Adam's "I'm at the freaking Sochi Olympics!" blog
02-15-2014
, 05:03 AM
After being lucky enough to have the Olympics in my hometown in 2010, I was left with the memory of an amazing experience. A good friend of mine from LA named Gio, who made the trek to Vancouver in 2010 only to be heartbroken in overtime in the gold medal game, had been making noises for the last year about going to Sochi to get his revenge.
Initially I was hesitant, given that my wife is having health issues not to mention what I thought would be the cost of a trip to the middle of nowhere.
Cut to one night about 4 months ago. Siting at home playing online and I get a text from Jason March, a friend from Vancouver who was a few beers deep into the evening.
"We're going to Sochi".
"Cool, who you going with?"
"You."
Immediately quit my session and started to do a bit of research online so I could dismiss him just on cost alone. First stop, Aeroplan.com to see if there was any flights I could use points to get there on. Nothing all the way to Sochi, but Vancouver - Montreal - Frankfurt - Moscow was 80k points. Hmmm. Not unreasonable, lets check business class. Yep, 105k points.
Well ok, but Hotels and tickets have to be ridiculous right? Ten minutes later I had found a room on a cruise ship (they brought in several to house all the tourists and docked them in Sochi harbour) for 11 days for $950.
Interesting. Figured I'd better send a text to my Gio to see how serious he was. He messaged back that his friend in Moscow is able to get tickets to events to any events we wanted for face value.
Trying to find a new excuse not to go as cost didn't seem to be even close to unreasonable, I had this exchange with my amazing wife:
"Gio and Jason want to go to Russia for the Olympics, aren't they insane?"
"Ya, must be ridiculously expensive"
"Well, not really" as I told her what I found.
"How long are you going for?"
She knows me so well.
Now that Jason and I had the ok from our wives, it was on to the planning. We landed tickets to all Canada and USA preliminary men's hockey games. Two for Jason and I and two for the inevitable last minute friends who would surely want to go. In the four following months, nobody took us up on those.
Cut to three weeks before I leave. Getting a Russian visa requires that your passport is valid 6 months after you exit their country. I thought I had enough room, but as I was working on my Russian tourist visa I looked and missed by 3 days. Ugh.
Had to get a new Canadian passport which took a week, then went into Vancouver to a Russian visa agency that helps you wade through the red tape of the Russian visa application. A nice lady there told me I had no chance of getting it in time, I had left it too late. She then told me my only chance was to hop on a flight to Ottawa (the closest Russian embassy in Canada) and apply directly there. There was no way I was abandoning all the money I had spent, so hello Ottawa!
Visa issues behind me, I got home in time to record the Pokercast and start shopping for Canada gear for the trip! The good part about leaving this to the last minute is that most of it was all on sale 50% off with the start of the Olympics a day or two away.
The next week flew by, sleep was hard to get with the excitement of the trip combined with landing Phil Ivey on the Pokercast for his first full length interview in many years. Recorded the show, finished about 1 am and headed to the airport for my early flight to begin the 2 day traveling extravaganza that would be getting there.
Business class pod ftw!
Got to Moscow at about midnight and had a 13 hour layover until my flight to Sochi at 1pm. Time for a late night tour of Red Square!
Met up with my boy Gio from LA as he had the same layover but he left earlier than I did in the morning. We had a few beers and laughed at how crazy this trip really was. Got back to hotel in time for a couple hours sleep.
Back to the Moscow airport from my last leg only to find out my flight was delayed. Bad start to the day. It was going to be tight to get to my first event (USA/Slovakia hockey game) at 4:30 already, but this made it look like I wasn't going to make it.
In Sochi, it wasn't good enough to have a ticket, you also had to have a Spectator pass to be worn at all times during the Olympics. Just imagine the chaos when I made my way from the Sochi airport to the centre to pick up my pass. Huge lineups, people screaming, stray dogs walking in and out. I had applied for my pass before I left Canada, so I went over to the side to find someone that spoke English. Found a guy who was only too happy to use his English on a real person from North America and he had me my pass in 2 minutes. Day is getting better!
