Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Visiting the Hockey Hall of Fame (Toronto)
Since I am in Toronto this week, I took advantage of the opportunity and visited the Hockey Hall of Fame! :-)
This was actually much cooler than I expected. At first, I wasn't even sure whether I wanted to go. To be honest, I only decided to go because Ellen had suggested it, and I thought "well... it will give me something to blog about". And now I am really glad I went. It was well worth seeing. I even found the building cool, which says "Temple du Hockey" on the outside: 
Inside, you can see a whole bunch of stuff. Anything from display cases dedicated to individual "hall-of-famers" (like the one for Wayne Gretzky below) to just cool gear, videos, and even an area where you can shoot the puck or try your luck as a goalie. 
Even my home country of Austria has a small appearance there, but only in the form of a few jerseys:
Well, maybe Thomas Vanek (Buffalo Sabres, and former "Zeller Eisbaeren" player... the club where I played as a kid) will be a hall-of-famer one day.
Anyway: The coolest display is the Stanley Cup. This is the closest I will ever get to it, unless the Ice Dragons go on a heck of a winning streak: 
It was quite impressive in a way to see this thing up close. I actually didn't realize that the cup looked different before, with quite a few of its pieces cut off and put on a wall. I guess that makes sense considering that they have been doing this for over 100 years now. (Every winning player's name gets engraved on the cup, so they keep running out of room). Of course they also have a gift-shop there. I considered buying a jersey or two, but holy-moly! Anywhere between $130 and $200 for a stupid jersey?!? They gotta be kidding. And that isn't even with a number or personalized or anything! (So I ended up going on NHL.com later, buying a personalized jersey with my name and number, which I can wear at some of my hobby games...for less than $100). Anyway: This was a cool experience. If you are a hockey fan, I recommend you check this out if you ever have the chance...
Posted @ 10:56 PM by Egger, Markus (markus@code-magazine.com)