{"id":780990,"date":"2026-07-05T02:58:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T02:58:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/780990\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T02:58:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T02:58:48","slug":"vancouver-ice-hockey-a-guide-to-experiencing-a-canucks-game-at-rogers-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/780990\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver ice hockey: A guide to experiencing a Canucks game at Rogers Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JimSave<\/p>\n

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Sport is rich with stories \u2013 of mighty victories and dramatic failures, last-minute triumphs and beaten-by-the clock tragedies. I\u2019m no expert on most sports, but I love the window they give to a country\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n

Vancouver right now is rich with a whole world of cultures as it plays host to a series of games in the 2026 FIFA World Cup \u2013 including Australia\u2019s famous first round win over Turkey \u2013 but outside football season, you\u2019ll find the focus on ice and a night at the ice hockey gives a wonderful window into Canadian culture.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m connected to home when the evening starts with dinner at Vancouver\u2019s Elisa restaurant, which specialises in steak. Not just any old steak, but the absolute premium \u2013 rib eye from Alberta or Manitoba or strip loin from Prince Edward Island. And wagyu from the King River, Australia. That\u2019s right, the King Valley in the heart of Victoria\u2019s High Country. \u201cWe stopped buying beef from the US when the tariffs hit,\u201d says my server. Their loss, our gain.<\/p>\n

\"SteakSteak on the grill at Elisa in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

This is a theme in 2026 Canada \u2013 another server told me it was a good year for Canadian Club (whisky). \u201cYou won\u2019t find Jack Daniel\u2019s or any other US whiskey or bourbon in Canadian liquor stores right now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rogers Arena, home to the Vancouver Canucks, is a short walk from the restaurant and soon enough we\u2019re inside and seated behind one of the goals. The US might be on the nose in beef and spirits, but sport won\u2019t let tariffs be a barrier. We stand for the anthems \u2013 first the Star-Spangled Banner for the visitors, the Dallas Stars, all the way from Texas, and then O Canada for the home team.<\/p>\n

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Down to business. How can they skate like that? There\u2019s a frenzy of stick-clacking and puck-whacking. I\u2019m sitting next to a couple of locals in their Canucks jerseys and I confess my ignorance to them and, having guaranteed I\u2019ll support their team, they kindly explain the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kinda hopeless right now,\u201d one of them concedes (could have told me that before I signed up), \u201cthe Canucks really haven\u2019t been that great for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena in their red and gold throwback outfits.AP<\/p>\n

Each team has five players and a goalie in the play at any one time, but they rotate off a bench of 14 other players that feeds them on to the ice as though they\u2019re spilling off a production line. My Canucks look like bumblebees as they buzz on and off the rink in their black, red and gold outfits (it\u2019s a \u201cthrowback\u201d outfit, normally they\u2019re decked out in blue, green and white).<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long do they stay out there for?\u201d I ask, thinking they\u2019d need a break after going at it with this kind of energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, maybe a minute, two minutes is a very long time for a forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was told biffo is OK in ice hockey, is that true?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot in the Olympics! But yes, it\u2019s OK one-on-one, but if you try and join a fight that\u2019s started, that\u2019s not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

With all that padding, it seems to me it\u2019d be like one punching bag hitting another punching bag, but I\u2019m not about to get out there and find out. Apparently the transgressors can get five-minute penalties, but they can be replaced, and so the game goes on.<\/p>\n

Speaking of minutes, none goes unfilled here. Singers and dancers hit the ice whenever there\u2019s a break in play and when the Canucks score a goal (spoiler alert, this only happens once tonight, whereas for Dallas, it happens seven times) a drummer named Crazy P gets the crowd going.<\/p>\n

Truth be known, Crazy P gets the crowd going whenever he can, invoking the not-so-difficult home town chant of \u201cgo Canucks go\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"VancouverVancouver from the air \u2013 the bigger stadium with the white roof is World Cup venue BC Place; Rogers Arena is the smaller stadium to its right.iStock<\/p>\n

I ask my experts if there\u2019s anyone in particular I should watch. They tell me number four is good, but he\u2019s playing for Dallas. That would be their captain, Miro Heiskanen, who hails from Finland and was on the Finns\u2019 bronze medal team at the 2026 Olympics.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m polite enough not to take the Olympics conversation any further, given all Canada remains deep in despair, having lost the gold-medal ice hockey final to their greatest rival, the United States. They can still come and play hockey, but their beef and whiskey aren\u2019t getting over the border.<\/p>\n

THE DETAILSRelated Article\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

EAT
Elisa Restaurant is in Vancouver\u2019s Yaletown at 1109 Hamilton Street. See elisasteak.com<\/a><\/p>\n

STAY
The five-star Fairmont Waterfront is minutes from central Vancouver and within easy reach of Rogers Arena; rooms from $C520 ($527). See fairmont.com<\/a><\/p>\n

PLAY
For more on the Canucks, including ticketing. See nhl.com\/canucks<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"JimJim Darby<\/a> is a senior producer for Traveller and the author of White Gold, a history of Australia in winter sports.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-780990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}