My third event at Rogers Place tonight, open house being the first and Oil Kings beings the second.
Starting to really get the hang of the building as a whole!
Got there at 5:30 and entered on the LRT side, walked around to Ford hall and entered the rink. I'm on a mission to try the core signature dishes each visit. Took the escalator to the upper concourse and started searching for perogie nachos. Did a lap, couldn't find them. Checked the app, which told me they were at the whitemud kitchen and headed straight there. Once I got there the worker informed me they didn't have them, which was disappointing. So in response I asked for the tottine, but the worker informed me they didn't have bacon for it. Disappointed again. I took an extremely easy to find elevator with a supremely helpful employee down to the main concourse and came upon Alberta smoked. I love pulled pork, so picking the pulled pork sandwich was easy. I loaded up with a ton of extra sauce which was left to the side in bottles and bought a Pepsi. $20 in total for my meal, which included chips. The sandwich was fantastic. I will abolsutely be back. You DO pay more, but get great quality in return.
Made our way to our seats and watched the game.
The rink is incredibly well lit and has impressive sight lines. I'm in section 232, so I see why people mention how steep it is, but I don't see it as a problem. Seats are nothing to write home about. The seats to my left are part of the bowl contour, and are angled towards each other... can't see that being comfy for those two people.
The scoreboard is massive and clear, but as a musician what has really stood out to me is how good the sound system is. It's loud, clear, and full of dynamic.
The atmosphere in the building was lacklustre for the most part until the Oilers did things, which is to be expected.
During the second intermission I used the Mens room to the right of my section. I expected an absolute backlog of people, but found that even though it was super busy, the line was moving exceptionally quick. The urinals are fine. The lack of dividers don't bother me at all. Middle of the intermission and I was out of my seat, peed, made it back to my section in under four minutes. That's really good.
I did notice congestion in areas, but to me it appeared that most of that was due to people not utilizing the actual standing areas and just conversing in groups at the bottleneck.
After the 50/50, which I didn't win, the place half cleared out. After the final buzzer, I walked to the stairwell exit right near by, found my way to the main concourse, took a left into Ford hall and another left to the pedway around to the LRT side exit. The people flow was a zillion times better than Rexall. I got out with so much ease, it was actually crazy. The drive out of the area was also SUPER easy.
In summary, the more time I spend in this building, the better and easier it gets. I have no doubts that people will have bad experiences, and that it will take a good year to sort out the bugs... but personally, I'm loving it.
*Written on my iPhone, so I apologize for any spelling/grammar mistakes*