This past Saturday we joined in the Rogers Hometown Hockey Festivities at Quidi Vidi and went for a winter’s stroll around the Lake.
The Rogers Hometown Hockey Tour has been making its way across the country throughout the 2014-2015 NHL season, visiting a different community every week. The festivities include a weekend of free outdoor hockey-related activities and an outdoor viewing party of a NHL game on the Sunday night, with Ron MacLean hosting it live onsite. As we’re sure you can guess, St. John’s was the community that was visited last weekend, so we decided to stop by the festivities and ended up spending a couple of hours there!
When we arrived at the Hometown Hockey site on Saturday afternoon, we first wandered around to get our bearings; they had quite a few tents and activities set up. Our first stop was a warming station, with free hot chocolate and chairs in front of HD TVs with one tablet set up per seat. Since we had just shown up, we didn’t need to warm up that badly so we held off, but we knew we’d be back later.
We’re convinced that every single form of hockey was on display at Hometown Hockey. There were kids playing ball hockey, air hockey tables, tabletop hockey, milk crates with holes just big enough to fit a puck through, hockey competitions, and NHL 2015 available on a variety of XBOX Ones. Everything was hockey-themed - any hockey fan’s dream. So we got in the spirit!
We’re convinced that every single form of hockey was on display at Hometown Hockey. There were kids playing ball hockey, air hockey tables, tabletop hockey, milk crates with holes just big enough to fit a puck through, hockey competitions, and NHL 2015 available on a variety of XBOX Ones. Everything was hockey-themed - any hockey fan’s dream. So we got in the spirit!
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We checked out some of the activities and then decided to work up an appetite before making use of the tasty food stalls. We took advantage of the (mostly) clear winter’s day and went for a walk around Quidi Vidi Lake. Normally by this time of year there is too much snow to comfortably walk around the Lake, but the weather so far this winter has been mild, with rain instead of snow, and minimal precipitation when the temperature does go below zero. Although we do have a couple of storms approaching this week. Last year we had already faced blizzards and blackouts by the beginning of January!
St. John’s received quite a bit of rain last week, so it shouldn’t have been any surprise that the rain had frozen by Saturday and our walk around Quidi Vidi turned into an event better attempted on skates. Luckily, the ice only went halfway around the Lake, but there were still some tricky patches.
St. John’s received quite a bit of rain last week, so it shouldn’t have been any surprise that the rain had frozen by Saturday and our walk around Quidi Vidi turned into an event better attempted on skates. Luckily, the ice only went halfway around the Lake, but there were still some tricky patches.
By the time we made it back to the Hometown Hockey set up, we were cold and ready for the warming station. But first we stopped off to pick up some Beaver Tails, a Canadian tradition. The last time we ate Beaver Tails was in Halifax last year (for non-Canadians, Beaver Tails are not actual beaver tails).
We then spent some time at the warming station, followed by playing NHL 2015 for way too long. Neither one of us managed to score until the 8th round of penalty shots! Surprisingly, we were a pretty even match but Elizabeth pulled ahead in the end.
There was also live outdoor entertainment ongoing all afternoon, so we enjoyed a bit of music before going for another walk, this time all the way home. Here are a few more pictures from our fun afternoon at Hometown Hockey:
There was also live outdoor entertainment ongoing all afternoon, so we enjoyed a bit of music before going for another walk, this time all the way home. Here are a few more pictures from our fun afternoon at Hometown Hockey:
