Oshawa’s General Motors Centre is a great new addition to their gritty but improving downtown

For part 2 of our Sunday roadie, we visited Oshawa for game 3 of the playoff series pitting the Niagara Ice Dogs and homestanding Oshawa Generals.

Oshawa’s got a brand new venue in General Motors Pla….errr..Centre. There was probably a time when Oshawa was a separate city that was kind of “out there” but no more, as Toronto’s white hot growth and sprawl has just about enveloped this community 30 miles or so to the east of Metro. Their downtown is a bit rough around the edges, but clean and things are looking on the upswing as far as renewal and development, with the new hockey venue a centerpiece of it all.

We would call the arena nice digs, your basic prototype, modern OHL venue with about six thou in seating and a single concourse above the seating bowl. A two level restaurant with panoramic views spans one entire side of the sidelines, with a press gondola perched above that. Another “Canadian Thing” is the mammoth signs on each wall of the seating bowl displaying the side of the street you’re on. Kind of cool actually.

The Gennies won 4-1 to take a 2 game to 1 lead in their best of 7 quarterfinals series, and as a result the fans got free fries from Mickey D’s (for four goals).

We have to mention the great Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame in the building, with much of the memorabilia donated by former players and members of the community. Lotsa cool stuff, we spent almost 45 minutes doing the tour.

We got reintroduced to poutine, good stuff but could have been put in the nuker for thirty more seconds to melt the cheese. The rest of the concessions fare offers the typical ballpark dreck, although the Pizza Pizza and the cheese steaks looked pretty decent.

This team is one of the flagship franchises in the OHL, with a long history and plenty of tradition. Lindros and Orr played here, team won seven OHL titles in the WWII years, and the banners for this and the four Memorial Cups that they’ve won all hang proudly.

Three years ago we got to see Sidney Crosby play with the Rimouski Oceanic when we did the roadie to Lewiston, ME, and we knew right then and there watching him play that Crosby was the real deal. The same can be said of future #1 NHL pick John Tavares of Oshawa; he does it all - kill penalties, hit, skate, always two steps ahead of everyone else. Tonight he had two assists in the win.

So that about covers our cool one day USRT to the North - a perfect sundrenched Sunday in Canada; some great baseball and intense hockey; checking out the sights of awesome Toronto. We wrapped up the ride home by stopping into a local Pizza Pizza in Oshawa and redeeming our ticket stubs from earlier in the day for a free slice, thanks to the Jays striking out 7 Bosox hitters.

That’s what we call the Toronto gastronomic trifecta - Shopsy’s dog, Poutine and Pizza Pizza. Ain’t life great!

The Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame and Museum is a MUST visit, located right off the main concourse

For a smaller arena, this place has a real “big league” feel and atmosphere

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