Sententiae Draconis

The Vancouver Pride Parade was yesterday (I missed it because I'm not organized and should have been studying) which is awesome all on it's own. But what makes me super happy is that two Canucks players, Manny Malholtra and Jason Garrison, and the Canucks mascot, Fin, marched in the parade with the You Can Play guys who are trying to eliminate homophobia in sports.

It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to see it happening. Especially because these are two guys who are clearly there because they want to be and they support the message rather than because the organization said they should for publicity (although I'm sure the organization is also pretty keen on the publicity). And I saw a bit of video where Manny was clearly running around and having a good time with a big smile on his face.

Neither of these guys had been liked with the You Can Play people before the Parade, and it sounds like Jason Garrison was a last minute addition.

I'm not surprised to hear that Manny is supportive and awesome. He seems pretty awesome in all the interviews I've seen and read. But also I have some hard anecdotal evidence from one of the women on my hockey team that his wife's best friend is a lesbian. One of her good friend's partner (wife?) is best friends with Manny's wife. She's met him a time or two because of the tangential relationship there, and she says that's he's lovely.

Jason Garrison, on the other hand, is new! And I'd barely heard of him before when he got signed in the off season, so I know almost nothing about him. Well done with the first impressions! I already like you and I haven't even seen you on the ice yet.

Only 4 professional athletes marched in Pride events this year. Two of them were Canucks. THESE GUYS MAKE ME HAPPY. :'D

This is how I feel right now. Canucks lost in overtime last night. So that's that for the season.

This series was tough, and it really showed the weaknesses of our team without Daniel Sedin (never be concussed again, pls!). But I think in the end the Kings won it because they played better than everyone was expecting. The Kings were a good team throughout the regular season, but they were a team that didn't score - and they changed that in the playoffs. So fuck. At least the Canucks didn't have a total mental breakdown like the Penguins did. Holy shit that series was ridiculous! But despite the gaffes, my boys still played defence.

Dear Canucks,

I still love you. You're great. And you bring me great joy even when we lose in the first round (although that does suck). I know that some of you might not be back with the team next year and I'll miss you. I know that there will be some new guys and I hope that they fit in well with this truly awesome group.

And I don't care what anyone says, winning the President's Trophy (best record in the regular season) twice in a row is still super awesome! (Even if it was kind of an accident this year.)

Continue to be awesome, boys. I'll see you next year.

Love,
Me

At least I can watch hockey without feeling stressed about the outcome now. Also - if Ottawa wins tonight then they've won their series! (And then the Canucks won't be the only 1st place team knocked out by 8th...) GO SENS GO!

So Comps are fast approaching and I am alternately in denial and filled with fear and a certainty of failure.

The worst is that I'm not really sure what's going to be on them. And nothing I do will ever be enough. There are always going to be more things that I could read and study. And I won't know if I've done enough until I sit the exams and then hear about whether or not I pass.

Shit guys. I just want to pass. I don't care about whether my answers are excellent or not. Just pass me. Let the time and money I've spent on my education get me a Masters Degree. I promise I won't go on to a PhD and embarrass you (because I'm not going on to a PhD).

In response I've been obsessing over hockey. The Playoffs start tomorrow and the Canucks are playing the LA Kings. It should be a good, extremely defensive series. It's totally balls that the first round is starting the week before Comps. I'm going to watch all the Canucks games (natch), but there were a few other series' that I wanted to watch as well. The Flyers-Penguins series should be epic because of the hate they have for each other. And I really wanted to watch the Senators-Rangers, because I love the Sens and I've got a growing fondness for the Rangers (because Henrik Lundqvist is a god among men).

I was going to make an organized post about all of the reasons why I love the Canucks, but instead here are a few things that have been making me happy recently. Because EVERYTHING IS HOCKEY AND NOTHING HURTS.


The other Canucks players sabotaging an interview with Jannik Hansen. Oh Boys!


