You’ll have to excuse the slight change-up of The 49th Parallel this week, but when Budweiser offers you 2 tickets to the exclusive NHL Party at the Commodore Ballroom (and free beer) you don’t turn it down!

(There will be video coming as well, hopefully by the weekend)

After spending a day checking out the various festivities that are currently in town, Mike and I made our way over to the Commodore nice and early to get a pre-party tour inside.

The entire club had been totally overhauled with a giant mountainscape on the stage, a crazy projection ball hanging from the ceiling, various platforms to dance on all over the floor, ice sculptures, and huge stacks of the cool Budweiser beer cans behind all the bars. You could tell just from the setup that the party was going to be awesome.

After the tour we made our way down to the Red Carpet where I was interviewed and did some photos ops. You would think that by now I would have gotten better at speaking in front of a camera, but apparently talking about yourself standing up, and talking about the news sitting down on a couch are two very different skill sets. I have a new found respect for celebs and their ability to give interviews on a red carpet.

After having my 15 seconds of fame in front of the cameras, and hearing passerby’s on the street asking, “who’s that guy? I think he might have been in Twilight”, Mike and I stepped back into the press area and watched as the celebs rolled in, including Jon Hamm (Mad Men), Hayden Christensen (Star Wars), Logan Huffman (V), Ray Shero (GM of the Penguins), and my personal favourite, the Stanley Cup!

The real party, however, was going on inside, so we headed in, grabbed some beers, and did what any self-respecting person does in a club: hit up the dance floor. Did I mention that there were body-painted Budweiser girls?

All and all, I think the major highlights of the night were getting to meet Jon Hamm (he was a really nice guy), meeting VancityAllie (the other party crasher), and hanging out with Jesse Weeler and Logan Huffman from the TV show V. The guys were super chill and we wound up sharing a cab home.

You know it was an Epic party when you don’t get home until 5:30am, and you have no voice left. There’s simply no way I could do it justice in this short blog. Cheers to Budweiser for making it all happen, and I’m super stoked to be doing it all again on Friday at the Under Armour party.