There’s nothing better than being on the road during the NHL playoffs, and that’s exactly what’s happening again for Round 2 as Tyler, Jay, Liam, and I jumped on a plane early Wednesday morning to make our way to Vancouver.

After arriving at the EIA before the sun came up, we jumped on our flight to Vancouver and got into town with a whole day ahead of us. With the sun shining and Sales Guy Jarrod waiting to pick us up from the airport, we made our way to the Delta Hotel to start prepping for the day’s live shows.

Checked in and settled into our room, we wandered down to Greta to knock out a game day edition of Oilersnation Everyday before grabbing some lunch and checking out the scene in downtown Vancouver for a little bit. To my surprise, we saw more than a few Oilers flags/signs hanging all over the place, and that made us feel good that there would be a sizeable contingent of Oilers fans in the building.

With meetings out of the way, we wandered back to our hotel to create some content for the site and prepare for our pre-game meetup at the Black Frog. Usually, we would post up at Greta for events like this, but they were pre-booked for a function, which meant the opportunity to enjoy an Edmonton-centric bar right behind enemy lines.

Once we landed at the Black Frog a few hours before puck drop, it wasn’t long before the bar started to fill up with orange and blue. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for the bar to fill up. There are so many Nation Citizens living in Vancouver in addition to the group that flew into town for these games, making Wednesday’s pre-game meetup an incredible experience to be a part of.

After a couple of hours of hanging out with our fellow Citizens in the books, we wandered down to Rogers Arena as a group. And what a sight it was to see that much blue and orange walking through downtown Vancouver. The chants were happening, our spirits were high, and the vibes were sky-high in the hour leading up to puck drop.

As for the game, well… it obviously didn’t go the way we would have wanted. Instead, we watched our boys cough up four straight goals against on their way to a 5-4 loss, and let me tell you, the result really dampened the mood. Nothing drops a turd in the punchbowl of life quite like an ending like that, but today is a new day, and the sun is shining.

Here’s hoping the anger we’re all feeling this morning lines up with the way our boys on the ice. After watching the post-game avails, I get the sense that they will be a motivated group heading into Game 2, and they’ll have to be. As bad as last night sucked, we’ve got a long series ahead of us and that means we can’t get too down and out after one bad loss.