Henrik Lundqvist gives out bottles of wine to his teammates after getting shutouts. The Camera guy here is Marty Biron, his backup goalie.


Hugs are the best.


Even when you're on the opposite team, and people are fighting, what really matters is friendship. :D - This is from an old Sens-Sabres game. But I only recently found it and it is awesome. :D


Roberto Luongo supports his defence - in this case Keith Ballard, and literally.


Henrik Sedin: secret punk. Why you gotta harass Edler like that?


Higgy is adorable for more than just his abs.

Instead of working on my Roman aqueducts paper (which - at least aqueducts are super cool) I'm trolling around the internet looking at hockey blogs and being greatly amused.

Here are some things that deserve sharing because of awesomeness. :)

The Sedin Twins are different people (sort of)
This is an article from before the All Star game that's talking about the Twins and how they've played together their entire lives. How they are still different people despite their identicalness. And asking the other Canucks how to tell them apart.

Best quotes (ie almost all of it):
[if they're drafted to different All Star Teams]the mirror image Swedes always could consider punishing their antagonists with a switcheroo. They're both certain the only ones that could tell would be teammates.
"No," Henrik said definitively when asked if anyone other than fellow Canucks All-Stars Alexander Edler and Cody Hodgson would notice. "You're right, we should do that."
...
Defenseman Kevin Bieksa figured out one difference when he lived in the same building as Henrik and often would spot Daniel waiting for his brother in the parking lot.
Despite being the Canucks' captain, Henrik has a bad habit of running late.
"Danny's always on time," Edler said. "Henrik is always a couple minutes late."
It drives his punctual younger brother (by minutes) crazy.
"He hates when people are late," Henrik said. "I'm usually late."
Within that dynamic, Bieksa said Daniel emerges as the more "responsible" of these road-trip roommates, dictating their schedule and keeping Henrik "in line."
"Hank is going to say he's the one in charge, for sure," Bieksa has said of the differences. "And Danny might even say nobody is just because he's a humble kind of guy. But we all know Danny is the one in charge. And Hank still wants to retain that older-brother status, too, so he tries to boss Danny around sometimes and Danny takes it, which is the funny thing. But Danny is usually the one in charge when push comes to shove."
Edler, who knows them as well as anyone after being taken under their collective wing when he made the move from Sweden to Vancouver, seemed to agree with Bieksa.
"Danny might be in charge. He makes the more smart decisions," Edler said with a mischievous grin. "They are twins, but they are still two different people."
...
As for which twin really us in charge, it may not matter. Daniel may arrive first, but if he's the one waiting around, isn't Henrik really dictating the schedule?
"Well, he thinks he's in charge," Henrik said of Daniel.
"I am in charge," said Daniel, "but he doesn't care."

I love them. :)


Also there's a new campaign going around to help end Homophobia in sports and Hockey in particular. There's a pretty comprehensive article over at Puck Daddy, and a shorter one in the Toronto Sun which features my guy Tanner Glass, who is a former Canuck, a current Winnipeg Jet and an all around awesome guy (if only he were better at hockey and could have stayed on my team - I miss ya Tanner!).

The Campaign is call "You Can Play" and it's being spearheaded by Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke and his son Patrick who is a scout for the Flyers. They're trying to make the league a safer space for gay athletes starting by reducing homophobic language to begin with. And it's in memory of Brendan Burke (son and brother) who died in a car accident. He was a hockey player, he wasn't in the NHL, but he came out in 2009, which is awesome.

Anyway they're trying to get a lot of NHL players to speak out about it and they've already got over 30 who are going to be in various TV spots. It's really awesome to see some of these guys speaking up about it. Especially since considering the number of Canadians and Europeans in the League I've been expecting hockey to be a more accepting place than some of the other major sports (still not easy - but yeah).

