Hockey Hall of Fame

While on our way to the Hockey Hall of Fame (pestering Bert with "Are we almost there yet?"  and "Fuck, I'm tired"! comments), some chicks on a streetcorner were giving everyone free Skinny Cow chocolate popsicles. So, that was kind of nice to have something to snack on while walking what seemed like ten million blocks, but in reality it was pretty damn close.

This is the south end of the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is housed in a historic building, formerly the Bank of Montreal. If you come across this end, please note that you can't get in through this door. Locked shut like a Jonas Brother's legs(well 2/3 of the Jonas Brothers).

Here's a parting view of CN Tower...

Lots of food carts - most of them selling meat in tube form.  Heh heh. Tube.

Here's another exterior shot of the "Temple du Hockey" (because everything sounds so much classier in French). 

(from wikipedia's entry on "Brookfield Place"):
fix"The opulent former Bank of Montreal branch at the northwest corner of Yonge and Front streets, built in 1885, also forms part of the complex, and now serves as part of the Hockey Hall of Fame. It contains portraits of all Hall of Fame inductees, and houses a number of hockey trophies, including the Stanley Cup."

Because the doors were locked, we walked 'round the building and entered what I found out later was Brookfield Place which is:

(cont'd):
"an office complex in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada...the complex contains 242,000 square metres (2,604,866 sq ft) of office space, and consists of two towers, the Bay Wellington Tower and the TD Canada Trust Tower, linked by the six-storey Allen Lambert Galleria. Brookfield Place is also Home of the Hockey Hall of Fame."

The photo below shows the awesome atrium in this particular building. Incidentally, this is also part of PATH, the underground series of tunnels below the streets of Toronto which connect to the subways and major buildings downtown. You can eat, shop and even watch a movie underneath ground level! That sure comes in handy when its cold and freezing above. They had something like this in Chicago but we didn't get a chance to explore it much last Fall.

And if you're wondering like I was, PATH stands for:

Color Coded Cardinal Directions: (P (red) for south, A (orange) for west, T (blue) for north, H (yellow) for east) on ceiling signs at selected junctions.

I didn't pay any attention to any signs which indicated that. That system seems pretty confusing to me though. Or am I just an ig'nant?

(cont'd from wikipedia, "Brookfield Place")

"The Allen Lambert Galleria, sometimes described as the "crystal cathedral of commerce", is an atrium designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava which connects Bay Street with Heritage Square. The six storey high pedestrian thoroughfare is structured by eight freestanding supports on each side of the Galleria, which branch out into parabolic shapes evoking a forest canopy or a tree-lined avenue because of the presence of building facades along the sides of the structure."

It was pretty cool seeing this - the scale is so huuuge! Ha, I kept wanting to write, the Adam Glambert Gallery instead of Allen Lambert!!! I may not like his vocal histrionics, but he can pull off the guyliner look!

Adam Glambert in all of his glory

So we eventually came to the right place, the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is one of the few places of interest that Bert chose. I think I'm lucky that I have the most tolerant husband in the world (indulging me by visiting cemeteries, wierd/offbeat museums and eating all kinds of different foods of my choosing); he doesn't seem to mind the places I pick and we're still together! The Hockey Hall of Fame was a no brainer for Bert - first of all, it was sports related and second of all, it had the original Stanley Cup which is a really BFD for hockey fans.

The entrance...('Roh roh roh - say "Temple du Hockey" in a Maurice Chevalier accent!)

This was a cool exhibit...I liked the medals that had the hole in the middle. They looked like CD's! I forget which Winter Olympic it was...but it was recent. That's really helpful...not.

Okay, I don't know hardly anything about hockey, but I sure knew who Gordie Howe was!!!

WTF, Gordie Howe, you say?? Well, I attribute most of my trivial knowledge from TV, in this case, from an early episode of the Simpsons entitled, "Bart the Lover". In this classic episode, Bart's teacher Mrs. Krabappel gets fake love letters (written by Bart) written as joke.The letters are signed as "Woodrow" (as in Woodrow Wilson) and includes a picture of Gordie Howe. Bart later feels bad when he sees his teacher at a restaurant where he set up a fake date with "Woodrow" but of course, he never shows up. His teacher is nearly in tears and Bart feels bad.  At the end of the episode, they show Gordie Howe's picture again and play hockey music while his stats are displayed onscreen.  I was surprised to learn that Gordie Howe is still alive too! So yeah, GORDIE HOWE ROCKS!!!!! Raise horned devil salute here!!!

Here are some cool tidbits:
(from the wikipedia entry on "Bart the Lover")

"In 2002, Bill Brioux of The Canadian Press ranked the episode and its use of Gordie Howe as the top reference to Canada on the show. In 2004, ESPN released a list of the Top 100 Simpsons sport moments, ranking Gordie Howe's image in the episode at number 34."

