TO Light Fest at Distillery District: January 17 to March 1.  The fourth annual winter tradition will light up the dark nights in the city once again. Art and light installations by local and international artists brighten up the cold nights giving us a worthy reason to bundle up. Free admission.

Lunar New Year Celebrations at Shangri-La Hotel Toronto: beginning January 20. An annual tradition for my family is this beautiful presentation at the luxury hotel. The popular Chinese New Year Afternoon Tea is an experience worth dressing up for (we recommend reserving asap). A special edition dim sum brunch is also offered at the hotel’s signature restaurant, Bosk. A traditional lion dance will take place on January 25. Not to be missed will be the 14-foot hand-crafted silk wishing tree.

Winter Fest with the Toronto Blue Jays: January 18 & 19 at Rogers Centre. Back for the third year, the family fun event includes activities and autograph sessions with current players as well as alumni. Tour the ballpark, check out baseball memorabilia, live entertainment, Jr. Jays activities for kids ages 14 and under, meet Sports Net personalities, and the first 12,000 fans each day will get a Blue Jays toque! Tickets and info here.

Terra Lumina at the Toronto Zoo: Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until April 13. When the sunsets, take a walk on the 1.5 kilometre trail that takes you to the future and back. Take in the awe-inspiring illuminated trail complete with vibrant lights and special effects. Tickets and more info here.

9 & 99: The Howe- Gretzky Exhibition at the Hockey Hall of Fame: on until March 2020. This never seen before exhibition brings together memorabilia from two of Canada’s greatest hockey players of all time. The exhibit includes rare and personal items that fans won’t want to miss.

Lunar New Year Celebrations at Scarborough Town Centre: January 18 to 26. Usher in the Year of the Rat complete with a traditional Chinese lion dance and activities. Festivities kick off on Saturday, January 18 at noon with an official ceremony. Centre Court will be transformed for the celebration. Make a wish on the wishing wall for the coming year.

Goh Ballet Bayview Open House: Bayview Village Shopping Centre. January 19, 10 am to 3 pm. Does your child dream of ballet dancing? You’ll want to visit Goh Ballet Academy Bayview (under the direction of Chan Hon Goh, former Principal Dancer with the National Ballet of Canada) for this fun-filled open house. Try out different age-appropriate sessions in classical ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance. They are also offering adult ballet sessions (ages 15+). Pre-register to try out the sessions.

The post Top family friendly events happening in Toronto this January appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Paul Kariya

Alongside Paul Karita was his old Anaheim Mighty Ducks teammate and friend Teemu Selanne who was actually the one who called Kariya to tell him the good news. Other inductees included ex-Leafs player Dave Andreychuk, ex-player Mark Recchi, Danielle Goyette who won seven gold medals at the Women’s World Championships, and one silver and two gold medals at the Olympics, Jeremy Jacobs who has been Owner and Governor of the Boston Bruins since he purchased the team in 1975, and CLare Drak who won six national championships in the 28 years he was head coach of the University of Alberta Golden Bears and is a two-time Canadian university hockey coach of the year in 1967-68.

On Sunday it was the Legends Classic game that features retired players who have been inducted, or are on their way to being inducted in the future. The game takes place every year at the Air Canada Centre and is a great event for hockey fans as you can get way more up close and personal with the players.

Check out the teams and those who were playing. The ( ) are for when that player was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Team Canada ended up winning the friendly game 10-9.

TEAM MESSIER (Canada)

Glenn Anderson (HHOF 2008)
Dave Andreychuk (HHOF 2017)
Ray Bourque (HHOF 2004)
Dino Ciccarelli (HHOF 2010)
Danielle Goyette (HHOF 2017)
Dale Hawerchuk (HHOF 2001)
Geraldine Heaney (HHOF 2013)
Paul Kariya (HHOF 2017)
Mark Messier “C” (HHOF 2007)
Larry Murphy (HHOF 2004)
Mark Recchi (HHOF 2017)
Scott Stevens (HHOF 2007)
Wendel Clark
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Bernie Nicholls
Brad Richards
Martin St. Louis

TEAM KURRI (World)

Mark Howe (HHOF 2011)
Jari Kurri “C” (HHOF 2001)
Igor Larionov (HHOF 2008)
Teemu Selanne (HHOF 2017)
Peter Stastny (HHOF 1998)
Bryan Trottier (HHOF 1997)
Nik Antropov
Martin Biron
Peter Bondra
Neal Broten
Patrik Elias
Al Iafrate
Tomas Kaberle
Jeremy Roenick

Photos from the 2017 Legends Classic

The post PHOTOS: The 2017 HHOF Legends Classic Game in Toronto appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

People adapt to their environments and one of the things I noticed most about Halifax, and Nova Scotia, is that it has a ton of really cool small ponds and rivers making it a breeding ground for the sport.

One of my first stops was Long Pond in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Thomas Haliburton was a prominent business man, judge and author of the immensely popular Sam Slick stories. He attended King’s College in the early 1800’s as a boy. His remembrance of “hurly on the long pond on the ice” is the oldest reference to the game being played in Canada, and is Nova Scotia’s biggest claim to the birthplace of hockey.

