For the Georgia Straight’s 16th annual Best of Vancouver issue, our editorial team has spent months on the lookout for good deeds, weird urban details, and various howlers to highlight. Here’s our contributors’ picks for Best of Vancouver 2011.

Best place to get an old-school video-game fix

Gamedeals Video Games
407 Columbia Street, New Westminster
332 Water Street, Vancouver

Did your decades-old Atari 2600 joystick finally go kaput after countless hours of use dodging Pac-Man ghost monsters? Or perhaps your much-loved Super Mario Bros. game cartridge suddenly bit the dust? In such cases, the friendly folks at Gamedeals Video Games can help you get back to the important business of gobbling dots or squashing goombas. Gamedeals—which got its start on a folding table at the Vancouver Flea Market eight years ago—is a great place to visit to replace worn-out equipment, trade in an old system, and perhaps stumble upon a gem or two from the annals of home console-gaming history.

With two retail locations in New Westminster and Vancouver, Gamedeals offers a decades-spanning selection of games and hardware for everything from the 1980s-era Atari 2600 to current systems like the PS3.

Best tribute to the Odessa steps sequence

The Williamsburg refugee recently seen sailing through a stop sign as he rode his longboard down a steep Mount Pleasant side street. Did we mention he was also pushing a stroller at the time?

Best-kept park-board secret

Free swimming and skating can be yours—if your income is low enough. The leisure access card program offers discounts on most park-board programs, including classes and gym visits. If you’re single and have a “family income” of less than $22,229, you can apply. For a two-person family, the cut-off is $27,674. Check out vancouver.ca/parks/rec/lac/index.htm.

Best skate sharpener

Canlan Ice Sports
2411 Mount Seymour Parkway, North Vancouver

It’s a sad fact of life: even if you’ve got wheels that would impress the ’94 edition of Pavel Bure, you need to be hitting that Sunday pick-up hockey game with sharp skates. There are plenty of places in Vancouver—hello, Cyclone Taylor!—that do a good job of making sure the edges on your Nike Bauer Vapor XXXXs are all that they can be. But for a job that’s guaranteed to bring out your inner Alexander Ovechkin, make the trek to Canlan Ice Sport and ask for Doug Hooper at the rink’s Ultimate Edge pro shop. You know that scene in Kill Bill: Vol. I where Beatrix Kiddo hits the Tokyo sushi bar in her quest for a sword crafted by Hattori Hanzo? If she’d been a hockey player, she would have been sitting across the counter from Hooper, seeking his counsel. After all, in addition to asking questions like, “Do you want me to clean up the pitting on these?”, Hooper is famous for finishing off his sharpening sessions by giving skate blades a quick cream polish, which reduces friction on the ice. And speaking of skate blades, the word among those in the know is that he’ll also replace yours with Hattori Hanzo steel if you ask nicely, but only if you approach him when no one is around and whisper, “I have vermin to kill.”