THE RUSSIAN MACHINE

I love Canadians because they gave us hockey and aspirin with codeine without a prescription, but living in the most pass-aggressive city in the U.S. I know when I’m being told to piss off! Living close to the border, you’d think that we’d get lot’s of hockey here but you’d be wrong. U.S. NW peeps are NOT hockey lovers. When given the opportunity of a life time to see Men’s Olympic Hockey, the Canadian’s scared the crap out of the U.S. citizens warning us of long lines at the border and the fact that we were not worthy of Men’s Ice Hockey tickets – so forget it!

But I was not so easily daunted. My love for Ovi was too great. Someone had to represent for those non-Canadian players. So we drove the 2 and half hours and found to our amazement, no border wait! It was like a McDonald’s drive through but with no “May I help you?” When asked at the border why we were going into Canada, the border guard laughed in our faces that we thought we would get Men’s Ice Hockey tickets.

And it gets even better, we picked the day that the U.S., Canada and Russia were playing. We raced down the ‘CANADA HOCKEY PLACE’ what they renamed GM Place where the Canucks play, to try to score tickets to the U.S. game, they wanted face value for the game even after the first period! HELLO! I don’t think so.

So we decided to go the box office and see if actual tickets were available. Now, don’t get me wrong, Team Canada had some lovely players, Martin Broduer is one of my favorite honeys, and I have a certain weakness for goalies, and I cried when he was replaced by Snidley Whiplash (AKA Robert Luongo) but I was there to see the BEST HOCKEY PLAYER IN THE WORLD – ALEXANDER OVECHKIN.

My first priority at $125 a ticket was to see if there were any tickets available for Russia vs. Slovakia. There were  about 5 seats still available! HOLY H-E – DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS! Two were front row.

You have got to be kidding me?! We stood there stunned in silence because we really had resigned ourselves to sitting in a bar, watching the game with a bunch of drunk Canadians who had been too polite to say anything too rude to me about my Ovechkin Eastern Conference All-star Jersey other than, “Ovechkin?! Ovechkin?! …. Ahhhh .. yeah. He’s pretty good.” Seriously. That is the best a Canadian can come up with to slander Ovechkin.  So we bought the tickets and I did the Dance of Joy – Balky –style!

We had a clear view as you can see of my beautiful photo of OVI. I also have a lovely shot of his FABULOUS butt too! I don’t want to discuss the multiple missed shoot-out shots … that was a terrible, terrible dream! And let’s just say that it was a good thing the Canadian’s were really, really drunk from their win earlier in the day from – let’s be honest – A SHOOT OUT WIN OVER SWITZLERLAND?  

Anyway, we had to do the walk of shame up Robson Street to get to the tram to get back to our car for the long drive home. But it was one of the BEST HOCKEY experiences a hockey fan could ever have. And shame on the Canadians for making the U.S. hockey fan think we didn’t have a chance to share in the HOCKEY LOVE. Cause we did!

And one more thing, I find it VERY interesting.  Only AFTER CANADA hosts the Olympics, the NHL is considering no longer allowing NHL players to play in the Olympics …And guess where the 2014 Olympics are? SOCHI, RUSSIA ! Hate OVI Much?

We also got a warm up puck and I have to say, Sergei Fedorov was kind of hot too … And yes, this is MY photo because that was how freakin’ close I was and it was probably good there was plexiglass between me and him because it took an astronomical amount of self-restraint to not cause an international incident.