Ottawa

Saturday January 9th, 2016

	1st	2nd	3rd	OT	Final
BOS	0	1	0	0	1
OTT	1	0	0	1	2

2016 brought the second installment of my quest to attend a hockey game in all seven Canadian cities. This year it was Ottawa and, as with last year’s trip to Toronto, we had a great time. Once again I attended the game with my sister and her husband (the Penguins fan), and we LITERALLY (inside joke) had the best trip.

Ottawa was only 2 1/2 hours from my retirement home in Upstate New York, a little closer than last years 3 1/2 hours to Toronto from Erie, PA. The weather this year was a bit warmer so we had rain instead of snow. If you have never been to Ottawa it’s a great little city. Easy to navigate and has many interesting sites to see. Also, we ate dinner before the game literally five minutes from the arena at a place called the Central Bierhaus. Great food, great beer and a great atmosphere.

Highlights for this trip included walking around the Parliament grounds, seeing the Canadian War Memorial and of course, attending the game at the Canadian Tire Centre. Once again we had great seats, close to the top row but pretty much center ice.

Along with attending the game, I can check another item off my bucket list, I got to be part of passing a huge Canadian flag across the upper rows during the singing of the Canadian National Anthem. If you are not aware of this tradition check out this video.

So, that brings this year’s trip to an end. Now we start planning and looking forward to next year’s trip to Montreal. My brother-in-law has already requested that we try to go when (and if) the Penguins are playing the Canadians…not sure I can deal with that, but we’ll see.

Once last thing, one place you have to visit when you are in Ottawa is the Dollarama! Literally the greatest store in Canada…