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: