Thu 18 Jul - Toronto, ON

Hockey day in Canada... almost Wayne's World of sorts...

Apologies to anybody who may not be interested in ice hockey (not likely, hey... :-), but today we go puck.

First though, we have breakfast out at EggSmart, a diner up the road on Bay Street. Eggs, toast and home fries for Hans and French toast and bacon for Di.

We will miss these American style diners and we will certainly miss home fries when we leave the continent. Home fries is essentially fried potatoes and very yummy. All very informal places and down to earth meal for not very much. Di certainly looked very pleased with her meal but as usual it was too much food for her to finish.

The guy behind Di in the picture above, presented himself as a college teacher from St Louis, MO, was a social guy and wanted to know where we were from. We chatted to him and he also chatted to the Chinese server in Beijing Chinese as he referred to it.

EggSmart was a funny place. We wondered what the Canadian equivalent to OH&S (Occupational Health and Safety) would think about work safety there. We noticed and counted three incidents while we were there

• First, a pot of hot coffee was almost spilt over one of the servers and two of them ran into each other.
• Then another server almost tripped over a lazily laid mat on the floor.
• Then a crash behind the counter as a glass shattered. Hmm...

We hit the pavements yet again in the heat (another 32 degree C humid day) and noticed a new style of garbage bin on Bay Street that we haven't seen before. We liked it and it certainly would take hygiene up a notch. In case you can't tell you press the metal bar with your foot and the chutes opened.

Also on Bay Street, somebody had taken the published clearance to test... And lost...

We noticed that the interior of the Bank of Nova Scotia building looked really cool, so we went in. Di is standing in the old part which had been extended at the back which looked really sympathetic and well done ( for a change). We liked it, in particular the old style clock there. We talked to a young "greeter" and he told us his favourite architecture was Brookfield Place nearby, so we added that as a stop.

First, the Toronto Stock Exchange building had also been extended up and to the sides. Not bad.

Brookfield Place on Front Street between Bay and Yonge Streets had another twist to rejuvenation. An old building had been incorporated inside a large arched glass atrium. It looked all very impressive.

This is the old building now housing one of Royal Bank of Canada's many offshoots.

Enough of architecture for today, now on to the real deal. Hockey Hall of Fame can be found in the corner of Front Street and Yonge Street in Toronto.

This is the entrance from inside a shopping mall.

Some drawcard to entice you in. No, not the lady to the right.

Before you even go in, you can check out umpteen number of differently badged ice hockey pucks from Canada and US and from all over the world.

A Swedish ice hockey puck at lower left. Tre Kronor means Three Crowns, the nickname for the Swedish national ice hockey team.

Then into the Hockey Hall of Fame, which as you could imagine has a lot of memorabilia. You can spend hours here... Which we did. 3 hours...

Some of the truly outstanding ice hockey players had their own exhibits. This is Bobby Orr, known to Hans from his childhood.

Di was a keen fan of Wayne Gretzky (who isn't, he was and still is the best) and became an even bigger fan after walking through the Hockey Hall of Fame. His name is everywhere in trophies and records.

There were some Swedes on display, among them, this guy Börje Salming who was huge when Hans was younger. He played for and captained Toronto Maple Leafs for many years so is a local hero.

This referee was also a legend, although we had never heard of him before. He was an NHL (National Hockey League, but you all knew that...) referee for 20 odd years including many 19 Stanley Cup finals.

But back to the man himself, Wayne Gretzky. Here is some fantastic memorabilia. This is the goal net into which Wayne Gretzky scored his 802nd career goal, an all time NHL record which still stands and is likely to stand for some time to come.

And how do we know that is the actual goal net? Well, here is the authentication.

The taping identification...

Yep, a lot of Wayne Gretzky at the Hockey Hall of Fame, as you would expect. You could easily fill a whole blog with artifacts just from and about him. He used this jersey in an international game against Sweden, which Canada won.

There was a replica Toronto Maple Leafs change room...

Well, the team needed some extra help...

We found a photo of the reigning ice hockey world champions 2013 which of course are Sweden... Of course. Di learned a lot...

Swedish ice hockey jersey... Deutschland to the left behind.

... And an Australian one...!?

There was a free play area set aside for anybody wanting to show off their ice hockey skills, either as a goalie or as a striker. Of course, the kids loved it, but some adults had a go too.

