed Pike Place Marketplace.  Philly has the Reading Terminal Market.  Baltimore has Lexington Market.


We were not disappointed.


Bakeries, butcheries, cheese shops, pasta shops, fish mongers, even a kitchen gadget shop, this place had just about everything.  The smell of the fresh baked bread was intoxicating, the line outside one particular bakery was wrapped around itself twice over.  It's a good thing we had but a small bite for breakfast. I found a bagel place that had homemade potato knishes.  They were good, but I should have had them warm them up first. We could not stop looking at the meat cases - not just the numerous types of homemade sausages and charcouterie, the huge rib roasts, stuffed pork loins and the exotic game meats. We came across one particular pasta shop where they were offering samples of their meat ravioli in their marinara sauce.  It seriously was some of the best pasta I've ever had and the sauce was to die for.  Even better, they had a guy making the ravioli right there using a really cool looking pasta extrusion/stuffing machine.


Wearing some Bruins gear, we found ourselves engaged in a few hockey conversations with the locals, all good natured.  What we did notice was an overwhelming sense of defeatism with the Leafs fans.  The fact that the team wasn't performing well and that the Bruins were ale to improve themselves greatly at the expense of the leafs, not just the Kessel/Seguin & draft picks deal, but the Raycroft for Rask trade as well.


As we finished making our rounds about the place (both up and downstairs), we decided we needed one last bite to eat and figured that we should try something that's a local delicacy - the peameal bacon sandwich.  So we stopped at this place:





Paddingtons. The self-proclaimed "Home of the Oink".  With a slogan like that, how could we go wrong?


For those not in the know, peameal bacon is a smoked pork loin dusted in cornmeal.  Its sliced thin and piled on a bun and served with a choice of condiments.  Heather and I went with the honey mustard.  It was fantastic.  Sweet, smoky, moist - the perfect blend of flavor and texture.  If you're ever in the neighborhood, I highly recommend you stop by and grab one for yourself.


After our marketplace jaunt, we headed back down Front Street to the one place any hockey fan should visit when in Toronto - the Hockey Hall of Fame.


This was my third time visiting the place.  Many of the exhibits were the same or had minor updates, but its always a good take, if not only to see the plaques of the newest inductees (well, except that DB Dino Ciccarelli).


Now, one of the highlights of any visit is finding the bubble hockey tables.  Technically known as Super Chexx, very few places have these nowadays, so when you find them, you've just gotta play.  And you knew that the HHoF will always have them. So when Heather and I found an open table, it was game on.


Except it wasn't.  Not quite yet, at least.


Seems that the tables only took Loonies, the Canadian $1.00 coins.  And all we had were paper bills and doonies ($2.00 coins).  We asked just about everyone around us if they could make change, but no one could help us out.  I was shocked.  He we are in Canada, where it's damn near impossible to buy something and not end up with a half ton of coins in your pocket and no one had a couple of loonies to change.  So I headed to the ticket desk and was able to get the requisite money.  Then it was game on.


Sadly, the tables there didn't feature the US vs. USSR matchup that I grew up with.  Nor did it offer US vs. Canada.  Rather, we had generic red and blue players.  But we did get O Canada as the anthem, which was apropos.  I ended up winning both games, the second one a bit closer than I liked it to be.


As for exhibits, there was not shortage of Boston representation, from the Bobby Orr display, to Don Cherry collectibles, Boston Garden nostalgia, All Star game memorabilia, Winter Classic uniforms, generic team displays and even Paul Stewart's referee sweater.  We spent a lot of time in the Stanley Cup room, which features one of my favorite architectural elements in the world.  The inductee plaques are neat to see, especially with so many Bruins included.  I always get a kick out the fact that Can Neely and Ray Bourque's plaques are located next to each other.  And then there is the Stanley Cup.  I took some pictures of it, but I refuse to touch it until the Bruins win it.  I did, however, snap a couple of photos of the 1970 and 1972 winners on Lord Stanley's chalice.


There was, of course, a lot of non Bruins stuff.  A couple of things that stood out to me: Ray Bourque's Avalanche sweater from 2001 when he won the Cup and Rush drummer Neal Peart's custom drum kit.


I'm really glossing over the hall here, but that's only because I've been there before.  If you haven't gone and you love the sport of hockey, whether it's the NHL, NCAA or international competition, there's something there for you.  And bring the kids too.  There are a lot of interactive games for them to play.


And what kind of museum doesn't have a gift shop?  The hall's store has relocated to upstairs outside the museum from it's old spot downstairs adjacent to the hall.  The new store is decidedly larger than the old one.  As one might expect, there's plenty of banal crap available (keychains, pencils, etc.).  And the children's clothing selection leaves much to be desired (I got my son a "the Next Bobby Orr" t-shirt.  The had no HHoF branded stuff in his size).  It was very heavy on Reebok branched merchandise.  But if you like hockey sweaters, particularly throwback ones, this was the place for you.


When we were in the checkout line, Heather had noticed a silver travel mug embossed with the Hockey Night in Canada logo on it.  She picked it up to look at it, only to find out that it was not for sale. It belonged to the cashier.  Oops.  But she liked it and really wanted one.  And I knew where we might be able to get one.


So we headed out on Front Street towards the entertainment district. Up ahead was the place I had in mind - the CBC broadcast center.  We went inside through a door that someone just exited through. The place was empty and the gift store appeared to be closed.  We went up to the security desk to see if anything was open.  Apparently, the gift store and museum were not open on the weekends. Weird.  It also was apparent that we got in through a locked door and the perhaps we should have not been in there in the first place.  That said, it would have been really cool if we had managed to bump into PJ Stock, Ron McLean, Mike Milbury or even Grapes himself, Don Cherry.


Well, that was bit of a bummer, but I had another place in mind that we needed to check out.  Legends of the Game is a hole in the wall place in the heart of the entertainment district on King Street next to Roy Thomson Hall.  This place is a memorabilia collector's dream.  The vast majority of stuff here is off-beat and out of the ordinary.  Looking for a Leafs sweater?  You might find one.  But you'll probably have a much easier time finding a Garth Iorg autographed Blue Jays pennant first.  The last time I was there, I picked up a really cool Don Cherry bobblehead.  This time, I got a 1994 World Cup pennant, new with tags, for $1.95.  Awesome.


At this point, Heather and I were getting a bit exhausted, having walked around the city for the better part of the day at that point.  What better way to recharge our batteries than to have an afternoon snack at Tim Horton's, conveniently located next door.  This time we went with the maple swirl, a cream filled donut frosted with maple and vanilla.  Heather found it a bit too sweet for her liking, but I loved every bite of mine.  We also used this stop as an opportunity to pick up some trinkets to bring back home.  Heather picked up the Tim Horton's coffee pot tree ornament.  I picked up a box of maple fudge for Jen.


We also took advantage of the free wifi to check in back home.  I also used this opportunity to check out all the news about the Adrian Gonzalez trade.  The day was looking bright. 


We decided to walk back to the hotel.  With the wind picking up off the water and the temperature dropping, I decided to introduce Heather to the underground tunnel system known as PATH.  In a stroke of genius, the City of Toronto has an entire network of underground tunnels connecting major shopping areas, hotels, public transit and corporate centers that spans the heart of downtown.  We made it back to the hotel, turned the TV on to the CBC to catch women's curling from Medicine Hat and relaxed for a bit.  We needed to get ready for the main event.


Up Next: Part V - It's Hockey Night Tonight!