Today the pond is used for many big annual events as well as being available for shinny almost any time. As you can see, snowblowers, shovels, and a net are available for use.

Our next stop was the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame in downtown Halifax. The museum has many old and new artifacts from the history of hockey.

Hockey pucks, I found out, were once cut from the trunk of small trees to make the shape current pucks are designed after. Prior to this, balls or spherical objects were used.

The Starr Manufacturing Company produced ice skates from 1863 – 1939 and sold millions of the skates around the world. Bauer hockey company actually was a shoe company at the time and they teamed up with the Dartmouth company to make a skate in which the blade was permanently secured to the boot. The first of its kind.

Hockey sticks in Nova Scotia were said to be made by the local Mi’qmac people indigenous to the area and were carved from Hornbeam trees. The museum had many sticks from the past 150 years,  the oldest one dating back to 1865. References to people using and making the sticks on Lake Banook and Lake MicMac are abundant throughout hockey history readings, which is why we also pictured those locations. (pictures below)

The Hall of Fame also had a shrine for Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia native Sidney Crosby. Artifacts that included his washing machine from his parent’s house, as well as many items from his already decorated career.

Crosby has stayed well involved in his home province with both the Hall of Fame and his home rink in Cole Harbour being decorated with his donations.

This lock connect Lake MicMac to Lake Charles via the river that runs through it. It would be an amazing ice skate from one Lake to the other if the lock did not separate the 2 rivers that run between the lakes. There is even a little landing to help you get on the river once you are strapped-in to your skates.

The rink inside Cole Harbour Place, the rink where Sidney Crosby played as a child, is now home to the next generation of players who will try to achieve their goals while the trophies of their hometown hero in glass displays around the arena show them what hard work and dedication can do.

The home where Thomas Haliburton lived from 1836-1856 is now the site of the Museum that protects the hockey history of the town of Windsor, Nova Scotia. It is run by volunteers and is open on Saturdays during the winter and more frequently during the summer.

A great read to learn more about the history of the game in Nova Scotia and Canada is a book by Trevor J. Adams called ‘Long Shots‘.

The post Halifax Hockey History – A Canadian Pilgrimage Part 3 appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Like Kingston, Montreal has strong roots in the development of the game we know today. It is known as the birthplace of modern hockey which has been backed by both the Society for International Hockey Research and the International Ice Hockey Federation. One of the biggest reasons it was called this is that it was the home of the first game of modern ice hockey, played indoors at the Victoria Skating Rink between members of the Skating Rink’s club.

The game was played with 2 teams that had 9 players on each side including the goalie. Referees watched over a set of rules that were put in place. The players used pucks to play rather than balls which was common at the time. This game took place on March 3rd, 1875.

The building was of much more importance than just the one game. It was the first public building in Canada to be electrified, hosted the first ever Stanley Cup championship in 1892/1893 season and the dimensions of the rink were the model size for our rinks today.

In 1896 telegraph wires were connected to broadcast the Stanley Cup game between Montreal and Winnipeg teams. Boards displaying play by play were set up in 4 cities and birthed the first time sports were broadcast in the world.

This is the location of where the Victoria Skating Rink used to be. It was in between Drummond and Stanley Streets just North-West of what is now Rene-Levesque Boulevard (Dorchester Blvd. then). The deterioration of the building caused the sale of the building many times before ending up in the hands of an owner who knocked down the building to build a parking garage which still sits their today.

Another stop on our trip was also unfortunately no longer with us. The famous Montreal Forum was home to 24 Stanley Cup Champions by the Montreal Canadiens(22) and the Montreal Maroons(2).

The Forum was opened in 1924 and hosted the first game at the new rink with the Canadiens facing the Toronto St Pats. The building was closed in 1996 when it was used for filming before being converted into an entertainment complex and renamed the Pepsi Forum.

In 1997 the building was designated as a National Historic site due to its recognition as the most famous sporting venue in Canada.

A trip to Montreal is not complete without having some authentic Montreal Bagels. St-Viateur Bagels has been in operation since 1957 and has grown to several locations in the city. The original is located at 263 St-Viateur West and has become a huge tourist attraction. They are now open 24 hours a day 7 days a week for your bagel eating pleasure.

The next part of our trip will be in Halifax. We will check out Long Pond where the first mention of hockey being played took place. We will also visit the home rink of Sidney Crosby, the Nova Scotia Sports Museum and some of the lakes where the Mi’qmacs native to the area played and built sticks for the game.

Next stop Halifax, Nova Scotia birthplace of Hockey?

The post Montreal Hockey History – A Canadian Pilgrimage Part 2 appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

In a previous post we visited the Hockey Hall of Fame here in Toronto where our journey begins (full story).

Toronto is one of the original six teams as well as having the highest valued team at $1 billion.(all team evaluations)

Toronto is the first team to reach the $1 billion evaluation.

Toronto plays a big roll in hockey as it is among only a handful of teams considered to be making“real money” therefore funding much of the league. The 3 most profitable teams, the Leafs, the New York Rangers and the Montreal Canadiens, accounted for 83% of the NHL’s income.

