Fan-tastic Showing - Part 3

I wouldn't want to be a (Sens) fan here, but being a Canucks fan anywhere right now, is awesome!

I don't know much about Ottawa, besides the obvious stuff. The federal government is here, everything is bilingual, and the Senators are almost always a good hockey team. What I learned about Ottawa on this trip is that the traffic here sucks, and that being a fan is really inconvenient. Oh, and they consider this "Hockey Country." How special.

Scotia Bank Place Banque Scotia is way outside the city, in Kanata or something. You have to take the highway there. On a bus. We met up with our friend Michelle and then drove to a pharmacy's parking lot near a bus station, where we then took a bus to an outdoor mall (why are there so many outdoor malls in Ontario? It's cold!), where we got on another bus, which took us to the game. And this helped us avoid a lot of traffic. Oh, and it was only 4 o'clock.

We met up with the local UBC alumni group for a nice dinner in the skybox before proceeding to our group seats in the third teir. The Senators have one really cool thing in their stadium (and loads of suck). There are video projectors mounted on the ceiling that play moving images onto the ice (Montreal had them too). The quality of the video was awesome and is visually very impressive. Now that the Canucks have a new scoreboard and light ring in GM Place, we must get some video projectors for next season! [Side note: the concourse around the stadium is really narrow and makes getting around quite the challenge - a reoccuring theme, as your will discover, later in this entry. Plus, it's all concrete, like BC Place. Not nice.]

As promissed, the fans here started a "Go Canucks Go" chant to start the game, and many times throughout the game. We got drown out by Senators fans piggybacking our chant almost everytime, however, it was the Canucks fans that had more to cheer about. Our section was packed with fans and we could see many others around the stadium. The fans here claim to love their team, but they actually hate the Leafs more than anything. The cheer for the Senator's only goal of the game was only slightly louder than the ovation on the two Canucks goals (including Rory Fitzpatrick's first goal of the season) and is only really noticeable because of the deafening locomotive horn that the the sound department plays over the loudspeakers. Awful.

Bobby Lu stood on his head for the third straight game and the Canucks were very fortunate to escape with 2 points tonight (you don't usually win games when you only take 14 shots, but Ray Emery let in a soft one and Luongo didn't). As the game concluded, we had to rush to the exits and almost missed seeing #1 in white come out for a curtain call as the game's #1 star, for the third game in a row. If he isn't named NHL player of the week, something is wrong.

The reason that we had to rush out of the stadium, is because we had to catch that bus back to "Ottawa". Apparently, there are only a handful of buses that service the stadium (in the middle of nowhere) and if you aren't part of the first group that gets to them, right after the game, you don't get home. We didn't waste any time getting to the bus stop, but there were a thousand people trying to get on to five buses. After missing the first, we managed to sneak onto the next bus through the back door (it was a 'bendy-bus' with multiple doors) after someone waiting to get on near the back, pried the door open. And thank goodness, because we might not have made it home otherwise.

After a 45 minute bus ride back towards downtown (but only one stop and not all the way downtown) we got back to our car and drove the rest of the way back to Michelle's place. Whoever designed this place, wasn't thinking too hard. The stadium is too far from downtown and does not have a proper clover leaf highway exit. The parking lot has only one entrance and exit, and the bus loop is on the other side of the of the main road that leads into the parking lot, meaning that every pedestrian getting on or off the bus, has to cross all the cars trying to park or leave. Brutal.

As we discussed on the way home, we could not be fans here. Not in the same way. We could care about the team - their quality of play, talent, skill, results deserve that. But to come to more than one game a month, never mind being a season ticket holder, like back home - no way!

After a brief pass by the parliament buildings Friday morning, we will be driving back down to Buffalo (we passed through it on the way here... and it sucks!). This will be the last post-game fan blog from the road, as after the Sabres game we are driving back to Niagra for some latenight poker and then back to Toronto to catch our Saturday morning flight. We will however report again with a summary of the last game on the road trip and a summary of the details we've left out along the way, once we get back to Vancouver.

Many thanks to those of you who have left comments on the blog board and/or emailed us, including Jason, Tamara, Jody (Vance?) and Jeannie (one of Alexandre Burrow's relatives who emailed us some photos). We're also still looking forward to receiving some photos from other Canucks fans that we have met on the roadtrip, including Mike, who met Trevor Linden in his hotel lobby.

-Myles