i had a really, really good day.
joshua and i met my parents downtown around noon. as we stepped out of the subway to meet them above ground, there was a tv show filming on the street. this pleased my stepdad, who is very adorably a county mouse in the big city when he visits. we hadn't even made it to our destination of the air canada centre and he'd already been on the subway and walked thru a tv set - big day!
we walked the few blocks to the acc, stopping en route to get street meat for lunch. we got there and the doors hadn't yet opened, so we went into real sports to look around, another thing my stepdad wanted to do. the legends hockey game started at 2, so around 12:45 we got in line and at 1 they opened the doors. the upper bowl (where our tickets were) was general admission, so josh bolted around the arena to score us the best seats. we sat in the first row of the upper bowl, directly at centre ice.
the game was the kick-off to tomorrow's hall of fame induction ceremony, so the most important thing for me was seeing mats sundin. i've been in love with him since i was 10 years old, and credit my love of hockey to him. i've been to 2 leafs games in my life: one was a pre-season game in winnipeg and i was terribly disappointed that he wasn't on the roster that day, and one regular season game in toronto after sundin had gone to vancouver. today was the first time i'd ever seen him in person, breathed the same stadium air. it was glorious! they did a schpiel about the 4 hall of fame inductees and i gave mats a standing ovation. we observed a minute of silence for remembrance day, then the game got underway.
this is the second legends game i've been to, and they're always fun. the hockey is at a much slower pace and the guys just have fun with it, tho you can still some some major skill, especially from players who haven't been retired for long. halfway thru the game they paused and brought out a timbits hockey team. these kids were 5 years old, and they were the cutest thing ever. they don't know what to do with the puck, they fall down every 4 seconds, and they're just generally the most adorable kids on skates ever in life.
the game ended around 4:30 and we went to the leafs shop. a lot of stuff was on mega discount and i got a schenn tshirt marked down from $40 to $5. i don't care that schenn's not playing for the leafs anymore - he's adorable and i really liked him on the team. once we were done shopping we kept the hockey theme going by heading to gretzxky's for dinner. i had an amazing chicken club (with brie!) and a side of mac and cheese. it was delicious, but i ate entirely too much and i'm still in pain. stupid spange.
we headed back to the subway with my parents. they headed north and we came east. i'm exhausted and dreading monday morning, as per usual, but it was an all around excellent day.
[waiting for my boyfriend mats to arrive] |