Vancouver streets a diminishing sea of blue

VANCOUVER - Before the puck dropped in Rogers Arena on Wednesday night, a standing room-only crowd of Vancouver Canucks fans chanted in unison: We want the Cup.

When Boston took a 2-0 lead in the second period, the plea of the sell-out crowd grew louder but when the Bruins scored a short-handed goal to make it 3-0, the crowd deflated, leaving only the most defiant fans on their feet.

Mark Hague was still cheering - but barely.

"I cheer my team, but if they score one more goal, I'm gone," said Hague, a 44-year-old season ticket holder from Langley, B.C.

"I'm demoralized. We're getting spanked, our team has lost the desire to win.

"They don't want it. Boston wants it more than we do."

Outside the arena, the city's downtown core was a teeming mass of Canucks' blue and green as more than 100,000 hockey fans - including a few brave Bruins supporters wearing team jerseys - amassed around giant TV screens broadcasting the deciding game.

"Feeling pretty sad," said Tyler Valdez, 20, who drove from Redmond, Wash., with his two buddies to be in the crowd on the street. "But it's not over until it's over."

"You want to see a grown man cry?" said Brad Quinn, 31, from Vancouver, though he was trying to stay positive. "But the game hasn't even started until there's two minutes left on the board."

Ticket sales reached a frenzied pitch in the hours before Game 7, setting what could well be a record price tag in sports, with tickets fetching as much as US$8,600 on Wednesday.

Prices were averaging US$5,000 each, more expensive even than the US$4,000 average shelled out for the gold medal men's game at the 2010 Olympics and the price for the last Super Bowl.

"This is astonishing to me," said Ben Kessler of seatgeek.com, a New York-based ticket search engine that aggregates online ticket sales for buyers.

The cheapest tickets available were hovering around US$1,900, he said.

"And that's to get you in. Those are tickets in the 300-section, tickets at the very back of Rogers Arena," Kessler said. "At the high end... it looks like about US$8,600 right now."

Demand was driven by the great rivalry between the Bruins and the Canucks, and Vancouver's thirst to hoist the cup for the first time in its 40 years in the NHL.

"It's not just Vancouver residents and fans but people across Canada are just really excited I think in general," Kessler said.

Evi Mustel has had season tickets since the early 1990s, including the 1994 season when the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final to the New York Rangers.

Mustel said she was well aware her tickets could have fetched thousands of dollars, but it wasn't a difficult decision to keep them.

"As lucrative as it is to sell your tickets, I'm not going to wait another 17 years for another experience like this," she said. "You'll remember this more than you'll remember the cash in your pockets."

Outside Rogers Arena, a crush of jersey-clad fans, many with their faces painted and several with Mohawk haircuts dyed in the Canucks' blue and green, streamed in as the start of the game drew closer.

Inside the arena, there was a carnival atmosphere with grown men wearing green and blue glitter face paint and Stanley Cup hats sprouting from heads like odd silver growths.

Boston had a greater presence in the stands than in previous games, thanks to a bus load of Bruins supporters.

As the fan zones filled up outdoors, some members the crowd tried to jump fences and rush the area to get inside.

Vancouver police said fans have been relatively well-behaved, given the size of the crowds, but the province ordered downtown liquor stores closed at 4 p.m. in an effort to stem any alcohol-fuelled troubles like the riots that marred the 1994 Stanley Cup final for Vancouver.

"The excitement and support for the Canucks is off the charts," Mayor Gregor Robertson said in a statement encouraging hockey fans to celebrate responsibly.

"Game 7 on home ice is what we've been waiting for and the atmosphere in the city is electric."

Summer Haan, 16, was among a group of graduates from Kitsilano Secondary school foregoing the typical graduation dance for the game.

"It's a little odd, but I kind of like the vibe. It makes our graduation all the more, like, big," she said with a smile.

The Canucks are looking to defeat the Bruins and bring the Stanley Cup back to Canada for the first time since the Montreal Canadiens won in 1993.

Although Vancouver was a sea of blue, there are at least two B.C. families rooting for Boston. Both Mark Recchi and Milan Lucic are B.C. boys among 14 Canadians on the Boston roster - more Canucks than the Canucks.

Sandeep Lota was wearing a Canucks jersey at the game, but he wasn't cheering for the home team.

Lota, a 37-year-old network security engineer from Calgary, paid $4,500 for a pair of tickets after he found himself in Vancouver during the final game for work.

The back of his jersey was emblazoned with the world "bandwagon," and the number 403 - Calgary's area code

"It's very painful," Lota said of wearing Canucks garb. "I'm not a Boston fan, but I'm a Vancouver hater, so I'm cheering for Boston here."

Lota said he was excited the deciding game of the Stanley Cup final was happening in Canada, but his patriotism wasn't enough to convince him to cheer for the Canucks.

"The Vancouver Canucks are not necessarily a Canadian team. There are fewer Canadian nationals on the Canucks than there are on the Bruins. They just happened to be located in a Canadian city."