the NHL experience

Although hockey isn't the national game (that honour goes to Lacrosse I believe), it is far more popular, and ubiquitous. In fact it's probably more appropriate for it to be classified as a national characteristic, like mateship is for Australians.  


Not to like hockey would be un-Canadian.


We've each adopted our own team - John and Silas go for the home team the Ottawa Senators, Cluny is a Montreal Canadiens fan, and I've stuck to the team which our friend Kelly introduced us to 8 years ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs.


Last Thursday night (fresh from the drive home from Toronto) saw us heading west to Scotiabank Place, the home of the Senators.  It's Ottawa's version of VFL Park, stuck way out in the burbs next to the freeway, so much planning was required in order to get there in time to navigate the many car parks and to be sure to see the start of the game.

Spectators, not players

Scotiabank Place is pretty big

No, the Sens weren't flooding, this was just the warm up

The Senators were playing the New Jersey Devils, so it wasn't a huge crowd - about 17,700, compared to capacity seating and standing room of 20,500.

The Senators were one of the original NHL teams (although they spent many years out of it, only re-entering in the 1990's)

A bit up in the gods, but good seats to see all of the game

Of course the national anthem was sung - correction - BOTH national anthems were sung.  We obligingly stood up, but weren't the only ones not singing.  (Although the woman behind me bellowed out both Oh Canada and the Star Spangled Banner.)

Everyone LOVES Jason Spezza

The start of the game is a bit of a let-down, there's no almighty cheer when a [real] footy game starts, but there is a lot of that organ music and loud rock and roll (a bit of AC/DC, Queen, Bon Jovi, you can guess the rest) to pump up the crowd.

Without all the hoop-la music pumping, and the large screens exhorting everyone to scream at certain times, it was strangely quiet, to those of us reared on Aussie Rules.  To be fair, a section of the crowd near us tried and partly succeeded in getting a Mexican Wave going, but it's not very verbal at all.  It was rare to hear anyone yelling out "advice" to their own team, the opposition, or the umpires. There was, however, great enthusiasm for fights, particularly from the same dual-national-anthem woman behind us!  Fighting is actually permitted in hockey, and I'm not sure about what's allowed and what's not, but they occur frequently.

It's such a fast game, and a flowing one too, with the ice allowing great manoeuvrability by the players, but when the puck is near the goal it's so fast and furious you don't know what's happening until either a goal is sounded or, more likely, the puck is hit away towards the other end. 

A few more insights: while the crowd was mixed, with equal parts men, women and kids, there seemed to be a particular demographic attending.  It may just be the outer suburban location, but I suspect not.  The food was terrible too - no pies or even chips to be seen, and no espresso cart either!

Final score Sens 3, Devils 1