Canucks game!

On Monday 14th December, Ben and I went to our first ice hockey game! Ben's boss gave him tickets a few months ago, so we had been looking forward to seeing the famous Vancouver Canucks for quite a while! The game was in GM Place and the Canucks were playing the Los Angeles Kings.

On the way in, we had some traditional hockey food...





As opposed to the BC Lions football game we went to, this time the stadium was packed - 18000 people! Before the game, the US and Canadian national anthems were sung. Here's the anthem singer beside the Canucks' famous goalkeeper, Roberto Luongo...



Once the game got underway, it was all very exciting! Most of the time, we weren't quite sure why players were getting penalties, but apart from that we mostly knew what was going on! And it wasn't as stop-and-go as the football game we went to, which made it about a hundred times more interesting to watch! Ice hockey is very fast and action-packed, and the agility of the players on their skates is VERY impressive!

Here are some photos and videos... the Canucks are in the blue jerseys and the Kings are in the white jerseys. The umpires (of which there were three or four on the ice at all times) are wearing vertical black and white stripes. As well as their umpiring duties, they had the important role of breaking up fights - see the second video below!

The Canucks won the game, 3-1. After the first Canucks goal, we very quickly realised that it's the done thing for all Canucks fans (i.e. most of the audience, since it was a home game) to stand up and cheer wildly! So of course we joined in on the next two - and it's a pretty amazing feeling to be in a crowd of 18000 Canadian hockey fans when the Canucks score a goal! And also when Luongo stopped most of the Kings' attempts to score!



Ice hockey has three periods, which we didn't know. During the third period we'd managed to convince ourselves there would be a fourth, so the game seemed to us to end very suddenly!! But in a nutshell, this was an absolutely awesome experience and we would happily attend another Canucks game!

"Go Canucks Go!!"

More game photos are in our Dec '09 Picasa album.