A film was played on the screen and depending on how the game twisted and turned, the puck came out from one of the five holes. Not a real ice hockey puck mind you, we think that it was made of foam or similar, but it certainly appeared with some speed.

Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto Maple Leafs home arena was decommissioned back in 1999 (they now play at the Air Canada Arena just a few blocks from here) and the Hockey Hall of Fame has a small section of their seating.

After pottering around oohing and aahing for quite a while, we wandered upstairs to the Grand Hall.

There are 2 identical Stanley Cup trophies and one is here at the Hockey Hall of Fame (the other is locked away). And..., you can have your photo taken with the trophy. Well, they want you to have their professional photographer to take the photo for a $10 fee, but no way we were going to do that. We have our own camera.

We found the background story to the Stanley Cup as per below.

Hans and the trophy.

As mentioned, the two trophies are identical so all the names are inscribed on both trophies.

Hey, there is a vault there... Well, only even more trophies in there including the original Challenge Cup renamed the Stanley Cup after Lord Stanley who instigated a trophy for the championship competition in 1892.

There seemed to be a trophy or award for almost anything and everything. And they seemed to be all here. Yes, Wayne Gretzky's name appeared a lot! Often 9 or 10 times over a 12 year period. Amazing.

OK, one more picture... Behind and on the side of the trophy are all the ice hockey players who had been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame

Two Swedish ice hockey players had been inducted (may have been more, but those were the ones that we could find). Mats Sundin was the most recent inductee of all.

Of course, Börje Salming was there too.

Well, we finally had enough ice hockey... For a little while...

A few blocks east of Hockey Hall of Fame is St Lawrence Market, which heavily promotes an award from the National Geographic magazine of being the best food market in the world.

Well, St Lawrence Market is nice enough, but the market off Las Ramblas in Barcelona is better in our view. However, it was a bit tough to wander through and not buy (at least for Di).

It was all very pleasant walking around inside the St Lawrence Market as it was nice and clean and air conditioned.

Wurst in all forms was a favorite food item. We would have liked to roadtest them all.

This place sold some Australian "delicacies", crocodile to the left and kangaroo to the right. In the middle, there is camel meat if none of the other would take your fancy.

This place became a Di favorite. Their offering was all the nice deli goods that made a good picnic or a pick plate. Yep, a major source for our lunch - with cheese and some bread. Delicious. While we were there we bumped into our "Bus Buddy" Bob from yesterday. A small world...despite Toronto being a city of 2.6 million people.

Aged meat in progress. No, behind the glass...

Remember hockey day in Canada. After lunch at the St Lawrence Market, we wandered some 10 or so blocks west to number 99 Blue Jays Way. So, what is there? Well, the number 99 and the signature were perhaps giveaways...

Skates for door handles...

Yes, Wayne Gretzky's Restaurant and Sports Bar, obviously called 99 after the number at the back of his ice hockey jersey.

Lots of Wayne Gretzky memorabilia of course...

These jerseys and the rest of the memorabilia here were authenticated with accompanying notes and some was for sale. A jersey could be yours for a measly $10,000.

We had a drink each and drank on coasters of sorts signed by the great one.

Di's piña colada went down well. Hans had Muskoka Mad Tom IPA yet again. Why change a winning formula?

Four Wayne's and one Hans... What the heck is Hans doing in this kind of company?

Now, before today Hans was of the belief that the number 99 at the back of Wayne Gretzky's jersey came from the fact that his very long contract (21 years duration, from age 18 to age 39) with Edmonton Oilers expired 1999. This note proved that was not the case.

Of course...

At the back on the way to the washrooms, there was more Wayne Gretzky memorabilia.

This was cute. A pair of Wayne Gretzky's childhood skates. You could see from the memorabilia that his ice hockey skills had been noticed by the age of 10. At that time he scored about 300 goals in one season!

Well, time goes very fast during hockey day in Canada and we left the great one's restaurant around 5pm and wandered back to Bond Place Hotel. This is sort of how we walked omitting all indoors walking which was a lot.

The threatened thunderstorms have stayed away, but it is still humid and hot. Tomorrow's forecast is similar, but reprieve and more "human" weather conditions are forecast from Saturday, but we will see.

That's all folks, good night.

 

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