Day 06
Toronto -3 degrees

We awoke to snow, and it snowed and snowed and snowed. Luckily it was not the wrong type of snow and Toronto was business as usual.

We bought our tokens and went underground. The subway is efficient and gets you where you need to be without the need to defrost on arrival.

The Hockey Hall of Fame was today’s destination. Having been raised in the UK where hockey could be played on muddy fields in pouring rain I was pre-warned by my Kiwi Canadian Cuzzie that you call Hockey “Hockey” and under no circumstance do you add the prefix ICE. We arrived and paid our 20 bucks, got our hand stamped (haven’t had a stamp since I went to a nightclub back in the day where it was a pound a pint).

We entered to find accolades to all forms of the game. The national team is, as expected, excellent, and the league is not too shabby either. We have tickets to see a game on Valentine’s Day and the local team here in Toronto are the Maple Leafs (do not adjust the grammar). We read up on the team, gazed at rooms of silverware and listened to excited kids recounting memories from games they had seen. We managed to find evidence that Australia, New Zealand and UK all have some association with the game and we got photo evidence as proof. They too reside in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

We left after an interesting walk through the history of Canada’s national game, headed back underground in search of lunch. We had planned to go up the CN tower today too, but as we couldn’t even see the top of it, we figured that there would be no view, so headed north back to downtown.

We found soup and bread for lunch in our now favourite store Loblaws, and with our bellies full and warm, we headed back to the hotel. Loblaws has three main parts. A supermarket, a grog shop, and huge area devoted to culinary treats. A  wall of deli meats, another of cheese from around the world, bakery full of breads and yummy pastries. Soups, salad bar, the list goes on. And the very popular Nutella bar where the afterschool kids rush in for free Nutella pancake tasters and fruit. The store opens at 07.00 and closes at 23.00.

Goal Keeper Masks Hockey Hall of Fame

The lonely planet told us about a pub called The Churchmouse. It was English themed so we decided to give it a go. The food was poor, I had to chisel the batter off the fish, the chips were soggy and the beer was warm. I have lived in Australia too long to tolerate warm beer. Enough said about dinner.