North of the Border
It really has been a while since we've had an away game, but here I am in Toronto on Canada Day! Great weather - blue skies and highs in the 70s - and what should be a great atmosphere for our nationally televised game tonight.
I made up my mind to take advantage of Toronto today in a way I never before have: going to the Hockey Hall of Fame. When I was a kid, my family took a vacation here and I somehow decided the Hockey Hall of Fame was not worth my time and told my parents not to worry about it. I definitely have regretted it since. I didn't get a chance to go last year, either, but I made up my mind I would see it this year.
It was about a 15-minute walk away, but a straight shot down Front St. (we stay at the Rogers Centre, nee Skydome, which makes it easy to find your way back if you ever get lost). The museum is not really what I pictured, because the only part visible from the street is this older house which contains the 'Grand Hall' where the Stanley Cup is kept. You enter on the lower level of a mall, basically, which feels awkward and much less grand than, say, the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The museum itself is a little smaller than I expected, but pretty impressive in the amount and variety of artifacts and mementos stored in that small space. There are sticks and jerseys and pucks from all sorts of events - fastest to 50 goals, first player to do this, first American player to do this, yada yada yada. It's not organized all that well, in my opinion, in terms of signage, so I wandered around a fair amount.
They had a traveling exhibition on loan with Olympic medals from every Olympics going back to the 19th century. It underwhelmed me a little, to be honest, but was pretty cool - I couldn't believe they had medals from 1896! The medals were super small back then, and even now they seem smaller than I thought they would be. They didn't start getting really ornate until about 1994 or so.
Another room had a little display for each NHL team, so I paid homage to the Devils display, and the coolest part of the museum: the interactive areas. It was definitely the most interactive Hall of Fame I've been to, although I haven't been to Cooperstown since high school. There were four virtual reality games - two shooting and two goaltending - that were neat to watch. I felt a little too old to wait in line to take part, but I enjoyed watching a father of three make five saves out of five on what looked like foam pucks fired at a decent speed out of a video screen, then wave to his kids and wife videotaping it up above. Pretty neat.
They also have a fairly extensive setup for broadcasting - even some behind-the-scenes stuff like producing and directing - that I enjoyed. One of the most popular parts is a set of booths where you can call play-by-play for great hockey moments, then hear your call played back to you. They even will let you download a .wmv file of your clips! Think how much I would have loved that as a kid, especially for baseball.
Again, I felt a little weird doing it since I'm a professional and all, but I went ahead and called a couple of plays. They didn't have a lot of ones that were memorable for me, so I just called a series of Martin Brodeur saves and Wayne Gretzky's NHL record-breaking goal. It's impossible to really put a lot of emotion into it, but I did kind of enjoy it. They had them in French as well, although I certainly didn't try my hand at that!
I went up to see the Stanley Cup itself, briefly, and picked out the name of George Parros, with whom I went to high school, on it. Pretty darn cool. They also had a 30-minute movie called The Stanley Cup Odyssey, but frankly it was a bit underwhelming. The gift shop was pretty cool, too, especially since I'm not used to so much hockey stuff in terms of books and DVDs. That might be normal for most Canadians, though.
Anyway, I enjoyed my two-hour visit and definitely feel it was worthy of Canada Day! I'm at the stadium setting up now, but that's another story ...
I made up my mind to take advantage of Toronto today in a way I never before have: going to the Hockey Hall of Fame. When I was a kid, my family took a vacation here and I somehow decided the Hockey Hall of Fame was not worth my time and told my parents not to worry about it. I definitely have regretted it since. I didn't get a chance to go last year, either, but I made up my mind I would see it this year.
It was about a 15-minute walk away, but a straight shot down Front St. (we stay at the Rogers Centre, nee Skydome, which makes it easy to find your way back if you ever get lost). The museum is not really what I pictured, because the only part visible from the street is this older house which contains the 'Grand Hall' where the Stanley Cup is kept. You enter on the lower level of a mall, basically, which feels awkward and much less grand than, say, the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The museum itself is a little smaller than I expected, but pretty impressive in the amount and variety of artifacts and mementos stored in that small space. There are sticks and jerseys and pucks from all sorts of events - fastest to 50 goals, first player to do this, first American player to do this, yada yada yada. It's not organized all that well, in my opinion, in terms of signage, so I wandered around a fair amount.
They had a traveling exhibition on loan with Olympic medals from every Olympics going back to the 19th century. It underwhelmed me a little, to be honest, but was pretty cool - I couldn't believe they had medals from 1896! The medals were super small back then, and even now they seem smaller than I thought they would be. They didn't start getting really ornate until about 1994 or so.
Another room had a little display for each NHL team, so I paid homage to the Devils display, and the coolest part of the museum: the interactive areas. It was definitely the most interactive Hall of Fame I've been to, although I haven't been to Cooperstown since high school. There were four virtual reality games - two shooting and two goaltending - that were neat to watch. I felt a little too old to wait in line to take part, but I enjoyed watching a father of three make five saves out of five on what looked like foam pucks fired at a decent speed out of a video screen, then wave to his kids and wife videotaping it up above. Pretty neat.They also have a fairly extensive setup for broadcasting - even some behind-the-scenes stuff like producing and directing - that I enjoyed. One of the most popular parts is a set of booths where you can call play-by-play for great hockey moments, then hear your call played back to you. They even will let you download a .wmv file of your clips! Think how much I would have loved that as a kid, especially for baseball.
Again, I felt a little weird doing it since I'm a professional and all, but I went ahead and called a couple of plays. They didn't have a lot of ones that were memorable for me, so I just called a series of Martin Brodeur saves and Wayne Gretzky's NHL record-breaking goal. It's impossible to really put a lot of emotion into it, but I did kind of enjoy it. They had them in French as well, although I certainly didn't try my hand at that!
I went up to see the Stanley Cup itself, briefly, and picked out the name of George Parros, with whom I went to high school, on it. Pretty darn cool. They also had a 30-minute movie called The Stanley Cup Odyssey, but frankly it was a bit underwhelming. The gift shop was pretty cool, too, especially since I'm not used to so much hockey stuff in terms of books and DVDs. That might be normal for most Canadians, though.
Anyway, I enjoyed my two-hour visit and definitely feel it was worthy of Canada Day! I'm at the stadium setting up now, but that's another story ...
posted by Jon at
16:41
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