Hopped in a cab and was immediately stuck in ridiculous traffic. The game was in the second period already and I was blocks away but stuck. Got out and ran the rest of the way and made it in time for the third. USA up 7-1 and coasted to the win! Met up with Gio and his friend from LA and Jason and the party was on.
Moment I walked into the game:
I had bet 1 betting unit (1u for here on out) on USA -1.5 so operation "Pay for the trip with sports betting" was off to a good start.
Other bets I have:
3 units Canada to win hockey gold at +203
2 units USA to win women's hockey gold at +110
2 units Norway over 29.5 medals -139
2 units Canada over 9.5 gold +131
2 units Canada to win Group B men's hockey -460 (never laid that much juice in my life but it seems like a total lock)
2 units USA to win Group A men's hockey +196
1 unit Canada to win Curling men's gold -175
Next up: Canada/Norway at 9pm! Bet Canada -4.5 +104 cause there was no way in hell I was going the other way. On the way in to the game, a TV reporter from Global television (one of the major networks in Canada) interviewed us and apparently I was on national television last night. Lots of texts and Facebook comments on that one.
Got in the arena early to watch the warmup and take in the atmosphere. Saw Haley Wickenheiser (Team Canada women's captain and national hero) and Pierre Maguire (despised Canadian hockey colour commentator) talking about 40 feet away. Walked over and asked Haley for a pic and as there was nobody else around so Pierre volunteered to take the shot. After he did, Haley said "I'll take one of you two now!".
Haley:
Pierre:
Game started slow, Canada looked a bit out of sync but totally dominated the rest of the way winning 3-1. Not worried at all yet.
Operation Pay for trip (OPFTT) record: 1-1 +$0
As I didn't have time when I arrived in Sochi to get to the cruise ship I'm staying on, I had to check my bag at the airport. After the game finished about 11:30pm, we all made our way over to the train station at Olympic park to make our way back to Sochi. Only thing was, I had to go back to the airport to get my bag first.
After doing all that, It was 4am by the time I found the ship, got checked in and passed out. As my body clock was all f'd up, slept about 6.5 hours and couldn't get back up to sleep.
Upstairs for absolutely the worst breakfast buffet I've ever seen. I wouldn't feed that to my dog. The only thing even close to edible was so plain yogurt and some unidentified fruit. Had that and some tea and off to the Olympic park!
Canada house had an open house from 3-7pm with food and open bar. Didn't connect with Jason or Gio so figured I'd just go roam around the park and meet Jason at Canada house to start loading for the Canada/Austria hockey game that starts at 9:00pm.
Arrived at 2:55 and strolled right in and the atmosphere was awesome. Everyone in full Canada gear, drinking and watching the coverage on the 20 tv's around the place. Walked over to the bar to grab a couple beers only to find out the selection was Heineken or Miller. WTF?
Apparently all the Canadian beer got stopped in Moscow and confiscated. No matter, lets get rolling. Over to "the fridge" from all the Canadian beer commercials, put my passport in the door and boom!
Ta da!
Met a ton of cool people, one of the coolest experiences ever. Jason rolled in about 4pm and we started in on the beer.
About 6pm the Canada host took the mic and announced a special guest was in the house and started in on a long intro. Wasn't long before I knew it was one of the greatest goalies of all time, Russian Vladislav Tretiak!
Tretiak and his wife and daughter:
As soon as he was done I asked him for a picture, not sure he was very happy about it!
Just as we were walking out, there was a big commotion over near the door that opens close to the USA house next door. In rolls Putin himself and after saying that he wished Canada luck in every event other than Ice Hockey, Jason bum rushed him and took the greatest selfie in history:
Walked over to the food tent, got a meat pie that was godawful and then made our way to the arena for Canada/Austria. Real good game by the Canucks, game was never in doubt. Luongo was rock solid and should carry the water the rest of the way.
Jason, Gio, Rob (Gio's LA buddy) and I made our way over to the train and back to Sochi. Decided to find a nice restaurant to get a late-night meal in. Went to the Radisson and had some Schnitzel and a beer just to warm my baltic heart.
Back to the ship, got about 6 hours sleep. Having a hard time getting adjusted, hopefully will sleep better tonight. It's about 12:30 and we have tickets to USA/Russia at 4:30 and men's Ski Jumping on the big hill at 9:00pm tonight.
