Olympic Gold!

One of the last events at the Olympic Winter Games is the men's hockey finals. The year the teams contending for gold in Sochi, Russia were the Swedes and Canadians.

Both teams had gone undefeated in the round robin part of the tournament. They were both considered very strong; the Canadians having let in the fewest goals in their games (only three in six games) and the Swedes with their standout netminder Henrik Lundqvist.

The game started 7:00 a.m. Sunday (local time). Of course I wanted to watch, but as most of you probably know, I'm not a morning person. I thought I would try staying up all night so I wouldn't have to wake up. But, by 3:00 a.m., I fell asleep.

I did wake up in time hear on the radio we were up 2-0. By the time I actually got up I was able to watch the last half of the third period. We were up 3-0 at that point (which happened to be the final score).

The Canadians were relentless on the forecheck constantly harassing the Swedish players whenever they had the puck. We totally smothered them.

Shifts were as short as 30 seconds with players hustling from the time their skates hit the ice 'til the time they left it. Superstar NHL players left their egos at the door and bought into the team concept willingly accepting reduced rolls and reduced ice time. It worked to a T.

The game finished at about the same time I had to head down to church. I could hear cars honking their horns and people cheering on the street below as I got ready to go.

Unlike four years ago when the Olympics were held in Vancouver, there weren't any street celebrations at Yonge and Eglinton after the Canadian men's team beat the Americans for gold. The main reason probably was because that game was broadcast in the evening while this one finished at 10:30 a.m.

Normally when I take the TTC to church I take the subway down Yonge and up the University line to St. Patrick station and walk from there. But, this time I had to get off at Dundas because they were doing work between Union Station and St. Andrew.

When I got off there was a huge street celebration as I sort of expected there would be. Police closed the road off to all traffic for a short time so revellers could enjoy themselves. It was a sea of red and white. Beautiful.

I managed to snap a few pictures before I had to run off to church. I wished I had a bit more time. Perhaps in four years I'll get another chance.