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Today was the big day, the day of the finals. Funny how the weather today was amazingly sunny and warm (as opposed to cloudy and wet for the previous week). The finals for all three divisions (women's, mixed, and men's) were being held right after each other. Our game was scheduled to go second, and the game was held at the other arena (there were two arenas being used for the tournament). This arena was older than the one that we played at. It also only had one rink, and the changeroom was a little smaller. The biggest difference between the two changerooms was that the shower room in the other arena was a large separate room. In this one, it was just a tiny stall, and people can see inside through the large doorway. This made it a very interesting problem for cleaning up afterward, but that was a problem to be dealt with later..
I ended up near the beginning of the line while we were lining up to get ready to enter the rink, so I did manage to talk to one of the guys from the Minnesota team. He was telling me of how they were able to play some broomball during the intermissions of the Minnesota Wild games. That's pretty cool. It gets them a lot of exposure, and it's probably really good ice.
I also overheard their team members talking amongst themselves of how they were going to crush us, and we were dead meat, etc. Confidence building I guess.
The game started soon enough, and just about a minute into the game, we ended up drawing a penalty. What the heck? Okay, no problem, we'll just kill it off, and we did. Then we drew another penalty. This time, we were getting rather annoyed (we knew that the refs would call against us during this game, but this was getting a little ridiculous). So in retaliation, we scored a short-handed goal. We got another goal before Minnesota popped one into our net, but it was downhill for them after that. We continued to draw penalties (I think we had six in the game to Minnesota's one), but the final tally was 9-1 in our favour. It was no contest. We completely outplayed them and it must've been a humbling experience for them.
I was happy at least! I even got an assist!
The team had brought a lot of alcohol into the changing room in anticipation of our win, and people started celebrating inside.
True to their word, after taking quite a few sips from the champagne, a couple of the guys pinned me down and snipped off my tail. I figured I probably shouldn't resist because: they said they were going to do it, they were drunk, and they were much bigger than me. Oh well, I'm haven't decided yet if I'm going to grow a new one or not.
The guys had their shower in their normal way, but the women (being more modest) tried to stick up a curtain to prevent any prying eyes from seeing things they shouldn't have seen. It proved somewhat effective, although it didn't stop the guys from taking candid pictures from different angles through the cracks (I did not partake in the festivities unfortunately).
The medal ceremonies and stuff were held soon after the men's final was held. There were lots of cheering, hand shaking, etc. Eventually, we headed out to the hotel where we hung around for a bit. I ended up cooking up our KD and passed it around to anyone who wanted a piece. While I was cooking, the team came up with more Ing jokes (like cook-Ing etc.). In any case, we didn't do much until the banquet later that night..
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The tournament ended with a large banquet held at the Bay street armory. The armory was also the location where we first registered and there were a lot of kids hanging around the area. Most of them probably belonged to air cadets or something similar. Today, it was converted into a large dining hall with a stage for a live entertainment that was to arrive afterward. (Oh yeah, I never mentioned that there was Latin dancing demonstrations being held at the registration as well. It caught the eyes of quite a number of guys who were there..)
Anyway, the food was fairly good, and there was a lot of it. The jersey trading that JCS started with JD had exploded into an orgy of item exchanging between all of the players at the tournament. I had given my jersey to JCS (who was going to get something for one of his friends) because I wasn't going to make any exchanges (seeing as I would have to pay for the jersey if I did).
Oh, I'd like to take this time to remind myself of one of the girls on the Montreal team who looked exactly like Jewel. The resemblance is uncanny. In any case, she was very attractive (and short). JCS tried to hit on her, but the general concensus is that someone else came out on top in the end. Anyway, the team trophies were presented at the banquet, as well as trophies and plaques for the MVPs and best players in each position. (JCS ran off with quite a number of plaques and trophies.) It was difficult to make out who the winners were because the acoustics in the building were horrible. The echoes in the building masked the announcer's voice and the only way one could really figure out what was going on was to ask someone close to the announcer (who tended to walk around the building) what was said.
After dinner, the lights were turned down low and the band started playing. I saw a guy and a girl from the Tokyo team wander near us. I can't remember who it was that asked them what they wanted but the girl pointed to her team jacket (which she was holding) and then pointed to me. *blink* Me? I walked up to the two and eventually figured out that she wanted to exchange her jacket with something of mine.
