By: Giselle General

On December 17, 2017, my partner (now husband) and I decided to take the one last opportunity to tour the Coliseum before it was officially closed down. This is a summary of the tour, including some observations of the area and new things I have learned.

My partner is a born-and-raised Edmontonian, while I moved here when I went to university. That being said, I had a chance to go to the Coliseum a few times. First, for an Oilers game with my partner, then for a few concerts, and also another time for an Oil Kings game, during one of the nights when there was a Teddy Bear Toss.

We went there by taking public transit, which was lovely because it gave my partner greater flexibility. Also from our memory, parking in Northlands is expensive. As the years went by, traveling around by transit is a part of our date that we enjoy, since the buses and LRT vehicles are almost empty and we cozy up in our seat.

When we went to the Farewell Weekend tour, it was pretty quiet. I wonder if it is because it was the last day, or because it was pretty chilly.

The map was a useful guide to particular points of interest, and upon visiting those places, there were signs that explained the function of the area and some interesting historical or sports-related facts. Many places that are not publicly available is available for viewing this time around, such as the locker rooms and bathrooms for the athletes, the media room, fancy suites on the top floor, with a lobby that looked like a hotel.

We both forgot about the open skating opportunity, so instead, we went to the frown row, Corey sat in the penalty box, and asked me to take a photo of him pretending to be upset for being sent to the box. We spent a some time watching people skate around, while enjoying the soda and nachos we bought from the only concession stall that was open.

Afterwards, we decided to take the LRT to go to downtown instead of going home right away. At Churchill station we saw a woman painting a mural on the concourse of the LRT station. It was incredible, with patterns of what seemed to be a woman, lots of red birds, and a village and various scenery of a community. I started from a distance when he nudged me to say hello to the artist and chat about the mural. I felt shy at first but my husband reassured me that the artist might actually appreciate the chat. And he was right. I told the artist that she outline seems really interesting, that the elements she’s painted so far look incredible, and inquired her on what the painting is about. She told me that it is part of an initiative called Paint The Rails, which now had resulted to several paintings across different city’s LRT stations.

As we were already in downtown, we decided to stop by the Farmer’s Market and we arrived just in time to see the different shops close down. It’s nice to see the different types of businesses that were there, and we took some photos in front of the nice decoration that were set up in the interior of the City Hall building.

Afterwards we decided to visit the funicular for the first time, which is just a few block away by the Hotel MacDonald. We thought it was really neat and the lookout point at the bottom was great! I remember that one of the benefits of the funicular is for people with mobility aids to have a chance to see our beautiful river valley more closely. Using it ourselves made us realize and appreciate that goal.

After that we decided to head on home. As the Coliseum was accessible by transit and our detour in downtown Edmonton was also accessible by transit, we continued to use transit to head home. It was a lovely weekend date in the winter that we continued to cherish.