Toronto has 13 Stanley Cup championships which is 2nd to Montreal. These factors make Toronto a great place to start a hockey pilgrimage.

The first journey was over 250 km drive to Kingston, Ontario. The second to Montreal was another 290 km. The final trip will be from Montreal to Halifax which would be another 1200+ km.

For the trip the kind people at Honda let us test their newest CRV Touring edition which would turn out to be perfect for the journey. A smaller sized SUV, the CRV Touring Edition was both amazing on gas as well as being All-Wheel-Drive, perfect for the blizzard I hit. I drove from Toronto to Kingston and then to Montreal on one tank which I paid $58 for at around $1.20 a litre. The vehicle had all the fixings for a long winter journey including heated seats, XM satellite radio, GPS navigation system, storage and moving around space, sunroof, USB plug and Bluetooth.

“Historians are said to differ considerably on the place in which the great Caesar first saw the ‘light of day,’ and similarly in respect to the birthplace of Canada’s national winter sport, hockey. There may be some who still claim sundry and diverse places as being the authentic spot or locality. Whatever measure of merit the claim of other places may have, I think it is generally admitted and has been substantially proven on many former occasions that the actual birthplace of organized hockey is the city of Kingston, in the year 1888.”  – Captain James T. Sutherland

Captain James T. Sutherland was born in Kingston, Ontario and was a founding father of the game of hockey. Sometime called the “Father of Hockey” James was a player until he could not play anymore at which point he began getting heavily involved in improving the game through policy changes or the implementation of existing standards. He joined the Ontario Hockey Association in 1910 before becoming president (1915-1917). He was also president of the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association from 1915-1918. The game he referred to in his quote was in 1886 between Queen’s University and Royal Military College.

James was also a key part of the founding of the Memorial Cup which is the championship in the Canadian Hockey League (CHL). The cup serves to remind us of the men who lost their lives in war. James himself got the rank of Captain by serving in the first World War.

The original International Hockey Hall of Fame was in Kingston, erected in 1943, and then being redone with the building pictured above in 1965. James was a big reason Kingston was chosen as the location and he himself was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1945.

This is the site today where that building stood. The memorial centre can be seen in the background on the left in both the before and after picture, as well as the slides on the right.

The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto opened in 1961 and the Kingston one was taken down recently with plans to move to a different location as the original HHOF. In July 2012, Kingston City Council relocated the collection on a short-term basis to the Invista Centre which is on Gardiners Road in Kingston. The former building apparently had expensive repairs that needed to be done that were out of reach.

The Memorial Centre was home to the Kingston Frontenacs from 1973 – 2008 before they moved to the new stadium downtown called the K-Rock Centre. It has always been a multi-purpose community centre with a pool, water-slides, ice rinks and parks. Now it is mostly used for junior teams, figure skaters and concerts.

For lunch I checked out this cool place located at Ordnance and Sydenham Streets called The Crack’d Pot. I got to say hello to owner Linda Forbrigger whose shop offers great meals with nice cheeses, charcuterie, take-home meals, sandwiches, and various sun-dried goods. Other products accompany much of what they sell. Olive oils, balsamic vinegars, mustards, chutneys, honey, nuts, crostini are chosen with care and displayed in elegance.

The food is made fresh daily and has a menu that changes weekly.

MENU THAT WEEK

Tuesday:
Pulled Pork Chili – filled with silky pulled pork, peppers, mushrooms and beans
Potato and Cheddar Soup – made with Wilton’s Old Cheddar
Mushroom-Lentil Pot Pies – a mixture of beautiful, local shrooms, a handful of potatoes, and deep house-made mushroom stock

Wednesday:
Civet of Venison and Artichokes served over mixed rice – Venison from Vankleek Hill, marinaded in red wine, brandy, red wine vinegar and aromatics, then slow, slow, slow braised until it’s tender.
Mexican Black Bean Soup – with notes of cinnamon, lime and coriander

Thursday:
Orange-Ginger Chicken – served with baby bok choy, peppers and shiitake mushrooms
Roasted Root Vegetable Soup – local root vegetables like butternut squash, sweet potatoes and coloutful carrots and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and a bit of cayenne for heat!

Friday:
Mac & Cheese! – Hercule de Charlevoix cheese, sherry, cream and a tonne of other delicious things make this vegetarian Mac & Cheese the best in town!
Rice & Black Bean Salad – nutty brown rice, red onions, red peppers, cherry tomatoes, lime and cilantro – a perfectly balanced hearty winter salad.

Next week I will be writing about the next part of the trip which will include the city of Montreal where the first indoor organized hockey game took place in 1885 on the 3rd of March. Also we will check out the sites such as the Montreal Forum which was the home of the Canadiens from 1926 to 1996 and many Stanley Cup winning teams. Today the Leafs and the Canadiens will face off in Montreal for the start of the 2013 season.

READ stage two of our journey, Montreal.

The post Kingston Hockey History – A Canadian Pilgrimage Part 1 appeared first on Toronto Guardian.