Hopefully I'll have time to keep this blog better updated in the next few days.
Random pics
Outside the arena before the Norway game:
Corey Perry getting focused:
Lots of Canada fans!
Canada house:
Required Torch pic:
Initially I was hesitant, given that my wife is having health issues not to mention what I thought would be the cost of a trip to the middle of nowhere.
Cut to one night about 4 months ago. Siting at home playing online and I get a text from Jason March, a friend from Vancouver who was a few beers deep into the evening.
"We're going to Sochi".
"Cool, who you going with?"
"You."
Immediately quit my session and started to do a bit of research online so I could dismiss him just on cost alone. First stop, Aeroplan.com to see if there was any flights I could use points to get there on. Nothing all the way to Sochi, but Vancouver - Montreal - Frankfurt - Moscow was 80k points. Hmmm. Not unreasonable, lets check business class. Yep, 105k points.
Well ok, but Hotels and tickets have to be ridiculous right? Ten minutes later I had found a room on a cruise ship (they brought in several to house all the tourists and docked them in Sochi harbour) for 11 days for $950.
Interesting. Figured I'd better send a text to my Gio to see how serious he was. He messaged back that his friend in Moscow is able to get tickets to events to any events we wanted for face value.
Trying to find a new excuse not to go as cost didn't seem to be even close to unreasonable, I had this exchange with my amazing wife:
"Gio and Jason want to go to Russia for the Olympics, aren't they insane?"
"Ya, must be ridiculously expensive"
"Well, not really" as I told her what I found.
"How long are you going for?"
She knows me so well.
Now that Jason and I had the ok from our wives, it was on to the planning. We landed tickets to all Canada and USA preliminary men's hockey games. Two for Jason and I and two for the inevitable last minute friends who would surely want to go. In the four following months, nobody took us up on those.
Cut to three weeks before I leave. Getting a Russian visa requires that your passport is valid 6 months after you exit their country. I thought I had enough room, but as I was working on my Russian tourist visa I looked and missed by 3 days. Ugh.
Had to get a new Canadian passport which took a week, then went into Vancouver to a Russian visa agency that helps you wade through the red tape of the Russian visa application. A nice lady there told me I had no chance of getting it in time, I had left it too late. She then told me my only chance was to hop on a flight to Ottawa (the closest Russian embassy in Canada) and apply directly there. There was no way I was abandoning all the money I had spent, so hello Ottawa!
Visa issues behind me, I got home in time to record the Pokercast and start shopping for Canada gear for the trip! The good part about leaving this to the last minute is that most of it was all on sale 50% off with the start of the Olympics a day or two away.
The next week flew by, sleep was hard to get with the excitement of the trip combined with landing Phil Ivey on the Pokercast for his first full length interview in many years. Recorded the show, finished about 1 am and headed to the airport for my early flight to begin the 2 day traveling extravaganza that would be getting there.
Business class pod ftw!
Got to Moscow at about midnight and had a 13 hour layover until my flight to Sochi at 1pm. Time for a late night tour of Red Square!
Met up with my boy Gio from LA as he had the same layover but he left earlier than I did in the morning. We had a few beers and laughed at how crazy this trip really was. Got back to hotel in time for a couple hours sleep.
Back to the Moscow airport from my last leg only to find out my flight was delayed. Bad start to the day. It was going to be tight to get to my first event (USA/Slovakia hockey game) at 4:30 already, but this made it look like I wasn't going to make it.
In Sochi, it wasn't good enough to have a ticket, you also had to have a Spectator pass to be worn at all times during the Olympics. Just imagine the chaos when I made my way from the Sochi airport to the centre to pick up my pass. Huge lineups, people screaming, stray dogs walking in and out. I had applied for my pass before I left Canada, so I went over to the side to find someone that spoke English. Found a guy who was only too happy to use his English on a real person from North America and he had me my pass in 2 minutes. Day is getting better!
Hopped in a cab and was immediately stuck in ridiculous traffic. The game was in the second period already and I was blocks away but stuck. Got out and ran the rest of the way and made it in time for the third. USA up 7-1 and coasted to the win! Met up with Gio and his friend from LA and Jason and the party was on.
