The Stanley Cup playoffs - Vancouver and its suburbs have gone Cup crazy now that we are finally within reach of winning it.

The atmosphere is akin to the 2011 Winter Olympics, with huge crowds partying it up downtown, leaving those of us living in the suburbs envying it from afar.

The City of Surrey did open up Central City plaza for public viewing of the games, but having watched the downtown crowds on the evening news after winning the last series, my kids and I planned to go to the CBC plaza instead to soak up the atmosphere in downtown Vancouver.

I know it's not all fun down there. There is always going to be some who think its OK to smuggle alcohol and drink it on the streets with police officers standing a couple of feet away.

I also know there is the possibility that we could get caught up in some crazy situation and get pulled into a huge crowd gone crazy.

Those were my husband's fears. He, understandably, didn't want any harm coming to his family, and going downtown meant going into a danger zone.

I, on the other hand, was determined to take my teens downtown for at least one game. The husband lost out despite his sensible argument.

So, on Saturday, I packed up the kids, the lawn chairs, the picnic blanket and headed out to watch the game.

The whining began as soon as we hit downtown and traffic started to crawl. Since we were crossing a couple of bridges and going to be in Vancouver anyway, we had had set up a few non-hockey related meetings prior to the game.

An hour of that and the kids lost their enthusiasm and the rest of the air left them as the temperature rose.

By the time we parked and made our way to the square, the kids and the husband were cranky. I just focused on getting a good spot to watch the game.

The three wilting flowers headed into the nearest restaurant to cool off and eat, leaving me to watch our spot.

As I sat there in the hot sun, all I could think of was that I was here so the kids could enjoy this, so they could be in a crowd that was rooting for the same team.

But I was there all by myself, no kids in sight, with my face painted with Canuck colours.

When the kids finally did show up, they whined about the heat, the sun and picked at each other. Not an advocate of alcohol before 5 p.m., I badly needed a drink to soothe my sunburned nerves.

Finally, the game started, and after the first goal the party began in earnest.

My kids calmed down, enjoyed the game and the atmosphere, marvelling at the thousands of fans in the immediate area.

The police officers did an amazing job keeping it all calm and safe. The many families with children, some just babies, were able to enjoy without any concern.

It was a great evening with an awesome overtime goal that I'm sure all would want Alex Burrows to repeat in Game 4.

The best part was getting apologies from the kids for their earlier whiny attitude. They showered me with hugs, kisses, thank-yous and appreciation for the outing and the experience they were lucky to enjoy!

I would do it all over again - even with the full knowledge that getting there will be a pain.

Harvinder Sandhu's columns appear weekly in the Now. You can read all her past columns online at thenownewspaper.com