This is another hockey player that I'm aware of, Wayne Gretzky, who incidentally broke Gordie Howe's record for most goals scored in a career (801 Howe, 802 Gretzky). I also remember Gretzky hosting  SNL back in 1989; I think he was in the LA Kings back then and sported a mullet. Well, what guy didn't have a mullet back in 1989?

Here's THE moment back in 1999...

I totally don't remember that, but for the hockey fans, this was a total BFD!

Here are some cool retro jerseys:

Here's one for the hometeam...

Ironically, we heard that the day before our visit, the Black Hawks WON the Stanley Cup! Take THAT Canada!

Okay, now this was a replica of the Montreal Canadien's locker room...

I totally have to digress with this now...I nearly had a shitfit when I saw the locker room.

Why? Well, I've been reading this fanfic (hangs head in shame) with Twilight character names. Fan fiction for those of you that don't know is fiction written by fans (there's Harry Potter fanfic, True Blood, Twilight related, etc). Some of it is very good and most of it is pretty bad. And A LOT of it is very SMUTTY!!!! This is because many fans were disappointed at Stephenie Meyer's PG-13 sex-less Twilight books so many decided to write their own shit. So it's not just rewriting "Twilight" or "New Moon" with sex, but also goes into alternate universes, crossovers, canon pairings, slash (man on man), and sometimes mixing things up a bit with supernatural and real life settings.

So, you could have an Edward character that's NOT a vampire, but say, a tattoo artist ("Clipped Wings and Inked Armour"), or a hot professor ("The University of Edward Masen" and "The Weight of Words"), even a photographer ("Edward Wallbanger", Gawd, gotta love these titles!) and in this next case, a Chicago Black Hawks hockey player. On the whole, they're entertaining and mindless to read but after awhile, it gets a bit boring reading about how many times and different ways X and Y character(s) get it on. It's basically written Twi-Porn.

So, one of the fics I've been reading is called "The Misapprehension of Bella Swan (Regarding the Inferior Intellect of Hockey Players)", which is pretty funny by the way. There is a memorable chapter in which Edward has hot locker room sex with Bella. I nearly choked when I saw this "locker room". I actually cracked up while taking some of these photos.

Black Hawks jersey! Mmmmm, Hockeyward!

Here is the 2010 Olympic gold medal puck. It was encased entirely in plastic, BUT there were holes cut out aroud the edges so you could "touch" it with your finger or whatever! Again, not that thrilling for me, but for the hockey buff, this was like fondling Wayne Gretzky's left nut or whoever the best player is nowadays. Okay, bad analogy.

I thought this was cool, "Women in Hockey". Man, those chicks are tough and I admire that!

You could also play "goalie" in a hockey game and try to block virtual pucks.

Bert took a shot at it(seen below) and ended up in the top 3. Pretty good for his first time.

There was so much hockey memorabilia, it was unreal....from cups, mugs, hats, bobbleheads, rectal thermometers...

as well as pins, lunch boxes, board games, etc...

I liked this sign...

In the room with the Stanley Cup, there was a beautiful stained glass dome...remember the exterior? This was that wing in the building.

And here is the Holy Grail for hockey y'all, the OG Stanley Cup:

This guy was quite knowledgeable about the Cup as he should be since he works there.

(from wikipedia's entry on "The Stanley Cup"):

"Unlike the trophies awarded by the other three major professional sports leagues of North America, a new Stanley Cup is not made each year; Cup winners keep it until a new champion is crowned. It is unusual among trophies, in that it has the names of all of the winning players, coaches, management, and club staff engraved on its chalice. The original bowl was made of silver and has a dimension of 18.5 centimeters (7.28 inches) in height and 29 centimeters (11.42 inches) in diameter."

The Stanley Cup is named after the Lord Stanley of Preston, some dude that Queen Victoria appointed as Gov. General of Canada way back in 1888. Turns out he was a hockey freak. He bought a decorative punch bowl and decided to award it to the best hockey team in Canada. They made all these rules who could win it, etc...

(cont'd):

"Since 1958, the Cup has undergone several minor alterations. The original collar and bowl were too brittle, and were replaced in 1963 and 1969, respectively. The modern one-piece Cup design was introduced in 1958, when the old barrel was replaced with a five-band barrel, each of which could contain 13 winning teams...

When the bands were all filled in 1991, the top band of the large barrel was preserved in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a new blank band was added to the bottom so the Stanley Cup would not grow further."

Since this building used to be the Bank of Montreal, this room used to be one of the bank vaults. Look at those heavy barred doors. I kept thinking it was like Gringotts (in Harry Potter) and expected a goblin banker to come traipsing through.

The stained glass dome was gorgeous but it would have been better if the designs were hockey players getting into fights instead of pretty flowers.

OMFG, I want to TOUCH it!!!!!

One last look...

Some family with a small child wanted their photo with the Cup so the worker brought this out...the box step thing kinda ruins the shot...

Up next...Kensington Market!