Being an avid sports fan, one of the first activities I was keen to embark on was a tour of BC Place which is the main sporting stadium in Vancouver. Home to the Vancouver Whitecaps of the Major League Soccer (MLS) and the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League (CFL), it is located right in downtown Vancouver.
Our first attempt to tour the stadium on a nice, bright Saturday afternoon in early November was in vain as the stadium was gearing up for the Whitecaps conference semi final playoff game the following day and therefore they would not be allowing any tours.
Fast forward a week or so to a typical wet and gloomy Vancouver day and we were able to commence the tour. As part of our entry fee we received a guided tour of the stadium which took about 30 minutes followed by entry to the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
The tour commenced with a visit to the press boxes where the TV and radio commentators sit and commentate the game. From there we moved into the most exclusive corporate box in the stadium which was extremely fancy however was highly impractical for actually watching the game as the seats couldn't see one end of the pitch.
We then toured downstairs into the bowels of the stadium to the home dressing rooms of the Whitecaps and the Lions. Both dressing rooms were massive with large stalls for each player to sit and put their gear on. We also learned that in Canadian sporting leagues it is exceptionally bad manners to step near the logo on the floor and can result in being thrown out of the stadium.
The final stop of the tour was a walk out onto the hallowed turf. The size and magnificence of the stadium can only truly be captured from this vantage point. It was wondrous to us with the stadium empty, I could only imagine the exhilaration of playing there with 60,000 screaming fans.
Once our tour was at an end, we moved to the BC Sports Hall of Fame where we had an unlimited time to look around and take in the 100s of years of sports history gathered there. The first section was memorabilia relating to Canadian Olympic teams and included the podium from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games which we were quite happy to take a photo with.
Other areas of the museum included exhibits showcasing Canadian involvement in world sports such as Formula 1 and athletics as well as an exhibit filled with old jerseys and equipment from earlier eras of the NHL. One of our favourite exhibits however was the activity area where there was a hockey net set up and you could practice your slap shots with a real puck. Suffice to say, neither of us were blistering shots or overly accurate either.
We ended our day with photos out the front where I became a Canuck for the day and Jess made friends with a moose.
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