TALES FROM THE ROAD

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After an unbelievable trip to Winnipeg, The Family and I are back in Edmonton, unpacked, and not looking forward to work on Monday.

Winnipeg and the MTS center are very cool places. I was expecting a drab, cold and crappy city that had no personality. Kind of like Edmonton, but further east. I have no reason for this pre-conceived idea except that everyone describes the city as “winter-peg.” what we found out was that Winnipeg is a beautiful city with a vibrant downtown, riverfront, and shopping districts. It is also proud of it’s history and french culture. Like the picture left of the Canadian Human Rights Museum that is being built down in the River Valley district. I was thoroughly impressed and would go back anytime.

After much touring the city, we decided to get down to some base needs of food. We got some help from @PrimeBane one of our tweeps who is a food aficionado. He recommended the Red Top Diner, so we decided to check it out….

TOURING THE CITY…

The food here was very good as diner food goes. They have a signature dish of Fried chicken which I had, and it was definitely worth the $12.00 price tag! We went back the next morning for breakfast and for a mere $30.00 for four people we ate like Kings.

The Forks Market is also a cool place to visit when being tourist in Winnipeg. There are lots of food vendors and souvenir shops, and it has quite the hip feel to it. if you are in the market for antiques, the basement of the market has a huge antiques store! The Forks should be on you list of “must-do” things when you are in the Peg.

GETTING TO THE RINK…

Being that the game was on trade dead-line day (Feb 27th) and the whole day was twitter filled and watching TSN in the morning before getting out and about, I was really pumped for the game. Not only because the Oilers had made the Gilbert for Schultz deal (which i think was a good move), but because my wife and I  were listening to, and talking Hockey all day long. The above photo was taken in the hotel lobby as we awaited a cab to go to the arena. In case you are wondering, I’m the skinny guy wearing the mask. I had several comments from the fans at the arena about the mask. One guy told me that it was “kinda creepy.” We arrived at the MTS Center about an hour before the doors opened to check out the atmosphere and see what it’s like around the arena as well.

Being that the rink is attached to a shopping center and transit stations via pedways, you can walk for blocks indoors downtown from the mall to the arena. It’s pretty cool to have a food court outside the rink in the mall if you don’t want the pricey food at the game. s you come into the concourse area of the arena there is a game-day stage where a band was entertaining people as they arrive for the game.  Also, hanging from the roof there are all the NHL team logos on flags proudly displayed. See photos below.

  

Inside the Arena is nice as well, you can tell it is a fairly new building. The concourses are narrow, much more so than at Rexall Place (which I couldn’t believe was possible), and the Bathrooms are tiny!! Take some advice, if you need the facilities while there, go during game play and not intermission.