I'm super happy that some of them are even calling guys on homophobic language in Games! From the Toronto Sun article:

If Glass hears an opposing player use a gay slur during a game, he’ll let him know he’s crossed the line.
“The language has got to be the first thing to go,” Glass told the Winnipeg Sun, Monday. “You hear it all the time.”
The reaction he gets tells him there’s hope, but still a ways to go in educating the rank-and-file in the macho world of pro hockey.
“Some guys will be, ‘Yeah, well, f--- you,’ or whatever,” Glass said. “But some guys are like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.’ ”

Tanner Glass, I love you! Please continue to be awesome!

Anyway here's a TV spot:


And sometimes looking at the comments section is not filled with sadness. Examples:
From the Puck Daddy Comments section

(It's still weird for me being in places on the internet where the assumed gender is male.)

More photos of attractive hockey players. Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. :)


Henrick Lundqvist - Goaltender, NY Rangers (also a Swedish twin, but his twin is not on the same team as him, and not a goalie)


Dreamy...


Swedes from the All Star Game! Lundqvist (Rangers), Henrik Sedin (Canucks), Eric Karlsson (Senators), Daniel Sedin (Canucks), Daniel Alfredsson (Senators - I love him too), Alex Edler (Canucks - my hockey boyfriend)


Jarome Iginla - Calgary Flames. When he smiles everything is right with the world.


Patrick Sharp - I should hate him because he's a Blackhawk... but look at that face!


Edler's spot for GQ...


I actually have this photo saved as "Cory Schneider looks into your soul.jpg" - Canucks, natch.


Harrison Mooney (Blogger, Pass it to Bulis) with trophy and Tanner Glass (then Canucks, now Jets) - okay, so Tanner's not actually that attractive, but I like his smile and I actually think that his mullet is kinda endearing. Plus it helps that he's an awesome person. :)


This is unrelated to attractiveness. I just have no idea what Alex Burrows is doing. But it's hilarious!

Life's been pretty busy, but generally good.

This weekend we had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner with seven of the usual crowd. I made cheesy mashed potatoes which is a family tradition (and even moreso - I'm always the one who makes it) - and they were a big hit.

Tonight I'm going to a poker game which is a tradition among some of the department. Buy in is $10, and it's reasonably competitive - but I'm resigned to loosing everything. As long as it's a fun time with the guys I'm cool with it. So that should be fun - I should make myself a poker hands cheat-sheet before I go.

The NHL hockey season has started up again and the Canucks are playing right now. I'm listening to the game. And it's currently 5-4 for Philidelphia in the 3rd period. I dislike the Flyers at the best of time, but this is not helping. Although I'm still not too worried about the game.

I bought a new knitting pattern and I think that I'm going to use it for a Christmas present. But I think that I need to get one more ball of yarn, since I might not have enough. I'm excited to start. ;)

Why are all of the books for my next two presentations in German and French? The French is okay - but Deutsch? Lame. I do not speak German. Oh well, I've got enough time to Google Translate what I need. My main text for the shipwreck I'm looking at is called "Das Wrack". Oh Germans - you're so ... German.

I get to make stone tools in my Anthro class. Partially that's awesome, but partially I'd rather just find some good stones and shape them to make a wall instead. Bifacial what? Although our TA did his Masters' Thesis on stone tools used in high-risk situations like hunting polar bears and sea lions. And that is wicked cool.

Anyway... dinner calls!

This article On Stanley Cup Final Coverage and Bias by Harrison Mooney does an excellent job of articulating why Pass it to Bulis (the Canucks blog which he writes with two other guys) is the only sports media I read.

It's bad enough when fans are being douchebags and making snap judgments which prove they have the attention span of goldfish. When they only pay attention to a player's mistakes and ignore all of the good things he's done on the ice. When they apply a double standard between one game and the next or between different teams. Or make comments about sissy European players because it's not racist if they're white too.

But when the professional media does it too? It makes me wonder why they're allowed to keep their jobs.

An excerpt from Harrison's (very well written) article (emphasis mine):

I’m more than willing to deny a bias that doesn’t exist, and the East Coast bias is a myth.

