Saturday, September 18, 2021

two times each

I went to see the Alouettes play tonight.

I took the 16h30 train in, and walked from Lucien L'Allier, up Stanley, east on Dr. Penfield, up Peel, up the mountain and then east on Olstead until I caught a pedestrian off ramp leading to entrance number 4 of Percival Molson Stadium. My seat was in section H1 and I was in row 4, seat 4. I had first to be metal detector wanded, then VaxiCode verified including also showing an ID and finally ticket verified.

I got there an hour before the game started, immediately upon entry bought a hot-dog trio, ate it once I found and sat at my seat, then read my book while waiting for the game to start. I'm currently reading Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts and had brought with me a sweater that I used as a seat cushion for the duration of the game and when the game ended I put the sweater on as I had been starting to get cold already, but was able to bear it until the end of the game. It was 18C by the end of the game, a cold temperature at this time of year.

From where I was sitting, I was able to see the almost full moon rise over the opposite side of the stadium. And impressively, with the excessive lighting of the stadium, I was also able to see the small blip that is Jupiter, just above and to the right of the moon. It really shows how massive Jupiter is that it can be seen so easily under such lighting conditions.

The people in front of me, to my right, and behind me to the right were English speaking, the people to the left, and behind me and behind me to the left were French speaking. I did not interact with any of them.

At half time there was a video montage to celebrate the efforts of our Canadian Olympic athletes from Quebec who had competed in the last six weeks. After the montage, Aurelie Rivard, a Paralympic swimmer who won five medals, was interviewed. Up in a distant section I could see there were perhaps 20 of the athletes present in person.

At one point during a pause in the game a song came on (well, for all such pauses a song would come on) but this particular song (I do not recall what it was) had a somewhat calmer rhythm and there were perhaps a dozen people in the stands on the opposite side of the field who took their mobile devices, turned on the flash light on their device and waved it back and forth with the music. I ended up doing the same and had this noticeable feeling of communion. Perhaps an hour later, the PA guy asked everyone to light up the stadium, so then perhaps 80% of the people in the stands lit up their devices. This did not give me that same sense of communion, though it was impressive to see.

The Als only managed to score field goals and ended up with 18 points. The Lions scored quite a few touchdowns and ended with 27. At the beginning of the fourth quarter it looked like we could have come really close but it was at that time that another of quarterback Adam's interception throws happened, nullifying the promising play.

I left the stadium with perhaps 10 seconds left before the end and exited the stadium by way of  University street where I walked all the way down, passing many slower walkers, to McGill metro where the metro arrived but two minutes later. I got to the already full 211 bus with two minutes to spare while still more people got on the bus, making it the most full that I've seen a transit bus since before the pandemic.

I enjoyed the experience even under the circumstances that I went alone and would not hesitate to do this again. I also enjoyed being so close to the game and suspect I'd prefer to pay extra to be close as compared to paying less to attend two games.

No comments: