Team Canada

For pretty much the first time all break I have nothing of much importance to write about. I was basically lazy all day. My friend Julie flew to NYC last night to visit a friend there and then go to GYC so she's gone. Bryn's friend Rachel and her husband are gone to Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland to visit their extended families. I think Nik left back to Alberta with his family today. Stephen, Chris and Jonathon, as far as I know, are at their house two hours south of us and I'm not sure if they'll be back in town during the rest of this break. My friend Jodi and her family are in Spokane visiting her brother and his wife for the holidays. Just after I got back home for the break I wrote to my friend Jodi, who currently lives in Alberta, that she should swing by my house on her way to or from Spokane where her family was visiting her brother and his wife. She wrote back that that would be rather difficult and add a lot of hours to their trip home, which I knew, of course. So I guess I'll just have to try and convince her to come down to visit us at school. Maybe she'll come for our grad. This is sounding like a pity party so I'm going to switch subjects.

I was on the computer pretty much all day. It was pretty nice. For a few hours in the afternoon I went out and settled on the rocking chair in the TV room and watched some World Junior hockey. Team Canada beat Switzerland 6-0 in their second game of the tournament. On the opening day, Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) they beat Latvia 16-0, so they still don't have any goals against. I suspect that could change soon though. They're playing Slovakia tomorrow and then the United States on New Year's Eve. Particularly the game against U.S. could be challenging for them. But I'm going to stay positive and say they can keep up their winning ways. Some notes about today's game: (1) Team Canada wore green sweaters. It was rather shocking to see them in a colour other than red or white. I read somewhere yesterday that the green jerseys were in honour of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, Saskatchewan's CFL team that lost in the Grey Cup (CFL's equivalent to the SuperBowl). Oh, by the way, the World Junior Championships this year are being held in Regina and Saskatoon, SK. I found the idea of the green jerseys rather odd since this is the first time the Team has ever worn any colour other than red or white that I can remember. I wonder why, when the WJC were held in Vancouver in 2005, Team Canada didn't wear orange and black sweaters in honour of the BC Lions, our provinces football team. It's all very strange and very hard to wrap my brain around. Even by the end of the game I would sometimes still think that Team Switzerland was Team Canada because they were wearing white jerseys with red emblems on the front. Hopefully in tomorrow's game they'll be back to their ordinary jerseys and everything will be back to normal. (2) Brandon McMillan got a hat trick in today's game. A hat trick is when one player scores three goals in a single game. (For more intriguing details, click here and scroll down to the hockey entry.) I was happy to see McMillan get the hat trick because they are always nice to see, but what made me proud was that he's a forward for the Rockets, my hometown WHL team. He's the only Rockets' player in the World Juniors this year so I'm sure that tonight all the junior hockey hearts in town are bursting from pride over his achievement. (3) I was disappointed to see the McMillan wasn't given the Player of the Game award at the end of the game. I think getting a hat trick beats out anything else another player does, even if they had good physical play or did a great job of defending. The only player that might supercede a hat trick scorer could be the goalie if he made numerous amazing stops and saved the team. But today our goalie had a relatively easy day with only 15 shots on goal from the Swiss. So I thought it should have gone to McMillan. Plus he's a Sask. boy. Why not give it to him in front of a hometown crowd? I definitely agree with TSN analyst Bob Mackenzie on that one. (4) The Team Canada coach talked in a press conference that I saw a part of tonight when I was watching the evening news. I was highly impressed with his tie, which was Team Canada red with little tiny Team Canada logos subtly spread out over the entire tie in the same red colour. It was classy, but showed pride for our team and our country.

After watching hockey I watched some Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which is a pretty sad, but also uplifting show. There was a marathon so I watched a few. Didn't I already tell you it was a lazy day? Then tonight we went out to eat at Milestone's with a gift card from one of my dad's cabinet installers. Every year he gives our family a gift card to a restaurant so tonight was the night to use it. I hadn't been to the new Milestone's since it's been moved from in the mall to at the edge of the mall parking lot so it was nice to see how they did things up differently. It seems a lot more classy now. I stuffed myself even though Bryn and I shared our penne dish. Somehow, though there was room for gelatto for dessert. It was scrumptious. Then I came home and decided I really had to finish "Harriet the Spy" so I did just that. I can see some similarities between Harriet and myself (more on that here). Anyway, now I can move on to one of the many books I got for Christmas. We'll see how much I can accomplish in the next few days. Wow, for doing nothing and apparently having nothing much to say, I sure said a lot. Allow me to apologize once again.