That said, the journalistic bias against the Canucks has been clear as day. Consider, for example, the writing about the Sedins, whose manhood has been questioned for their lack of production in the Final. Anyone with an ounce of sense can see that their best series came against a team that didn’t have a dedicated shutdown pairing (San Jose), and they’ve had a tougher time against teams with Norris-Calibre defensemen that aggressively focus on shutting them down (Chicago, Nashville, Boston).

However, instead of telling this story, we’ve been subjected to a “limp-wristed Euros” narrative that smacks of embarrassing prejudice.

When was the last time someone suggested that Sidney Crosby or Jonathan Toews was less of a man for their relative lack of production in their respective Finals? In 2009, Crosby went minus-3 with a goal and two assists. In 2010, despite going minus-5 with no goals and three assists, Toews won the Conn Smythe. I’m sure their Canadian citizenship had nothing to do with their generous coverage.

In these cases, credit was given to the opposing defenders who shut down elite scoring threats. The Sedins, meanwhile, simply aren’t man enough. They’re hacked, slashed and impeded constantly, but any time they go down, they’re sissy divers, a narrative that stinks of xenophobia over an ethnocentric worry that Europeans have come to ruin the Canadian game. Chris Nilan claimed their “balls shrivel up when they’re on the road”, Joe Haggerty called them “Hansel and Gretel”, Mike Milbury called them “Thelma and Louise,” and a bevy of other sportswriters and fans have stuck with the much less innovative Sedin “sisters”.

Why, exactly, is it considered acceptable — professionally acceptable, even — to mock two men by comparing them to a minority group in hockey, anyway? What’s next? The Sedins play like blacks, jews, or gays?

This line of criticism is, in and of itself, childish and sexist. It’s 2011 and there are women in the Hockey Hall of Fame. If the Sedins actually were women, people might be a little more impressed with their point per game pace over the last five years, their back-to-back Art Ross trophies, their potentially back-to-back Hart trophies, or the fact that they’ve led their hockey team to the Stanley Cup Final in their first year as team leaders. As it stands, however, these accomplishments aren’t enough to escape the criticism that they’re actually women on skates — and that there’s something inherently wrong with that.

This whole thing makes me furious. Most of the time I don't bother reading because it's just awful, the comments are not intelligent and I disagree with what they've said about the game. But every now and again the media actually goes and says something like this that is SO completely offensive that it almost makes me ashamed to be a hockey fan. This is how people who don't watch hockey see the sport. How could this possibly be considered a good thing?

I used to think that the NHL would be the first of the major sports leagues in North America to have an openly gay player. It's a sport that's dominated by Canadians and Europeans who (especially in my generation which is the same age bracket as all the rising stars) increasingly don't give a damn about other people's sexuality. The NHL itself has tacitly endorsed gayness by allowing their names and logos to be used in a movie about a gay hockey player (admittedly it wasn't a big blockbuster - but still!). But if this is what they're saying about the Sedins because they're Swedish I'd hate to see what they'd do if they were gay. Sometimes staying in the closet is the safer choice.

And the Sedins? Their responses were very classy. Because they are cool like that: ( cut for length )

But whatever. Screw you Don Cherry and your xenophobic comments about Europeans. It doesn't matter whether your favourite team wins or the Canucks do, it'll still be a European captain raising the Stanley Cup.

So my beloved Canucks are in the Stanley Cup Finals! Whatever, you might say, the Stanley Cup is awarded every year. This is a true statement - BUT consider the following: the Canucks have not been in the Stanley Cup Final in 17 years (that is a long time). Also the Canucks have never won the Stanley Cup (this is problem all Canuck Fans have had to deal with in their 40-year history). And in the past 17 years this is also the first time we've gotten past the 2nd round!

