Day 2 (Feb 16)

We started the day a little later then the first. We had tickets for a Finland-China women's hockey match in the evening. We decided our first stop should be the olympic store. The line had been rumored at being over 2 hours in the afternoon. We figured we could get there early enough to beat that rush. We stood in line for about 1 hour. Right about the time we were thinking we were at a standstill, my sister got out of line for a coffee. Almost as soon as she left, we were let in. We then watched her walk to the door and walk in, in front of all the patient shoppers in line. We stayed in the official store for about an hour and a half. We were also impressed at how quickly the store pumped people through the checkout line. All of the people in the store were polite as well. It was a different shopping experience.
When we finished shopping and headed toward the hockey stadium and the Saskatchewan pavilion. We looked for a bathroom and the nearest out of our sky train stop was in a mall in china town. The mall had a stage set up for Chinese new year, and we sat nearby and ate a quiet lunch.

We then headed outside to beautiful sunlight. We walked right by the hockey stadium just as a Canadian game was ready to be let in. The crowd was impressive. We then walked around the stadium and landed near Science World. They changed the Science world into Sochi world for the next Olympic games in Russia. We walked into the Saskatchewan tent and found a tv showing the games.

We watched the female snowboard cross in the tent. It was fun again to watch in a crowd. We then walked into the food and music tent. We weren't too impressed, but I did get my photo with some mounties.

As we exited, we saw the flags of the olympic village.

The security was pretty tight. They put up apartments for the athletes for the games, and they will sell to people after the games. We then found the stage where Colbert was filming the next morning. We then made our way to the train station and made our way out of downtown, back toward the University. We got on a bus and headed to the hockey game. As we approached the stadium, the crowd buzzed. We had to exit the bus a few block from the venue and walked. There were great volunteers the entire walk to tell us where to go.

We all had tickets but we were not sitting in the same places. I was in the highest seat on the edge of the side of the rink. I was sat next to a group of college students who came from Toronto for the game. They were great fans. They had their beers, they picked their teams and only yelled encouragement. In the US, if we had a drunk baseball crowd, I would only expect negative yelling and jeers at the ref or the players that do not play up to expectations. These guys( and girl) were true hockey fans and only cheered for a good game.
We watched Finland own the puck. They put 43 shots on goal to China's 5 for the game, but the score was 2-1. It was fun.

We then headed home. My brother, his wife and I decided to try and find a bar and watch some highlights. We found a nice little pub with a great burger and brew special. We ate and laughed until closing. I then headed home for an early morning getting ready for Colbert.