Some great memories at the Corral even though it was still very much from before my time hockey-wise. A couple of family friends used to rent it out on Boxing Day and tons of people would go skating in the morning on the 26th every year when I was a kid. I'd always spend some time in the concourse on the way out as the adults chatted looking at all the pictures and things on the wall.
Super Dogs of course. Franz Ferdinand. Thin Lizzy with zero original members (!!!) opening for Deep Purple. Saw The Strokes there, when we got to our seats it was one of those two-person bench seats and my buddy said "What is this? A bench?" when he pushed it down. Fab Moretti, their drummer, was dating Drew Barrymore at the time and from where we were sitting we could see her backstage (kind of sidestage) a few times.
One specific anecdote always sticks out though. I went with my buddy to see The Offspring there the same night the Red Wings and Penguins played in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. We were both just back in Calgary for the summer after finishing a university year. My buddy really wanted to go and I was able to get super cheap tickets off a guy who wanted to watch the hockey game. We planned to catch as much of the hockey as we could and enjoy the show. When we got into the Corral we found a tv showing the game by one of the concessions and got in line to grab some beers and watch. The line was really long as tons of people were grabbing beer before the show started. My buddy ran off to go to the bathroom figuring he'd make it back before I got to the front of the line. All of a sudden the line moved quicker so I was at the front and he wasn't back yet. I asked for four beers but they weren't allowed to sell more than two per customer. I told them my buddy would be back in a moment, so the woman supervising agreed to sell me four if I would just wait for my buddy to get back before I walked off with them. So I am waiting, and my buddy appears with four beers in his hands. He had found a concession with a short line on the way back from the bathroom and they just sold him four with no questions asked. When he walked up the supervisor woman goes "Oh boy, I see that. You guys better drink some of those before you walk off". We hung out at the concession counter and watched the game as we drank most of the beers and as things quieted down the staff started chatting with us and were really nice and found the situation funny. I won't go into much more detail, but we probably didn't need eight beers at that point in the night. My friend and I lost each other at some point and ended up meeting up at Denny's in Motel Village. I'll never forget negotiating to buy four beers just to watch my buddy walk up with four of his own and the look on the face of the staff.
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