(Quick digression for the purposes of explaining: the playoffs are four rounds or series of 7 games which eliminates teams until you get to the finals. Teams in the Western Conference Battle it out and Teams in the Eastern Conference Battle it out, and then the winners of each Conference face each other in the Stanley Cup Final - which is also a best of seven series - so first team to four wins gets the Cup. This is why it takes so long. I personally love it, although I agree that playing hockey in June is strange.)

Game 1 is tonight and we're playing the Boston Bruins (Boo!). You may have heard of them, they've been around a while. Unfortunately for us they are big and tough and they have a secret weapon: Colin Campbell, the (only-retired-yesterday former) head disciplinarian of the NHL, is the father of one of their players.

The cynical among us believe that the League favours a Boston victory. Politically and economically it's good for the Cup to be won in the States because it increases interest from a country that would prefer to be watching Basketball or Baseball. And since most of the teams are in the States - this is an issue. Honestly considering the amount of money that Canadians pay to go to see games (a bunch of which goes to support teams in the Southern United States) I think we deserve to have a Canadian Team get the Cup! And since the Canucks are the only Canadian team to make it past the first round this year - obviously it should be us!

So I'm super excited! There's been some awesome plays and brilliant moments already in the playoffs. Not the least of which was almost getting eliminated in the first round by Chicago (*shakes fist in the direction of the Windy City*). Man - I was on my feet for all of that overtime period and when Burrows scored - it was beautiful.

Also super exciting: we might have Manny Malhotra back! He's an awesome centre. But more importantly he's been out with a really serious eye injury since before the start of the playoffs. They thought that he might not regain vision in his left eye - but he's had a few very successful surgeries and might be able to play in this series! Which is completely amazing because everyone was saying that he wouldn't be back this season and might have to retire. It's an amazing comeback. And what a fabulous guy - I've been so impressed with how the Canucks organization has been treating his injury. I wasn't paying too much attention to it (other than hoping he was alright) but Pass it to Bulis did a feature on it and it really showed how much the organization cared about him as a person and a member of the team as well as just a good player. He's been at the games and in the dressing room between periods, and the Canucks have been very firmly keeping all the medical details private and preventing any intrusive media speculation about whether he'd be able to play again. I really like cheering for a team who's organization I can respect.

Anyway - the Canucks are playing tonight! Will Roberto make some amazing saves? Will the Sedin twins use their not-so-secret twin powers to score exciting and pretty goals?

Exhibit A: Who passes through the goaltender's five-hole? Henrik Sedin apparently!


Will Burrows mouth off and draw a penalty? Or will he just score shorthanded? Will Bieksa get another Gordie Howe hat trick (goal, assist and a fight)? Will Jannik Hansen reveal that his other job is playing beaker on the Muppet Show? Will Mason Raymond get another high stick to the face and break more of his teeth (without the refs bothering to call a penalty)? Will 90% of the female and 10% of the male Canucks fans weep at the disfigurement of his pretty,pretty face?

I don't know! But I'm watching this game (and the other >6)!

GO 'NUCKS GO!

So now I'm back home, lying on my messy bed with my laptop. My laundry in the the drier, and will be for a while yet. I was thinking about getting some more clean on while I was waiting... but then I decided not to. Don't want to get over-stressed after all.

I had three loads of laundry because that was all the loonies I had. I still have a few bits that need washing, but they can wait. (Of course that's what got me into this mess - quite literally - in the first place, this is is besides the point.)

I renewed my paid accounts for LJ and DW today. I resent the fact that I have to have a paid account in order to avoid the adds on LJ that are getting more and more intrusive. I get a paid account for DW because I want to, but LJ is pulling the money out of me through negative reinforcement. And that is balls. At least it's cheaper than DW. I think I might suffer through the adds if it was more expensive. Of course this is also a very silly thing to be thinking, because when you think about it - I spend so much time on LJ and DW that $20-$30 a YEAR is nothing. But still... I miss my old school LJ basic account. Also I disapprove of this changing header business. That is just not on.

Every now and then I get inspired to add a whole bunch of feeds to my DW Reading List. Sometimes this works out well, and I end up finding something that is awesome and interesting. Other times not so much. Recently I added canhascheeseburger - which is hilarious and cute in all the ways that cat macros should be - but it also flooded the reading list like no other. So that went goodbye. The two I'm most pleased with this go round are Geek Feminism and Pass it to Bulis.

I think most of you would understand what drew me to Geek Feminism in the first place, but I stayed because they seem to be good at writing about women being awesome in male dominated fields. Their stuff is really science-oriented, which I guess is to be expected, but I find myself mentally adding Classics to the list and it works out well. I particularly liked in their latest post when they were talking about cultivating a shield of arrogance to combat poor self-confidence:

Think of it as a tongue-in-cheek recommendation: I don’t really think you should all become arrogant jerks, but it’s really handy if you can grin, wink, and say “of course I can do that, because I’m awesome” and then follow through.

Pass it to Bulis, on the other hand, is a hockey blog. A Vancouver Canucks blog more specifically. *grin* Partially I like it because it's about my team and it's always nice to hear from someone else who thinks the Canucks are important. But they don't just talk about what happens on the ice, and they are really funny. There are a few guys that post and I really appreciate how much of a nerd each of them is. One post was all about the trend on twitter where people were casting NHL players as Star Wars characters, and then the writer had to stop himself from going on a wild tangent about the Clone Wars. I think this quote from the latest "I Watched This Game" post really sums up what I like about this blog:

Manny Malhotra had his usual strong defensive game, going an astonishing 83% in the faceoff circle and logging almost 2 minutes of time on the penalty kill, but he also showed some offensive flourish, with 3 shots and an assist. His most impressive moment came towards the end of the second period, just before Tambellini scored, as he split the defense and forced Khabibulin to make a solid save. He just needs a browncoat, pistol, and a more accurate shot to upgrade from Alternate Captain Mal to Captain Mal.

They give stats about what's going on, but in a nice way that's not all about the numbers. They've got a link to video to help prove their point, and provide visual aids. And - most importantly - they've got a Firefly reference, with a link to the best scene from Castle ever.

And they also have some truly ridiculous posts, like this one, where they tell the story of how Daniel Sedin had to help Santa last year. This is of course why he missed five weeks of playing - it had nothing to do with his broken foot. Also found there (but not by them, which makes it even better) was this:



It's a TSN feature that was played at intermission during a Canucks-Blackhawks game a while back. And it's especially funny for that reason because we keep getting knocked out of the post season by those damn Blackhawks. Luongo, our star goaltender, is dressed funny and reading poetry. How could it be bad? And after posting it, I was really impressed that the PITB guys laughed a bit and then talked about how they weren't sure if a grumpier Luongo would have been able to joke about some of these subjects. So hilarity and insight. Clearly I have to keep reading these guys.

Bonus!info - Jan Bulis is a former Canuck. He was good, but never really in the spot-light. Now he's apparently doing really well playing with the Russians in the KHL. Good for him!

I know there were more things I wanted to post about, but this is probably enough for this post. Maybe more later tonight. I'm going to go and fold my laundry and then head back to N's place to hang out with her cats.

CANUCKS WIN ROUND ONE! Very exciting! Some really good hockey (with the appropriate outcome). Alex Edler has been doing really well which makes me very happy (because he's a Swede, and only a year older than me, and had his breakout season the same year I became a fan - and he's a Defenceman. Defencemen are good). And Roberto had some stupidly awesome saves last night - his stats maybe aren't so great, but he's coming up big when it counts. The Sedins are using their freakish twin powers. Bernier is scoring the way he didn't all through the regular season (STEEEEEEVE!). And we keep coming from behind to win games in the third.

(Personally some straight up domination would be better for my nerves, but it's really nice to know that the team has the confidence and skill necessary to change the outcome of the game in the last 20 minutes - that's what separates the men from the boys.)