Uh oh. When I gave my jersey to JCS, I did not expect to have someone come up to me for an exchange! Fortunately, I spotted one of our team jersey's under the table and checked to see if it was still available. It was (although I would have to pay for it later) and I asked the girl if it was alright to exchange the jersey for the jacket. After a bit of thinking, she accepted the deal and tried on the jersey. It was pretty big (on her). Her jacket, on the other hand, fit me perfectly! After discovering some hidden goodies in the jacket (some origami and rice crackers) we thanked each other and she headed back.
Our team spent some time after dinner debating on when to leave. The general concensus was to leave if they didn't like the band's music and head out to a couple of the clubs in town. I had nothing better to do, and I promised to be the designated driver (for more than a dozen drunk people in a seven passenger mini-van) so I went with the team.
I bumped into Mr. Broomball while he was in the area and he asked where I got the jacket from. I told him that I had exchanged it with one of his teammates and he looked at the name on the jacket.
"Oh, MO, she's a cutie!"
Huh? Really? I never noticed. I decided to go see her once again before we left.
It wasn't long before they decided that they could get better music elsewhere and plans were made to figure out what to do (and how to transport people since we only had one van for the fifteen of us. Since some people didn't want to go out with the team (and some people had stuff to drop off or pick up at the hotel) I drove a number of people back and forth from the hotel during that.
I took that opportunity (after the last shuttle) to pass by the Tokyo team's area and bump into the girl I got the jacket from. Well, it wasn't hard to find the girl, so I talked with her for a while. Well, it did take a while to talk, since her English is not good. Anyway, I figured it wouldn't hurt, so I started writing down my email address. The moment she realized what I was writing, she started clapping and giggling. (Oh good, what did I get myself into?) She then wrote down her e-mail address with her team number (69, who would've thunk?) and gave it to me. So I patted her on the head and left.
We then proceeded to leave the armory. Oh yeah, during one of my trips out, before I got my new jacket, some lady (one of the organizers I think) bowed to me and said "Sayonara". Which is when I told her that I was actually part of the Edmonton team. She looked a little surprised, but took it in stride. Anyway, it took us a few minutes to fit everyone into the van (it was something like two in the trunk, four in the back, four in the middle, and three in the front), and we took off.
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After leaving the banquet, our group (which consisted of most of the team packed into one of our vans) proceeded to one of the bars in downtown Victoria. I was driving with TP and JCS navigating next to me. The back (and trunk) was filled to the brim with people, but they were all on the verge of being drunk, so we didn't have anybody suffering from claustrophobia.
Unfortunately for us, I had no idea where the bar was, and more importantly, I had no idea where to park. Following conflicting directions from five drunk people from different parts of the car made driving.. difficult. I knew how to get downtown, so I basically followed directions that the majority of the people were shouting at me until we got inside at which point I tried to tune everybody out except for.. Oh man, I can't remember her name now. To make a long story short, we eventually found a parking spot despite our condition, and made it to the bar. I think the name of the first bar was Hush.
The place was packed with people and it was hot as snot. The music was okay. They had a mix of fairly recent pop tunes sprinkled with some older stuff from the 70s and 80s. After checking out the scene for an hour or so, the group picked up and left to go to another bar, BJ's I think, to see what it was like. The place was less crowded, much more bearable temperature-wise, and they were playing mostly house and dance. *thumbs up* Apart from Brad and I, nobody stayed on the dance floor long. I don't think the team appreciated the continuously repeated beats and rhythms being played at the place and eevntually went back to Hush. (Even I was starting to get annoyed by the lack of variety.)
Anyway, we spent the rest of the night out at Hush until closing (which was fairly long, although not as long as I thought it would be). There were some things that I noticed at the bar however. First of all, there were these TVs placed around the bar showing some weird videos of guys and their genitals in funky psychodelic colours. It was a little trippy, and not something that I'd normally see.. anywhere! Secondly, there was a couple of guys near our group that were dancing shirtless, and very close together. Finally, there were these two girls near the DJ booth who were dancing together. One of them started fondling the other's breasts and.. that's about all I can say about that. Those few instances made me realize that this was not your average type of bar.
After we had gotten back, Brad filled me in on some of the stuff that I might have missed out on, and we got ready to go to sleep. Geez, the things you find out on the last day.
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