Moment I walked into the game:
I had bet 1 betting unit (1u for here on out) on USA -1.5 so operation "Pay for the trip with sports betting" was off to a good start.
Other bets I have:
3 units Canada to win hockey gold at +203
2 units USA to win women's hockey gold at +110
2 units Norway over 29.5 medals -139
2 units Canada over 9.5 gold +131
2 units Canada to win Group B men's hockey -460 (never laid that much juice in my life but it seems like a total lock)
2 units USA to win Group A men's hockey +196
1 unit Canada to win Curling men's gold -175
Next up: Canada/Norway at 9pm! Bet Canada -4.5 +104 cause there was no way in hell I was going the other way. On the way in to the game, a TV reporter from Global television (one of the major networks in Canada) interviewed us and apparently I was on national television last night. Lots of texts and Facebook comments on that one.
Got in the arena early to watch the warmup and take in the atmosphere. Saw Haley Wickenheiser (Team Canada women's captain and national hero) and Pierre Maguire (despised Canadian hockey colour commentator) talking about 40 feet away. Walked over and asked Haley for a pic and as there was nobody else around so Pierre volunteered to take the shot. After he did, Haley said "I'll take one of you two now!".
Haley:
Pierre:
Game started slow, Canada looked a bit out of sync but totally dominated the rest of the way winning 3-1. Not worried at all yet.
Operation Pay for trip (OPFTT) record: 1-1 +$0
As I didn't have time when I arrived in Sochi to get to the cruise ship I'm staying on, I had to check my bag at the airport. After the game finished about 11:30pm, we all made our way over to the train station at Olympic park to make our way back to Sochi. Only thing was, I had to go back to the airport to get my bag first.
After doing all that, It was 4am by the time I found the ship, got checked in and passed out. As my body clock was all f'd up, slept about 6.5 hours and couldn't get back up to sleep.
Upstairs for absolutely the worst breakfast buffet I've ever seen. I wouldn't feed that to my dog. The only thing even close to edible was so plain yogurt and some unidentified fruit. Had that and some tea and off to the Olympic park!
Canada house had an open house from 3-7pm with food and open bar. Didn't connect with Jason or Gio so figured I'd just go roam around the park and meet Jason at Canada house to start loading for the Canada/Austria hockey game that starts at 9:00pm.
Arrived at 2:55 and strolled right in and the atmosphere was awesome. Everyone in full Canada gear, drinking and watching the coverage on the 20 tv's around the place. Walked over to the bar to grab a couple beers only to find out the selection was Heineken or Miller. WTF?
Apparently all the Canadian beer got stopped in Moscow and confiscated. No matter, lets get rolling. Over to "the fridge" from all the Canadian beer commercials, put my passport in the door and boom!
Ta da!
Met a ton of cool people, one of the coolest experiences ever. Jason rolled in about 4pm and we started in on the beer.
About 6pm the Canada host took the mic and announced a special guest was in the house and started in on a long intro. Wasn't long before I knew it was one of the greatest goalies of all time, Russian Vladislav Tretiak!
Tretiak and his wife and daughter:
As soon as he was done I asked him for a picture, not sure he was very happy about it!
Just as we were walking out, there was a big commotion over near the door that opens close to the USA house next door. In rolls Putin himself and after saying that he wished Canada luck in every event other than Ice Hockey, Jason bum rushed him and took the greatest selfie in history:
Walked over to the food tent, got a meat pie that was godawful and then made our way to the arena for Canada/Austria. Real good game by the Canucks, game was never in doubt. Luongo was rock solid and should carry the water the rest of the way.
Jason, Gio, Rob (Gio's LA buddy) and I made our way over to the train and back to Sochi. Decided to find a nice restaurant to get a late-night meal in. Went to the Radisson and had some Schnitzel and a beer just to warm my baltic heart.
Back to the ship, got about 6 hours sleep. Having a hard time getting adjusted, hopefully will sleep better tonight. It's about 12:30 and we have tickets to USA/Russia at 4:30 and men's Ski Jumping on the big hill at 9:00pm tonight.
Hopefully I'll have time to keep this blog better updated in the next few days.
Random pics
Outside the arena before the Norway game:
Corey Perry getting focused:
Lots of Canada fans!
