Yesterday we drove up to Edmonton for the final game at Rexall Place. In the 80s Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and company put Edmonton on the map playing for the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers were dominant in the 80s winning 5 Stanley cups from 1984 to 1990. Since that time they have made the playoffs 9 times in the last 24 seasons. Their last appearance was an amazing run to the Stanley Cup finals in which they suffered a heart breaking loss in game 7... that was 10 years ago...
Since that time the Oilers have been on a 10 year rebuild. It has not gone well but things are looking up with teenage phenom Connor McDavid leading the team. The other good news is Rexall Place (Northlands Coliseum) is being retired and a brand new shinny arena will be opened for the 2016-17 season.
I normally would not take a camera (Aside from the iPhone) but being that last night would be the last NHL game played at Rexall Place I wanted to take a decent camera to grab some photos. Northlands would not commit to what would be allowed camera wise (normally DSLRs are not allowed at a games). Professional cameras are not allowed, but what a "professional" camera these days is debatable. I didn't want to attract too much attention with a large lens so opted for the Fuji X-T1 with the Rokinon 8mm and an Fuji X-E2 with the pancake 27mm. Turns out you could have brought whatever you wanted as they were fairly lax at security.
My goal was to grab a couple of exterior shots, photo at the Gretzky statue, a couple of panorama's and whatever I could get from our seats. Upon leaving I wasn't too excited with what I captured but tonight I loaded the memory cards and although I didn't check all the boxes above I am pretty happy with what I got considering I the lens I had.
Here is the Flickr Album:
