It's the seventh game in a playoff series pitting an American hockey team against a Canadian one. In the stands, the fans are anxious for the game to end — the stadium is to be demolished after this last game.

While it sounds like an event to be covered by ESPN, this tale is a one-act opera titled Game Misconduct, which is premiering Aug. 11 at Festival Vancouver in British Columbia.

"I've lived with opera for a long time," composer Leslie Uyeda told Canada's National Post. "And one thing that a Canadian does not have when she watches opera is an intimate knowledge of the rolling hills of Italy — the landscape where [a typical Italian opera] takes place. I wanted to write something that North Americans would have no trouble relating to."

"I did [the libretto for] an opera six years ago [David MacIntyre's The Architect] and Leslie was the conductor," librettist Tom Cone said. "Our director, Glynis Leyshon, asked if we were interested at the time in writing an opera in an alternative venue, [and in the process] I became interested in the whole business of an audience performing for an audience."

Cone, an American living in Canada, began his career in 1973 with the Vancouver Playwrights Theatre Centre production of his play "The Organizer." In 1981, his play "Herringbone" was made into a musical with productions in Chicago, New York, London, Philadelphia, Edinburgh, Scotland, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Hartford, Conn. In addition to The Architect, he also wrote the libretto for Peter Hannan's opera The Gang and has won numerous awards including a New York Drama League award for playwriting.

Cone was at a women's hockey team game with his daughter when, he said, he was taken aback by the fans and their enthusiasm compared to the average National Hockey League fans.

"I grew up with boxing fans and had never seen an audience [like hockey fans] move from exaltation to bloodiness in 15 seconds, and to me that read operatic," Cone said.

"I was born in Montreal and grew up worshipping the Montreal Canadiens [hockey team]," Uyeda wrote in a statement. "I am still faithful (and at this time rather discouraged). ... The game is changing. Hockey is no longer 'our game' and much has been written about this loss."

In addition to conducting the world premiere of The Architect at the Vancouver Opera (where she is the chorus music director), Uyeda also has conducted for the Edmonton Opera, Pacific Opera, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and the Banff Centre. As a composer and pianist, she performed her song cycle "A Moment at the Very Centre" with Judith Forst, and has recorded her "Four Mystical Songs" with the Elektra Women's Choir for CentreDiscs.

The story of Game Misconduct concerns eight characters — seven fans and a food vendor — who are watching the game from the stands. Larry, the lead, has been a vendor for twenty years and will lose his job when the arena is torn down.

"He was a junior hockey prodigy who calls himself '3-Chance Larry,'" said Cone. "This is a man who failed at the game and the only way to stay connected was to sell cokes and popcorn. But now in the new arena they're not planning on having vendors."

The part of Larry is being performed by tenor John Mac Master, who is in his debut season with the Vienna Volksoper and a resident artist with New York's AmorArtis Orchestra and Choir.

That "loss" Uyeda mentioned — the way professional sports is changing in North America — is perhaps the central issue Uyeda and Cone wanted to address in the opera.

"The disappearance of a mythical national game was happening at the same time the commercialization of the game was increasing," Cone said. "The most common phrase you hear by hockey fans is that 'we're being taken out of a game.' That wonderful distance between the players and the audiences — emotionally and financially — we were able to take that same anxiety and rework them into personal conflicts the characters were having.

"It's really though about loss and gain, and who's taking the risk to go forward and who's left behind in life, and that's expressed in the game. Even though their team wins, the building is still going to be taken down and that relationship is over," Cone added.

"[It's about] identity, loss and change," Uyeda wrote. "We see the game through their eyes, and we see into their lives through the game."

Other characters include a father of the team's goalie who is injured during the game and a middle-aged couple who live vicariously through the game.

"We have fans who adore the fighting for psychological reasons because they're able to have an outlet instead of going and murdering somebody," Cone said.

Uyeda played with tonality and rhythm until she found her own "hockey music" which she wove into the more serious, emotional music representing the characters' emotional journeys.

"I hope that through my music, whether you are a hockey fan or not, you will feel some of the power and beauty of this great game and how different we will be when it is gone," Uyeda wrote.

The opera runs at the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre on Aug. 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19 as part of Festival Vancouver.