Day 12 – Vancouver

As it was absolutely lashing with rain we decided to cancel out trip to the top of Grouse Mountain (I think we have both seen enough snow anyway) so instead we went to the Vancouver Museum and leant about the history of Vancouver and saw an exhibition on rice – I defy anyone to try and make that last part sound remotely interesting. 

There were two things I really wanted to do in Canada; the first was build and sleep in an igloo - this plan was thwarted due to the old 'wrong type of snow' excuse. Apparently if I come back in February I won't be able to move for igloo's. The second was to go to a professional ice hockey game, however, I had been warned that tickets to the Vancouver Canucks home games were as scarce as hairdryers at a Hari Krishna temple.

I managed to get myself a couple of tickets (which didn't involve the plan of rolling a couple of 12 years olds) and off we went. The stadium was like a cinema around the outside all burger stands and popcorn (the smell was a bit much on the stomach) but the stewards were helpful (imagine that at an English game), there was a fine selection of booze on offer and the crowd got well into it. Within the first 10 minutes we had 2 goals and a full gloves on the floor fight. By the end of the game we had 5 goals and more fights than outside a Mile End kebab house at closing time. Someone told me the game had been cleaned up in the last few years, I must ask the player who got a stick slashed across his throat for his opinion.

The players looked like they drunk heavily, smoked whilst asleep and had been dragged to the game from the local jail cells - they looked hard. Hard and angry. I would love to see a few of the R&B loving, Gucci Wearing, overpaid ponces in the English  Premier League come up against these fellas. During the small breaks in play (not like the interminable lengths you get in American football) they played the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Guns N Roses, Wolfmother and other rock classics. Beer, Rock n Roll, Fighting - Surely sport as god intended.

There is a popular train of thought amongst the less politically correct crowd who maintain that taking a woman to any kind of sporting event is akin to leaving the kids with Gary Glitter for the afternoon, Ciara magnificently proofed this tired old adage wrong when just before the break she announced she was 'Going to get the beers in'. She returned 10 minutes later and said 'The queue for the bar was too long I got you an ice cream instead'.

As Led Zeppelin boomed over the tannoy and the Cannucks fought for death or glory, I licked my Haagen Daas and decided there just may be some truth in the old adage.