Rexall Place - Winter Hockey - Game 13

Rexall Place is the NHL Arena here in Edmonton.  It is home to the Edmonton Oilers of the NHL and the Edmonton Oil Kings of the WHL.  This is currently the farewell season as a new arena, Rogers Place is currently under construction downtown.  Oilers and Oil Kings owner Darryl Katz got a sweetheart deal courtesy of the taxpayers of Edmonton.  The new arena is being largely funded by the public purse, with only minimal input from Mr. Katz.  Most if not all of the revenue generated at the new arena will be turned over to him.  He has made it known that he is not in favor of allowing the old arena to continue to operate once the new one is open.  I am of the opinion that the taxpayers have contributed enough to his bottom line and the old arena should continue to operate and compete with him for concerts, and other non-hockey entertainment events.  The old arena opened as Northlands Coliseum in 1974.  In 1995 the name changed to the Edmonton Coliseum.  In 1998 it was changed again to the Skyreach Center.  Finally in 2003 the current name, Rexall place, became official.  It is operated by Northlands, a city controlled organization that puts together the Canadian Finals Rodeo, the Klondike Days Exhibition, various trade shows and conventions, and operates the horse racing track nearby.

The Renegades Hockey Team was given the opportunity to play one of our Beer League hockey games at Rexall Place.  We had to pay a team surcharge of $700 for this opportunity. The guys were all over it.  The package included tickets to an Oil Kings game before ours, and then the full experience of playing in an NHL arena.  Our team names were on the score board, and all goals, assists and penalties were annoucned over the PA system.  We were allowed to bring some family and friends as spectators.  I have played at the coliseum a number of times in the past so it was not a new experience for me, but for most of the guys on the team it was the first time.  Margarit and the girls have never seen me play here before so they came along to watch.  Our game was a fairly late one, as it didn't start until a little after 10:00PM, once the Oil Kings and Prince Albert Raiders had finished up their WHL game.  We didn't get the girls home and into bed until about midnight, so no doubt they will be very tired for school this morning.

We had a lot of fun playing there, but unfortunately the game didn't go so well for the Renegades.  It was a clean, fun game and we were pretty evenly matched.  We played against the first place team in our division, The Moose.  These guys were decent players, but not exceptional and it was their goaltender that stole the game for them.  We just couldn't seem to get much past him.  We were down by a score of 4-2 and pulled our goaltender in the last minute to try and make it close.  They ended up getting an empty net goal in the dying seconds to make the final score 5-2.
We weren't allowed to bring a decent camera into Rexall Place due to our attendance at the Oil Kings WHL game in advance of the Renegades game.  The girls took these snapshots of the game, of me and of each other, but we were only allowed to bring in a small little digital point and shoot camera, hence the poor quality...