Love Good Beer

Molson Canadian Hockey House Media Preview

Thursday, February 11th, 2010 | Beer | 2 Comments

If you are from Vancouver and you haven’t heard of the Molson Canadian Hockey House, then you’ve been living under a rock.  It’s a big tent between Science World, I mean Telus Sphere, and GM Place, I mean Canada Hockey Place, for people to party at during the Olympics.  Before I tell this tale, I should let you know what my stance on the Olympics is.  If I was given $7billion dollars, I wouldn’t spend it on the Olympics.  That being said, the Olympics are here and they aren’t coming back, so I’m going to try to enjoy them as much as I can.  I’m going to soak up as much of the good the Olympics has to offer and I might as well; we’ll be paying this party off for a while.

Anyway, the organizers behind the MCHH emailed me a couple weeks ago to let me know that “due to overwhelming demand for media access” I should apply for my media accreditation asap.  The funny thing was, I never asked.  I did apply for media accreditation, which for me would really just be free tickets, but I haven’t heard back yet.  I suppose somebody actually important, or maybe actually part of the media, was accredited instead.  I did, however, get an invite to the media preview that took place yesterday.

Since the preview was around lunch time and close enough to my office, I walked.  It was tough to navigate through all the fencing and clueless security staff (nobody seemed to know where it was) to actually find MCHH, but I made it and nobody ever once asked me where I was going.  I had no badge and could have blow up everything had I been a terrorist.  I thought that was funny.  Nobody even asked me who I was as I entered MCHH.  I thought that was funny too, anyone could have walked in.  Inside, I didn’t expect to find much of anything impressive.  I expected a giant beer garden with picnic tables and plastic chairs, but what I found was a setup to rival some nicer nightclubs.  This tent, which is apparently the largest ever built in North America at 65000 sqft, was decked out.  I wandered around the throngs of actual media (they even had big fancy cameras, don’t they know the iPhone has a camera?) and into all of the rooms.  Yes, there are rooms.  There was the chump area for common folk, VIP rooms, an IIHF lounge, an NHLPA lounge, and a Team Canada lounge where the players and their hangers out will actually be hanging out.

The proceedings started shortly after my wanderings and featured talks by the organizers, a speak by Hockey Canada President Bob Nicholson, and entertainment by Tyler Stewart of the Barenaked Ladies.  Stan Smyl was there and so were many scantily clad Molson girls serving beer, zoinks!  There were HD TVs and giant projection screens everywhere, a giant stage where the bands will play, and there will be famous people milling around throughout the two weeks. They have quite the set of entertainment lined up.

The whole place was quite impressive, much more impressive that my crappy pictures can show, and the preview actually made me want to go hang out there.  Sadly, the common folk tickets are sold out, but maybe I’ll get accredited as media?  One can dream.  Seriously though, it’s going to be an epic party in there, especially when Canada is playing.  The only downside to the MCHH? The beer.  All Molson all the time.  Still, go Canada go!

Cheers,

Chris

Tags: barenaked ladies, Beer, bob nicholson, hockey canada, molson canadian hockey house, olympics, stan smyl, tyler stewart, vancouver 2010