Coming to Canada is a bucket list item itself. However one of our other bucket list items was to attend a hockey game live. Having watched the game for many years and supporting the Pittsburgh Penguins all the way from Australia had meant many early mornings staying up late hoping for a win with a cup of coffee in hand. So when we found out that the Penguins would be in town to face the hometown Vancouver Canucks, we moved heaven and earth to get tickets.
On a freezing cold night where the temperature was in the negative before puck drop, we made the walk through downtown Vancouver to Rogers Arena dressed head to toe in our Penguins gear and receiving many weird looks from the Vancouver locals. Luckily when we arrived at our seats there were many other people like us dressed in the yellow and black of the Penguins as opposed to the sea of blue and white going for the home team
As all NHL games do, the game started with the US and Canadian national anthems before puck drop. The US anthem went with a few people singing along hand on heart. However once we hit the first chorus of O Canada the singer stopped and 20,000 proud Canadians sang along at the top of their lungs causing an exceptionally spine tingling moment.
Once the formalities were out of the way, the puck dropped and the game began. Less than 2 minutes in a penalty was called on the Canucks and the Penguins had an extra man on the ice. The Penguins scored on the resulting power play due to some exceptionally slick passing from our favourite player Sidney Crosby leading to us jumping out of our seats in excitement and exchanging many high fives with the fans around us
However Vancouver's rookie phenomenon Brock Boeser decided he was going to have his breakout game for his career and put the next two goals in Vancouvers net. At the beginning of the third period, the Penguins scored again to tie the game and our small block of Penguins fans went crazy, cheering and clapping for a few minutes until the puck dropped again.
Unfortunately for us less than a minute later Brock Boeser would cap off his miraculous night with his third goal, also known as a hat trick. At this point the Vancouverites erupted and it sounded like the roof of Rogers Arena was going to blow off. Then, in a tradition we both had never seen before, the crowd celebrated his hat trick by throwing their hats on the ice. This caused a lengthy delay as the ice cleaning crew had to skate out and collect all the hats off the ice.
The game ended with a score off 4-2 to the home team which was the only downer of the entire evening. However we both had a night we will never forget and will definitely be back to take in more games and maybe even support the home team next time
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