If I wasn’t someone who hated cold weather so much, I would think that I was meant to live in Canada. There is something about Canada that I love so much. No matter what city in Canada I go to, I always get the same good vibes. It is clean, scenic, and is hockey-obsessed..what more can I ask for? Last week I visited Calgary and Edmonton and despite the negative temperatures, I was able to see amazing things!
Fun fact: Adam and I love hockey and more specifically, we are huge fans of the San Jose Sharks. Our personal bucket list is to see the Sharks play in every arena in the NHL. We travel to see multiple games every season, which isn’t easy when you are a fan of a California team but live in Pittsburgh..but, it’s just our thing! It is something we are both passionate about and the perfect thing we can share together. We have been to 17 different arenas which is what brought us to Calgary and Edmonton. This trip made our arena list go up to 19, but we also took advantage of other fun things on our trip.
CALGARY
In Calgary, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Calgary for two nights. The hotel is a clean, standard hotel that features a bar and a lovely lit fireplace as soon as you walk in. It is also directly next to a Tim Hortons which is a major plus for us! I know Tim Hortons is also in the US, but for some reason when I am in Canada I go to Tim Hortons multiple times. It just feels so “Canada” to me. We chose this hotel because it was walking distance to the arena, and also to Calgary Tower. We only had one full day in Calgary, so the one thing besides the game I wanted to do was go to Calgary Tower.
Calgary Tower is 627 feet high and has a 360 view of the city. From the tower, you can see the entire downtown area as well as the mountains in the distance. It was a clear, sunny day so the view was beautiful. The tower also features a section of glass flooring so you can see down to the street below. Initially I had the biggest stomach drop when I stepped on the glass, but I quickly got over it for the great photo ops! There is also a revolving restaurant in the tower. I did not go to the restaurant, but have heard great things about it.
Later that night we went to the Sharks-Flames game at the Scotiabank Saddledome. The arena is pretty old to be honest and not one of the best I have been to, but we saw a Sharks win so that is all that matters!
EDMONTON
The next day we flew from Calgary to Edmonton, which was a quick 30 minute flight. It took longer to de-ice the plane and be cleared for take-off than the actual flight time. Edmonton is only about 3 hours away but it was even colder than Calgary. Very, VERY cold. The drive into the city is a beautiful, welcoming landscape with completely snowed over streets. We stayed downtown at the Coast Edmonton Plaza Hotel, which was nice and clean and also walking distance to the arena. Later in the afternoon, we had reservations to visit Ice Castles Edmonton. I had discovered Ice Castles on Instagram and was so excited to find out that Edmonton was one of six locations in North America.
Ice Castles is truly a majestic winter wonderland. The temperature was almost -20 that day. so it was frigidly cold. I tried to layer as much as I could, but it was still freezing. The only benefit to the temperature was it made the area less crowded so we were really able to take it all in and explore. Ice Castles is basically a large structure made out of ice which features tunnels and archways. It almost reminded me of a frozen corn maze. The photo opportunities are endless and the pictures are ones I will treasure forever. We stayed for about 40 minutes and probably could have stayed longer if it weren’t so cold. If you ever have the chance to visit an Ice Castles location, do it!
The following day we visited the West Edmonton Mall in the afternoon. I read that the mall is the largest in North America, so for that novelty alone I had to go! I also like to shop in Canada because it offers other stores that aren’t accessible in the US or Pittsburgh. The mall is very spacious and features a water park, an amusement park, mini golf, and even some sea lion water show. My favorite part of the mall was the ice rink inside that featured a figure skating class and a hockey game that Adam couldn’t stop watching.
Later that night we braved the cold again and walked to Rogers Place for the Sharks-Oilers game. Rogers Place is a beautiful, state-of-the-art arena. Oilers fans are some of the best I have been around throughout the league and we were able to see another Sharks win.
All in all I enjoyed our trip and loved being able to see Canadian cities I have not yet seen. I’ll be honest when I say that the cold weather there isn’t for me and the 30 degrees we returned to in Pittsburgh legitimately felt like a heat wave! Next month we are traveling to California so be on the look out for another travel guide soon!
