The Stanley Cup and Niagara Falls
Time to Experience Ontario
This past weekend was a busy one and I’m hoping to continue the trend for the rest of August before school starts. On Saturday the weather was good so I decided to go on a bike ride to Evergreen Brickworks in the morning but that was over faster than I expected so I continued on by biking down the Don Valley and along the waterfront to Union Station. I’ve made a tentative plan to visit quite a few museums at the end of the month and as I was passing Union Station I remembered about the Hockey Hall of Fame which wasn’t on my list. With nothing else to do, I decided to check it out.
The Hall of Fame is in the basement of Brookfield Place which is well known for the Calatrava designed atrium. The exhibits are set up as a series of dead ends so there’s no straight forward path through but there are a lot of jerseys, pucks, and other memorability to see and read about. There is also a very long documentary covering the history of hockey which was really interesting. I passed a few interactive digital displays and a place to shoot pucks in the back but I didn’t try it. I was surprised by the number of significant moments in hockey that also correlated to deep memories of mine such as the Canadian 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics where Canada’s won gold for the first time in 50 years as well as Sidney Crosby’s 2010 Olympic overtime goal. I distinctly remember where I was when these happened and how important those moments were in history. As well, there were a lot of memories of names I remember hearing all the time on broadcasts and who’s hockey cards I had.
The main reason I visited the Hockey Hall of Fame was to see the Stanley Cup. According to the photographer the room is usually packed with people and there’s a long line to get a photo but since the world’s still just opening up and there aren’t any international travelers I was able to admire the cup and speak with the photographer, a student working a summer job. Now I’ve seen and touched the Stanley Cup!
The next day was a trip to Niagara falls. The trip was poorly planned on my part through a mix-up of communication but in the end Evan and Jenna were able to meet me for the early 8:51AM train from Union Station to Niagara Falls GO. There are only four trains between Toronto and Niagara Falls on the weekends and only the 8:51AM is practical for tourism. It’s a pretty blatantly stupid schedule because the second train isn’t till 1PM and it’s a two hour journey. It’s also worth mentioning that the 25$ train tickets I had to pre-purchase for a round trip aren’t actually the best deal despite being heavily advertised by GO train. There’s a cheaper 10$ day ticket and although the 25$ ticket includes bus use in Niagara falls, it’s only worth 9$ so…
Jenna and Evan weren’t to happy about getting up early and missing breakfast but made the best of it. The train was quite busy and when we arrived in Niagara Falls we were able to get a bus to the main tourist area. We were going to get off at Clifton hill to get breakfast (though it was lunch time) but no-one pushed the stop request and we ended up getting off at Table Rock Welcome Centre, right beside the falls.
Wow it is big. I knew it would be big but I was still impressed by the size and the amount of water continuously flowing over it. As Evan put it, “you’d think the great lakes would be empty,” a sentiment I could relate to. Peak flow is 6.4 million liters per second although it does change depending on the hydro electric power generation.
We had to get food first though so we took the Falls Incline Railway up the embankment to the casinos and went to Tim Hortons. As someone pointed out on google reviews, it could have been just a staircase but then it wouldn’t be monetized. It’s only $6 round trip though so it’s probably the cheapest thing to do in Niagara falls.
We took a walk up river to visit the old hydro power stations because they looked interesting architecturally. Unfortunately the oldest one was fenced off and the other one was a museum with an admission more than we were willing to pay. Apparently it opened just two days earlier. It looked cool but $20 per ticket was too much. Instead we made our way back along the river following it’s downstream travel and taking a few more pictures.
The falls produce quite a lot of mist which flows up and over the walkway making certain places refreshingly cooler. There were still a lot of people around but I was told this wasn’t busy so I’d hate to come here when it’s normal.
One of the things I really wanted to do in Niagara Falls was the Dino mini-putt. I really enjoy mini-putts and I was very grateful that Evan and Jenna were able to come so that I wouldn't be alone. To my elation, I got a hole-in-one on the first hole! Jenna also got a hole-in-one later on but I was able to sneak the overall win by 6 strokes.
Having spent the day in the sun, we were petty exhausted so we got dollar frosties from Wendy’s as a good refresher but it wasn’t quite enough so we had an early dinner at Kelsey’s under a cool covered patio. They had really good food, service, and were right beside the attractions. It’s not often that a restaurant is doing everything right but they are.
Our last stop of the day was the White Water River Walk near Niagara GO station. Evan had read up on it on a previous trip and it looked pretty cool. An elevator from the1930s with an operator took us down about 70m to river level. There is a short boardwalk along the rapids which really show how much water is moving through the river and how fast it is.
The rapids are considered a class 6 rapid, unnavigable, and has waves up to 5m tall. There are three lookout platforms to get good views as well as some informative signs along the boardwalk. This was a fun conclusion to a good day of fun. The train back was an hour late but we were all pretty tired and napped for most of the way. I’m happy that I’ve been-to and seen the Niagara Falls but it really is a touristy place so the next time I’d like to bike to Niagara on the lake and visit some of the wineries.
