Blue Blue Feelings

Sadly not all weekends can be gnarly old school rock and roll road trips (for me, anyway). But I suppose as life continues to threaten to go back to normal, you just have to keep threatening it back with new adventures! Luckily my friends will often help out in this regard. Even friends from work, it turns out!

Now, I don’t talk about work all that much, mostly because it’s been the most boring element of my life the past three years. (Have you seen Julie & Julia? THAT IS ME.) Oh, and also if I told you certain government secrets I’d have to kill you.

Anyway… despite the fact that the job we do is probably best suited for a bunch of limbless drones programmed to navigate ancient software and apologize to clients all day long, the office is actually full of pretty cool people.

One of whom is Megan, a groovy and talented single lady with whom I have had the occasional after work walk, skate, coffee, bowl of ramen, etc. Today, however her little email reads something like:

“Do you want to go to a Canucks game on Thursday… it’s on me!”

My response was something to the effect of:

“You’re shitting me.”

As it turns out she was not shitting me.

There was something about her brother having season tickets and not wanting to go to this particular game, someone else being not available, it being her birthday soon, and just like that I was going to a Canucks game – something I had been wanting to do ever since we moved here, but was never able to justify price-wise or even just convince Chris or anyone else to accompany me. But Megan! She and her kind soul made my little dream come true, just like that! Almost makes spending 3 years of my life tethered to a desk in a government call centre worth it. Almost.

So sure enough, later that very same week, there I was outside of Rogers Arena for the last home game of the season against the Minnesota “who?” Wild. Before the game we were even able to witness the unveiling of the new Roger Nielsen statue and once we had surrendered our dangerous water bottles and climbed up to our posh seats in the very top row of the balcony, we were also able to feast our eyes on the 2010-2011 awards ceremony.

What a treat!

Yes, our seats were literally in the very last row at the top of the balcony at the end of the rink but I wasn’t complaining one bit. How much money can a regular guy dish out for Canucks season tickets anyway? Besides, there was a party box just behind us, and we had the same view as they did. Not even a strip of Plexiglas separated us from those privileged attendees and their fancy food and drink. In fact, their bar was directly on top of our heads!


“Oh man, I’m so glad me and my 1970’s self got into this party box tonight, but what is with these strange women milling about underneath the bar?”


Who, me?

During one intermission I actually turned around, smiled cute and asked if I could put my fountain drink on their bar for safekeeping. The blue version just nodded through his beer-haze. Nice!

Off to the one side behind us, we were also in very close proximity to the Rogers SportsNet broadcasting aquarium in which we got to check out the backs of the commentators and watch a muted version of their captivating hockey banter.


“Don’t look now but there’s a blonde girl with weird glasses checking you out”

At some point after the awards ceremony but before our beloved boys in blue took to the ice, I was able to sneak out and procure some party boxes of our own – filled with hot dogs, pretzels and drinks! That’s right, free tickets meant no holds barred at the concession stand. Happy birthday Megan!

Just as I settled back into my seat and arranged my goodies for convenient cheering, the lights went dim and it was on!


ding-a-ding-ding-ding-ding dingalinga-ding ding-a-ding-ding-ding-ding wooo0000OOOO000ooo

The Canucks grand entrance with the music and the lights is just super exciting. The game was a load of fun too. All the big stars were out scoring lots of goals. Go SEDIIIINS! We kicked their butts 5-0 but of course! I really couldn’t remember the last time I saw a real live hockey game. It brought me back to the good old days at the Sunflower Gardens watching the Aces or the Maroons play – only today I wasn’t wearing ten layers of clothing.


Luuuuuuuu!

Not that I didn’t have a legitimate appreciation for the Canucks prior to attending this game, but afterwards – oh boy. Now I had witnessed the authentic Canucks machine in action. Playoffs were starting now too, we were at the top of the league and it was like the whole city got Olympic fever all over again but everyone had exchanged their red shirts for blue.

I won’t go into details about each heart-stopping game that Chris and I and our friends devoted ourselves to watching for the entirety of May and June. Nor will I comment on the unfortunate final outcome, or the even more unfortunate outcome of the outcome (at least not today). We are obviously fine. In fact, we are more than fine. We got to spend the last couple of months consistently on the edge of our seats with our family, friends, sheep and even some perfect strangers, wearing matching shirts, eating fried things and drinking beer.


What more could you ask for?

Well, I suppose it would be nice to drink that beer out of a giant, shiny cup.

Next year.