Hockey Hall of Fame: The Cup, the Vault and the Shoot Out

The Hall is busiest on weekends, during the Ontario March Break week and through the summer, when it also opens an hour earlier. A weekday at opening time gives you the Shoot Out rink and the Great Hall without a crowd. It is an indoor, all-weather attraction, which makes it the obvious plan for a January day or a rainy afternoon.

Tickets are sold online and at the admission desk; there is no timed entry, and online tickets are valid for any day until the end of the calendar year. The Hall closes on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and on induction day in November, so check the official site before you plan around a specific date. Prices change, so check the current rate there too.

The entrance is not the grand bank doors on Yonge Street: you enter from the concourse level of Brookfield Place, in its southeast corner. King and Union subway stations both connect to it through the PATH underground walkway, so on a cold day you can arrive from Union Station without going outside. From the street, enter Brookfield Place at 10 Front Street West and take the escalators down.

The only real queues inside are at the interactive games, where kids and adults line up to shoot on a virtual goalie. Head there straight from the entrance while it is quiet, then work through the exhibits, and save the Great Hall and the Stanley Cup for the end of the visit.

Admission is for the whole day, with a hand stamp for re-entry. That turns a two-hour museum into a flexible anchor: do the exhibits in the morning, walk ten minutes east to St. Lawrence Market for lunch, and come back for the games and a second look at the Cup in the afternoon.

Children usually care less about the plaques than about the Shoot Out, where you fire real pucks at a life-sized, computer-simulated goalie, and the goalie challenge where the shots come at you. Strollers and wheelchairs reach every area, with an elevator beside the Great Hall steps. There is no locker or coat check, so travel light.

Outside food is not allowed and the in-house snack bar is just that. Brookfield Place and the connected PATH have plenty of quick lunch options, and St. Lawrence Market, a ten-minute walk east along Front Street, is the better meal.

The Financial District and the blocks around Union Station put you on top of the PATH, the subway, the UP Express to Pearson airport and the GO trains to Niagara. The historic Fairmont Royal York faces the station; for lower prices, look a little east toward St. Lawrence and Old Town, which is also the nicer neighbourhood to walk out into in the evening.

The Stanley Cup that players lift spends much of the year on the road, especially in summer, when members of the winning team each get time with it. When it is away, a replica stands in the Great Hall, while the original bowl never leaves its vault. If seeing the presentation Cup matters to you, contact the Hall before your visit.