Canada house:
Required Torch pic:
02-15-2014
, 07:53 AM
02-15-2014
, 11:03 AM
02-16-2014
, 05:23 AM
Day 3
Finished up the first entry in the blog, then over to the Cosport office (the official ticket reseller) in Sochi to pick up two tickets for Gio and his traveling buddy Rob for the USA/Russia game that I bought for then online. Cosport wouldn't sell Americans tickets to that game. Worried much Russia?
Hopped on the train from Sochi to Olympic park, about an hour trip. Great scenery as the tracks are 50 meters from the beach and the Black Sea. A few brave souls swimming and the odd guy showing off in a banana hammock (Speedo).
Off the train, met up with the Yanks and made our way from one side of the park (the only entrance) to the other, about a 30 minute walk. Lack of exercise on this trip is not going to be an issue. That's good, because there is basically no way to eat even remotely healthy. Everything in the Olympic park is pizza, crepes and crappy sandwiches.
Got into Bolshoy arena an hour before game time, watched the warmups and made friends with the Russians in our section. Really good seats again for the game, in the 200 section, second row. For those reading that know Rogers Arena it would be equivalent to lower level, about row 20 on the goal line. Totally different vibe than the previous games with the home team playing. The chanting started before any of the players hit the ice.
Side note: We get stopped several times a day by Russians to take pictures with us. I'm going to be in so many random photo albums for life, scattered across Asia. I think they are just genuinely surprised anyone made the trip all the way to the middle of nowhere to watch some hockey games.
Quick OPFTT update:
1u Canada -5 -110 win
1u Finland/Norway under 5.5 -113 lose
Record: 2-2 -.13u
Game started off well. Russians not sending anyone in to forecheck, instead just sitting back in the neutral zone playing a trap. Interesting, all I ever hear is how much better the NHL would be with the bigger ice surface that they use in Europe and Asia. Not sure about that.
USA weathered the storm and finished the period playing well and tied 0-0. In the intermission we talked to a older guy and his son from Seattle right in front of us. Commercial fisherman. No, there is no radiation in the fish he's catching and he doesn't know any of the guys from the deadliest catch. Pretty sure he's sick of those two questions.
Russia went ahead on a nice goal by Pavel "The Sickness" Datsyuk after the USA defenceman Brooks "Pylon" Orpik decided to open up a big lane from him to stroll right down the middle. Might want to keep an eye on your gap their Brooks, Dats is kinda good.
After a Russian penalty, Cam "Kid" Fowler ties it up on the power play and the teams head to the dressing room tied 1-1 going into the third.
Jason asks me to watch his stuff while he goes to the bathroom. The buzz in the intermissions is like nothing I've ever seen. Almost nobody goes to the concourse like in North America, they're all just standing and chanting in Russian, waving flags and generally screaming their heads off.
Just before the start of the third he gets back and says "If I ever leave without my camera again punch me in the face". He had bought a cheap throwaway local phone and as he pulls it out I have a feeling I know what's coming. He shows me a shot of him and Crosby that he just took in the concourse.
To recap, he has pics with Tretiak, Crosby and Putin. Nobody left to get.
The third starts and the teams go end to end, some great hockey. Lots of fans just stand up during play to have pics taken of them by people in the row behind. Pretty tilting. SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE GAME. Jesus.
"Little Joe" Pavelski scores the go-ahead goal, after another dumb penalty by Radulov, on a sweet cross-ice feed from Kane, who otherwise was completely awful the rest of the game. Miracle on Ice, round 2?
Then Dustin "Who me?" Brown did what he does best when he takes a stupid, selfish penalty. After getting beat at his blue line he takes a run at a Russian and hits him knee on knee, bitter because he got schooled a second prior. As a man with money on the USA to win this group, I wanted to throttle him.
Of course Dats wastes no time tying it up on the power play and boom, we have an epic game in the making. Russia then looks like they go ahead 3-2 on a shot from the point by Fedor "Yes I play in the NHL, for Columbus which is why you might not have seen me" Tyutin beats Johnny "Quick" Quick. The place goes nuts, and so does Putin
Not so fast, grasshopper. The refs converge and something is up. The anti-riggage is engaged and referee Brad "uh, can I get a ticket out of Russia right now please?" Meier waves off the goal and the crowd goes nuts. Apparently they were initially looking at the replay for a hight stick but then noticed that the net was off its moorings just as the puck went in. Crazy.
