W Hockey Final – Canada vs. USA

With local Sochi temperatures hovering around 18 degrees celsius, we started our day with a little suntanning on the deck of our cruise ship. Following this we departed the Black Sea for our daily routine trek to Olympic park, which includes a 3km walk to the train station, a subsequent 10 minute train ride and then another 2 km walk across Olympic park, all just to get to a location that is approximately 500 meters from where we are docked – annoying!

Upon arrival at Olympic Park we attended a VIP reception put on by Canadian Tire and settled into Canada Olympic House, with a packed crowd including some unexpected Dutch and German speedskating visitors, to watch Jennifer Jones skip our ladies to golden victory.

Then it was off to the main event. The highly anticipated (and expected) Gold Medal final with the US Women’s Hockey team. Well you all know what happened there, but our group attributes the win to a lone Canadian woman, not Jenner, Szabados, or even Poulin (although they had a great deal to do with it) but a single fan from BC. At the end of the 2nd period and trailing 2-0, a new fan arrived in our section with unparalleled energy and enthusiasm. She called upon the Canadian crowd to ‘believe Canada believe’ and even turned a local hockey chant “Shaybu” into a hometown version “Shaybu Canada”. This enthusiasm began to spread and before you knew it an entire rink, including the Russians, were chanting our women onto victory!

Post event and celebration, it occurred to the boys that the ship’s buffet closes at 2am. A 45 minute race, including a final 500m sprint, had us up there for 1:58am, and in time for a very late well deserved dinner.

All in all, a Double Gold day!

– Sean