Hockey Day in Canada 2012

Yesterday, Hockey Day in Canada was held all over our Country and celebrated everything that was great about our national sport.  In Richmond, BC, Hockey Day in Canada was being hosted at the infamous Olympic Venue, The Oval.  It was the first time I had been to this site.  I never had a chance to get out there during the Olympics as I was too busy volunteering for it and the Oval, unfortunately, wasn't accessible enough to any skytrain stations.

 My friend and fellow volunteer, Leslie-Anne (LA) decided we would go to this event after she called me up last week and told me about it.  I had never heard of Hockey Day in Canada being held in BC before so I do believe this is s a first.  We were even wondering how we never even heard or saw any website as to volunteering for this event.  In any case, I think this was one event that I would have liked to have sat out as a volunteer and just enjoyed it as a fan.

So after I picked up LA from skytrain we headed off to breakfast at IHOP and once we were done it was off to the Richmond Oval.  LA had never been there either cause she was also busy volunteering for the Olympics.  We found some free parking at the Worksafe BC parking lot and walked over to the Oval which was close by.  As we walked in the building, we were handed an orange canvass bag with the Richmond Oval logo on it.  Inside it had an NHL Hockey 2011-2012 Sticker Book and many pamphlets on the Oval.  Before heading up the stairs to the second floor where all the activities were, we decided we better head to the bathroom first cause that morning coffee was going right thru us!  As we came out of the bathroom, we ran into a giant Hockey Night in Canada Puck Mascot!  LA and I had a pic taken with it later but i accidentally deleted it last night from my camera before I downloaded them when I got home. Grrrrrrrr!

He wasn't the only mascot there though.  Jack the Giants Mascot was there along with some others that I didn't recognize but the most famous one was there! Fin, the Canucks Mascot!  He played referee for some peewee games and then took pics with kids and did some autograph signings and pics for the big kids too.  Fin is always popular where ever he goes.

Just across from Fin's table, there was a huge line-up for Trevor Linden's autograph session. The line up started at the red tent and winded up three times up and down before it came straight out ending across from Fin's table. LA and I didn't bother getting in line as really, we had nothing for him to autograph and plus, we're sports volunteers.  We'll see him at the next sporting event as he's usually around.

The volunteers there were really nice and the one at Trevor's tent saw me trying to get a pic of him above everyone's head so she let me get in front of her to take the pic.

 There were three red Scotia Bank tents at that end of the oval.  The first tent had the "Hardest Shot" competition, the second tent had a big banner which you got to write about your favorite hockey memory and afterwards you got to choose between a red scarf, red helmet hat or a red toque with a brim as your Hockey Day in Canada souvenir.  I chose the scarf.

They also had four of the NHL trophies there.  It was roped off in the middle of the court so you couldn't get too close like we were able to at Rogers Arena during training camp. So, using my crappy camera, I took some pics of the Trophies.  Wanna guess which one this is??

Yes...its the President's Trophy.  Such a beautiful trophy.  So glad the Canucks won this baby...hopefully we get to keep it for another year.  Detroit can't win every game, right??

Daniel Sedin's prize for the 2010-2011 year.  The Hart Trophy.  So pretty.

The Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy.  Former Canuck, Pavel Bure won this trophy 3 times during his years with the club.  What a pleasure he was to watch.  I truly miss him. Hopefully, the Canucks will retire his jersey one day.

The Sedins' back to back trophy win.  The Art Ross Trophy.  How amazing is it to have twins who won this thing one after the other.  We will never see another two players with their talent for passing and scoring.  Celebrate the Sedins while we have them Vancouver cause one day they will go back to Sweden to raise their families and that time is very soon.  I will be sad to see them go.

As far as other activities goes, there were two ice rinks side by side and there were activities happening in both.  In the first one, they had training staff from the Vancouver Canucks working with the Seafair peewee team.  I watched some of their drills and thought they were so cute.  One of the drills had a trainer stand in front of the line while the peewees had to stand behind him in single file and push him as a team to the other end of the rink.

At the rink right next to this one, there was a Junior game going on. The Richmond Sockeyes vs. North Delta Devils and Mark Donnelly sang the national anthem.  He's good.  The Richmond Sockeyes ended up winning that game.  Lots of people turned out to watch as they had to bring in bleachers so people could sit and watch.  In the crowd I also spotted Jim Robson.  The Canucks former play by play personality.  He was wearing a red Canada jersey.  I also spotted the CBC crew trying to film some of the on-ice stuff.

There were tons of hockey card trading and buying going on.  I wanted to get some but really don't know much about hockey cards and what to look for so I didn't bother.  They had some really really old ones. For entertainment they had the two hockey guys on stilts with a referee doing some comic routines for the kids. They also had a big screen on one end where you could watch the hockey games all day long.  The schedule here is shown in Eastern Time.

They were going to show the Canucks game later that night at 7pm PST and we thought we'd be busy enough all day that we would be able to stay and watch but it was only 3 pm and we were pretty much done with all the events at the Oval.  Everything kinda ended at 3:30pm until the hockey game.  So we decided to head back to Surrey and kill some time in a mall and then headed to the Central City Brewing Co and watched the game there.

Canucks lost in the shootout to the Calgary Flames 3-2.  Oh well....lets hope the boyz can re-group and win the 3 game home-stand they have coming up this week.

All in all, I really enjoyed Hockey Day in Canada.  I hope they have it again in BC next year.