Now that I've settled in my new (bigger, brighter) room, I've got a minute to spare for this quick post about watching the men's gold medal hockey game here in London.
The only way I could get my kids really interested about this game was to promise them maple cookies if we managed to win the gold. Since both men and women got gold, and Canada generally kicked butt at winning gold medals, I went all out and gave them Canada pencils as well. Cookies were a huge hit, and I had parents telling me their kids were demanding maple syrup for home. Ha!
Anyway, we tried to go to The Maple Leaf pub (Canadian pub in Covent Garden) to watch the game, but since we were only 3 hrs ahead of game time, the was a huge line, and it was a 'one in, one out' situation. I guess people had started lining up there a few hours before the pub even opened.
Luckily, we found a sports bar that had loads of t.v.'s, space, pitchers of beer (yay!) and more importantly, a pro-Canada crowd. It was such a blast being around Canadians and having a hockey game on t.v. It was also great, because whenever Canadians are together, inevitably people either know each other from somewhere, or there is some sort of common person/place that comes up. Case and point: A new friend Karen came to join us, and the people at the table next to ours were her previous co-workers from a day camp in Toronto they all worked at. They hadn't seen each other since working together over a year ago. Crazy.
Anyway, as previously mentioned, hockey games are just not called the same way here. This was made very apparent last Sunday night. I actually took notes. Here are a few of the better quotes from the BBC commentators:
"He was hanging his stick out to dry."
"We are seeing plays with a lot of impulse and forward thinking ideas"
"Not so much of a rush, more of a considered move."
"They want to get the puck out, because there is danger luring near the net."
"The puck was sitting there obligingly waiting for a touch"
"The puck was bubbling and babbling about"
Now, I don't want to paint myself out to be a hockey buff, because I'm not. At all. But I know that if you ever turned on a game at home, this stuff would never be said as a game is happening. Ever.
Either way, it was a great game, even though I gave myself a heart condition when the States tied it up. Felt great to be a Canadian, doing a very Canadian thing in a totally different place. There are some great pics of that night as well - I'll get mine up on Facebook sometime this week, so have a peek.
Lastly, if you want to re-live the Olympic experience there is a great video essay put together by a Globe and Mail journalist, Steven Brunt about what the games meant to Canadians. Definitely worth a trip to Youtube for a look. There were tears in my eyes at the end, and have never felt prouder to be a Canuck.