USA gets a late power play with a minute and a half left in regulation but doesn't capitalize and were off to overtime. One five minute 4 on 4 period then to a shootout.
Kane gets a breakaway in OT and Sergei "BOBROVSKY!" Bobrovsky makes the save.
Off to the shootout. As a Canadian, I don't have to be reminded how much a shootout sucks when deciding Olympic games. Peter "Postage Stamp" Forsberg ruined our fine country on what has become known as "the move" to win gold for Sweden in the 1994 Olympic final in Lillehammer. The twist is that in the olympics if the teams are tied after the first three shooters, the coach can then send out whoever they want for the rest of the way.
After the teams were tied 1-1 through three shooters, USA coaches send out TJ "I'm from the same home town as poker superstar Scott Clements" Oshie him for the next 5 rounds as the teams remain tied. I can't even explain how crazy the rink was each time the Russians looked to have the game won before Oshie would inevitably tie it up in a must-score situation. Ilya "I don't need no stinking 50 million" Kovalchuk's flip over Quick was the highlight goal, but Oshie stole the show and the game scoring on 4 of his 6 shots.
As we weren't sitting together for the game, we met up with Gio and Rob outside the arena and immediately got interviewed as we went over the entire game in hockey speed-talk that only hockey fans truly can understand. Pretty sure that made some random Russian newscast somewhere.
Bid the Yanks good-bye and Jason and I headed up to the mountain to see the men's ski jumping final on the large jump.
Amazing sights as we rode the tram into the stadium
Got down to our seats (in the front row!) along side the landing area and watch crazy euros hurdle themselves down the jump. Jason was feeling pretty sick still (he got a cold along the way) so we stayed for the first set of 50 jumpers then made our way back to Sochi for the night.
Sitting in the wifi bar at 1:10pm Sunday afternoon about to hop on a train to Adler to meet up with the Americans for a beer, then off to USA/SLO and later to Canada/Finland!
#hockeyday
Finished up the first entry in the blog, then over to the Cosport office (the official ticket reseller) in Sochi to pick up two tickets for Gio and his traveling buddy Rob for the USA/Russia game that I bought for then online. Cosport wouldn't sell Americans tickets to that game. Worried much Russia?
Hopped on the train from Sochi to Olympic park, about an hour trip. Great scenery as the tracks are 50 meters from the beach and the Black Sea. A few brave souls swimming and the odd guy showing off in a banana hammock (Speedo).
Off the train, met up with the Yanks and made our way from one side of the park (the only entrance) to the other, about a 30 minute walk. Lack of exercise on this trip is not going to be an issue. That's good, because there is basically no way to eat even remotely healthy. Everything in the Olympic park is pizza, crepes and crappy sandwiches.
Got into Bolshoy arena an hour before game time, watched the warmups and made friends with the Russians in our section. Really good seats again for the game, in the 200 section, second row. For those reading that know Rogers Arena it would be equivalent to lower level, about row 20 on the goal line. Totally different vibe than the previous games with the home team playing. The chanting started before any of the players hit the ice.
Side note: We get stopped several times a day by Russians to take pictures with us. I'm going to be in so many random photo albums for life, scattered across Asia. I think they are just genuinely surprised anyone made the trip all the way to the middle of nowhere to watch some hockey games.
Quick OPFTT update:
1u Canada -5 -110 win
1u Finland/Norway under 5.5 -113 lose
Record: 2-2 -.13u
Game started off well. Russians not sending anyone in to forecheck, instead just sitting back in the neutral zone playing a trap. Interesting, all I ever hear is how much better the NHL would be with the bigger ice surface that they use in Europe and Asia. Not sure about that.
USA weathered the storm and finished the period playing well and tied 0-0. In the intermission we talked to a older guy and his son from Seattle right in front of us. Commercial fisherman. No, there is no radiation in the fish he's catching and he doesn't know any of the guys from the deadliest catch. Pretty sure he's sick of those two questions.