So now the 'Nucks have that in the bag round two is either going to be Chicago or the winner of the Detroit-Phoenix series. And everything's been so wide open this play-offs that I don't really want to speculate. Chicago is up 3-2 in their series vs Nashville and Wings-'Yotes is going to Game Seven.

I've been really shocked by how open the competition is this year. Only one series has finished in 5 games (I thought none had, but then I checked again - Flyers over New Jersey in five games. So it wasn't that no one had, it was that I just didn't care about the only series that did). The top seed teams in both the East and West lost their first games against their eighth seed counterparts. It's all kind of ridiculous. Usually there is at least one if not two series' that get decided with a clean sweep. But there were definitely moments that I thought Colorado would beat San Jose (admittedly the Sharks suck in the post season - I have no idea how the keep managing it, but they do. It makes me happy - take that Sharks!) - and that would have been an awesome upset.

So I'm feeling pretty good about hockey these days. What feels even better is knowing that this time next year I'll be in the same city (and more importantly the same time zone) as my team and I won't have to stay up late watching games. (Last night's game started at 9pm for me and I was excited! - I know I've got nothing on my friend's who are fans in Scotland, which is an eight hour time difference, but watching hockey late at night is balls however you slice it because you want to jump up and down and be excited, but you're also really tired.)

I need a good hockey icon...

Finally bothered to set up the footer for crossposting. I've been meaning to do that for a while, up the DW awareness if not the DW use.

As you may have already guessed, I love Hockey. I love the strength, agility and speed required to play the game and play it well. I love the team-work and the comradeship and rivalries. Horizontal stripes. Terrible innuendos ("He really knows how to handle a stick"). Goaltender superstitions. Red posts. Blue lines. The goal line. And pushing people out of the crease who don't belong there.

I like the stories behind the game of people coming together to excel. Higher. Faster. Stronger.

(I remember a few years ago Roberto Luongo teasing Willie Mitchell that he, a goaltender, had more assists than Willie, a defenceman, did.)

I love sports and I love hockey and I love the Olympics.

And today we have another amazing game to watch. Canada-USA for the Men's Olympic Gold.

The women played on Thursday (also Canada-USA) and it was a fantastic game. Szabados, our goaltender, was phenomenal. Her glove hand? - absolutely gorgeous. I'm so impressed! And she got a shutout against the States in the Gold Medal Game! That is so hard. Amazing game.

And now it's the Men's turn. The game doesn't start for just over three hours. I'm heading out to a bar to watch it. And I'm going to wear my Luongo jersey, because it may not be team Canada, but it's still Luongo and he's my boy. I'm very excited!

One of the things that I love about Hockey is that it's such a multicultural game. I think the only other major league sport which is similar is football (the real kind of football - ie not American or Canadian). I love that on any given team in the NHL there will be native speakers of probably at least four different languages. I love that the Canucks have seven Olympians on the team and all but two of them are from different countries - and those two are the twins, so that totally doesn't count.

(And speaking of, it makes me really happy to be a Canucks fan since we had one player on each of the top four teams! We've still got Luongo for Canada and Kesler for the States. So go us!)

The Canucks who went to the Olympics are:
Roberto Luongo - Goaltender - Canada
Ryan Kesler - Forward - USA
Henrik Sedin - Forward - Sweden
Daniel Sedin - Forward - Sweden
Pavol Demitra - Forward - Slovakia
Christian Ehrhoff - Defence - Germany
Sami Salo - Defence - Finland

Canucks players speak (just based on what I know, some of them might have some other languages too): English, French (Canadian), Italian, Swedish, German, Slovak, Finnish, and Danish. Somehow we don't have any Russians, Belorussians or Czech.

The CBC is now doing commentary for some of the games in Punjabi.

In ten or fifteen years we should start seeing Indian-Canadians in the NHL. I can't wait. It's already such a multicultural sport I think it'll be great when it becomes a multicoloured sport too!