World Hockey Championships

This tuesday, the two of us were lucky enough to score a pair of tickets to the Canada - Slovakia game at the World Hockey Championships in Zürich. While most of the best players in the world are still playing for the Stanley Cup, each team was still stacked with NHL players, including some big stars like Dany Heatley, Jason Spezza, and Martin St. Louis.

We weren't quite sure what to expect for the game. Sometimes you see these games on TV and the arena is half empty, and seems really quiet. Happily, this wasn't the case for this game. The arena was sold out (about 6,500 people), and it seemed like at least 5,000 of those people were crazy Slovakian hockey fans.

Canadians were definitely outnumbered by Slovakians in the crowd, by a margin of at least 10-to-1. We ourselves were surrounded by a sea of Slovakian jerseys. Being totally outnumbered like that made it a little sweeter when Canada jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first period, led 6-1 after 2, and made it 7-1 in the third before Slovakia got a couple of late goals for a 7-3 final score. The Slovakians seemed like they were having a good time anyways, and were in good spirits even with the loss.

As an added bonus, decked out in our Team Canada jerseys and paper hockey helmets, we stood out in the crowd after Canada scored and made it on the TV broadcast. We got home to an email from our mother in Prince George that she saw us after one of Canada's goals, and over the next couple of days, we got a few messages from friends back home saying that they saw us in the Sportsnet highlight package of the games. We're huge celebrities now.

Unfortunately, Sportsnet's videos aren't available on their website here in Germany, but after searching Youtube, we were able to find a clip with us at the very end, celebrating after a Canada goal. Check out the last two seconds of this Youtube clip:

And for our next big news, tomorrow is a big day as we head off to Portugal for a 10-day vacation. We fly into Porto, have a few days there, then head down to the small beach town of Porto Covo for a few days before finishing our trip off with three days in Lisbon. We're really looking forward to it, and are sure to be back with an update when we return.