After the Opening Ceremony we got to watch our host families son, Jake, play against Japan. Jake was chosen for the honour of being the Aldergrove Center for the Ceremonial Puck drop prior to the game.
The speed and ability of the Japanese was incredible. Aldergrove really did well to keep them to such a low score, going down 2-4 at the final siren. After the game we went back to Jan and Michelle's house, with the Winklers, for dinner and to watch the Canucks game. We may live on the opposite side of the world but its amazing how much we have in common and how well we all got along. So much so we didn't notice how much time had passed. I got to drive us back to the hotel, my first time driving in Canada, at 4.30am. Thankfully Ryan had gone to bed much earlier, staying one more night with our host family. Needless to say it was a little hard to get up this morning.
Today was set to be a long hard day with the team having 2 games. The first of the two games was against the Canadian Cranbrook Colts. The kids seemed keen to get started and again enjoyed exchanging their gifts.
We really didn't know what to expect but thought that the Canadians would easily dominate. It was a giant shock when our Captain, Marcel, scored within the first 10 seconds of the game. We got off to a flying start. Connor was playing amazing!!!
It was such an exciting game to watch and the kids played brilliantly as a team. Unfortunately despite leading for the majority of the game, in the final few minutes of the third period the Canadians finally drew in front.
The most exciting moment by far for us however was that Connor scored his first Friendship Games goal, the final goal of the game, to bring the final score back to 7-6. He was so excited and so were we. Interestingly, we would discover that Connor had not listened to his Dad's advice about using equipment he was familiar with. The first thing Connor was keen to tell everyone when he came off the ice was that he had scored using "Jake's stick" - the stick he had been given by Jake; that seemed to make the goal even more special for him. At the end of the game we were so proud of all the kids that they had come so very close to beating a Canadian team.
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