Finally

It's been awhile since my last entry and since then we have worked a few NHL games. We had to work a game on Friday between the 7th and 8th place teams in the qualification round that concluded all of our scheduled games. Since it was Friday night the place was jumping and downtown was as loud as usual. The police shut down all the liquor stores in the downtown area at 7pm in hopes to stop any rowdy outbreaks by the young people. Saturday was another quiet day, I was asked on Friday to work the Bronze Medal game, since it's the only Olympic's that I will probably work, I jumped at the chance. It was a pretty good game and I saw Kipper get the win and the Bronze Medal. The ride home was very quiet and uneventful but the downtown was loud. Sunday the whole country would be watching as Canada was playing the USA it was going to be a barnburner. The security was tight this day and we had to get special passes to get into the building as only the people scheduled for the game were allowed into the area. Once the crowd started to arrive the noise got louder and louder and we knew that we were going to have a hard time to hear each other in the booth even though we are beside each other. Today the police shut down the liquor stores at 2pm and that didn't go over well. The game went along as planned until the last 24 seconds when the US scored to even the score and force the game into overtime. I was working the "time on ice" for the US and I had a good view of the winning goal as the play was deep in their zone, they had the long change so I was able to watch the final goal and listen to the place go wild. We were asked to stay in our position until after the Medal's were presented so we saw the excitement of the Canadian team and the disappointment of the US team and I can understand each of the feelings. I was happy with the outcome as each and every Canadian was and especially for Jerome with an assist on the winning goal. The after game parties went on for hours and I'm sure that many people missed work the next day. The police reported that there was only a few problems downtown and that in general everything went extremely well. After I returned to Burnaby we watched the closing ceremonies on TV and thought that they could have been better. We were leaving Vancouver the following morning, we left for the ferry at 5:30am and arrived in Victoria about 8:30. This time we were taking a Westjet flight as there was a problem with the private plane, so we had to make other arrangements. We arrived home about 6:30 on Monday and it was great to be home.
The Vancouver Olympic's has been a once in a lifetime experience and one I'll remember forever. I had the privilege of working 16 games plus the opportunity to work both the bronze and gold medal men's hockey games. We toured most of Vancouver and I found it to be a beautiful city as is the UBC campus. While we were touring and not working we ran into friends from Calgary as well as other parts of the country. I talked to the keeper of the Stanley Cup, he goes with it everywhere (a job that most men would love). I saw a number of hockey people in the building and around town as well as many other celebrities.