Pam and I went to the Vancouver Canucks – Nashville Predators hockey game on Saturday night. One of her work buddies has season’s tickets and couldn’t go so off we went to Roger’s Arena. It’s been a while since we’ve been to a game so it was fun to be there.

The Canucks won 4-2, which was good. Our seats were quite high, behind the Preds goal for the first and third periods. The Canucks played very well the first period outshooting the Preds 14-4 , so lots of the action was in our end of the rink.

We thought we might see the new Russian Tank, the basketball player sized defenceman Nikita Tryamkin. He took the pre-game skate, got some advice from Henrik Sedin, and didn’t play! Rats.

First time seeing Jake Virtanen play live was impressive. He looked pretty good, a little wild still, and sometimes seemed not quite lost, but needs to find out where he is on the ice sometimes. I don’t think he’s really comfortable out there all the time, quite yet, but you really notice him out there. He certainly looks like the real deal.

The beer was 8 bucks or 8.75 for premium, quite normal for beer in a bar-type setting and I wasn’t outraged, just resigned. I also wanted a hot dog, $5.75 which I figured was reasonable. I ordered “A hot dog and a beer please.”

The hot dog arrives and I get my beer and she says “That will be 21 bucks.” I ain’t the best dude at math, but that seemed a tad out of whack, so I said “uh that’s a pack of taxes on that 15 buck bill eh?” She said, “oh no I gave you the double, saves you money!”

First off, I didn’t order a double, second off, it’s not even on the menu, ok? What scam is this? My other complaint about the place was how many people are drunk! I don’t mean fun to be around good times dudes, who have had a couple, but flat out, barely able to stand, bright red-nosed, drunk. And no wonder. Young guys are thinking they are getting one beer, pounding back 4 or 5 and actually having consumed 8 or 10. Who functions well with 10 beers in them?

Last little complaint – I’m sure this is associated with the over serving of alcohol – the three young men behind us, used the f-word every third or fourth word, sprinkled liberally with the c-word, and then they’d throw in the odd n-word for good effect. Seated beside me was a young family, three young girls, and a boy 5 to 11ish – all dressed in Canuck hats and stuff. I turned to the dudes and said,  “c’mon eh, young kids don’t need to hear that constantly.” Two guys apologized, and one said, “f-off, it’s a hockey game.” sigh