I forgot to mention that last night some of the players and staff attended what was called the Triple Crown ceremony. The Triple Crown of hockey consists of players that have won the Stanley Cup, World Championship and the Olympics. This one included 22 former and current players.  Remember I was at Mcdonalds and was having a double Big Mac.

Today is Qualification games and what a day of games today. We are not typical Canadians if we do not cheer for the underdogs and today was no exception. The Swiss win in a shootout against Belarus, Latvia lose to the Czech in OT (could have been a real uprising) Norway almost beats the Slovacs and well Canada blew away the German team. So Sweden plays Slovac tomorrow for Quarter Finals.

Today I am by myself. My co-host has taken the day off and will be back tomorrow.  This morning I was supposed to take the assistant coach to pick his wife up at the airport but we were intercepted by the team doctor. If any of the readers were watching the Sweden vs Finland game you would have seen Patrick Hornquist take a spectacular elbow to the head and the Finnish player was ejected from the game for a Check to the Head match penalty plus a five minute major (which Sweden did not capitalize on). Hornquist did not return to the game on the speculation of a concussion. Having the Concussion seminar in Regina in December we heard stories of success and sorrow when it came to concussions. We also heard the return to play protocols that are followed and in this instance I was able to see it all unfold. The NOC doctors talked with the team doctor and it appears in Sweden they have even higher standards. So back to how I started this, was the doctor intercepted my trip to the airport to take Hornquist and himself for assessment in Langley with the doctor who takes care of the Canucks and other NHL teams when they come to town.   He passes with flying colors and will be playing on wednesday.

The skies have opened up and it is raining again after a few very beautiful sun filled days. So there is a lot of transporting staff to and from the arena before and after practice. The team practices at 5pm at UBC today. It is not the usual practice rink but they were originally scheduled for 730 at the original practice rink and rthat would make for a late day and trhey have their pre game skate at 11 am tomorrow.