Russia went ahead on a nice goal by Pavel "The Sickness" Datsyuk after the USA defenceman Brooks "Pylon" Orpik decided to open up a big lane from him to stroll right down the middle. Might want to keep an eye on your gap their Brooks, Dats is kinda good.
After a Russian penalty, Cam "Kid" Fowler ties it up on the power play and the teams head to the dressing room tied 1-1 going into the third.
Jason asks me to watch his stuff while he goes to the bathroom. The buzz in the intermissions is like nothing I've ever seen. Almost nobody goes to the concourse like in North America, they're all just standing and chanting in Russian, waving flags and generally screaming their heads off.
Just before the start of the third he gets back and says "If I ever leave without my camera again punch me in the face". He had bought a cheap throwaway local phone and as he pulls it out I have a feeling I know what's coming. He shows me a shot of him and Crosby that he just took in the concourse.
To recap, he has pics with Tretiak, Crosby and Putin. Nobody left to get.
The third starts and the teams go end to end, some great hockey. Lots of fans just stand up during play to have pics taken of them by people in the row behind. Pretty tilting. SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE GAME. Jesus.
"Little Joe" Pavelski scores the go-ahead goal, after another dumb penalty by Radulov, on a sweet cross-ice feed from Kane, who otherwise was completely awful the rest of the game. Miracle on Ice, round 2?
Then Dustin "Who me?" Brown did what he does best when he takes a stupid, selfish penalty. After getting beat at his blue line he takes a run at a Russian and hits him knee on knee, bitter because he got schooled a second prior. As a man with money on the USA to win this group, I wanted to throttle him.
Of course Dats wastes no time tying it up on the power play and boom, we have an epic game in the making. Russia then looks like they go ahead 3-2 on a shot from the point by Fedor "Yes I play in the NHL, for Columbus which is why you might not have seen me" Tyutin beats Johnny "Quick" Quick. The place goes nuts, and so does Putin
Not so fast, grasshopper. The refs converge and something is up. The anti-riggage is engaged and referee Brad "uh, can I get a ticket out of Russia right now please?" Meier waves off the goal and the crowd goes nuts. Apparently they were initially looking at the replay for a hight stick but then noticed that the net was off its moorings just as the puck went in. Crazy.
USA gets a late power play with a minute and a half left in regulation but doesn't capitalize and were off to overtime. One five minute 4 on 4 period then to a shootout.
Kane gets a breakaway in OT and Sergei "BOBROVSKY!" Bobrovsky makes the save.
Off to the shootout. As a Canadian, I don't have to be reminded how much a shootout sucks when deciding Olympic games. Peter "Postage Stamp" Forsberg ruined our fine country on what has become known as "the move" to win gold for Sweden in the 1994 Olympic final in Lillehammer. The twist is that in the olympics if the teams are tied after the first three shooters, the coach can then send out whoever they want for the rest of the way.
After the teams were tied 1-1 through three shooters, USA coaches send out TJ "I'm from the same home town as poker superstar Scott Clements" Oshie him for the next 5 rounds as the teams remain tied. I can't even explain how crazy the rink was each time the Russians looked to have the game won before Oshie would inevitably tie it up in a must-score situation. Ilya "I don't need no stinking 50 million" Kovalchuk's flip over Quick was the highlight goal, but Oshie stole the show and the game scoring on 4 of his 6 shots.
As we weren't sitting together for the game, we met up with Gio and Rob outside the arena and immediately got interviewed as we went over the entire game in hockey speed-talk that only hockey fans truly can understand. Pretty sure that made some random Russian newscast somewhere.
Bid the Yanks good-bye and Jason and I headed up to the mountain to see the men's ski jumping final on the large jump.
Amazing sights as we rode the tram into the stadium
Got down to our seats (in the front row!) along side the landing area and watch crazy euros hurdle themselves down the jump. Jason was feeling pretty sick still (he got a cold along the way) so we stayed for the first set of 50 jumpers then made our way back to Sochi for the night.
Sitting in the wifi bar at 1:10pm Sunday afternoon about to hop on a train to Adler to meet up with the Americans for a beer, then off to USA/SLO and later to Canada/Finland!
#hockeyday
Last edited by YB2009; 02-16-2014 at 08:43 AM.
02-16-2014
, 10:39 AM
