Day 3

Our evening was spent gratiously being toured about by Matt's cousin, Bonita, and his uncle, Tom. Bonita showed us some of the sights of Vancouver (we saw the Zip Track line, Granville St, etc), exposed me to the wonders of Lush (uh oh! hehehe), and told us of some of Vancouver's hot spots. A dinner with her and her husband Mike as well as Tom, and we were all off to the Czech/Slovakia game.

What an AWESOME game between Czech/Slovakia!!! I am admitedly not wholly familiar with international hockey and am only faintly familiar with our own hockey (cringe) - I watch NHL when I can and try to keep at least somewhat abreast of standings and such, but I did not really have any vested interest in Czech versus Slovakia, so I just sat down to enjoy a good game of hockey (and did I ever!!). Seems everyone expected the Czech's to win (they had some fantastic players), which they eventually did at 3-1. Vokoun was in net for the Czech's. Czech's really bombarded the Slovakies over the first period, scoring one goal, but the Slovakies hit back the beginning of second period to score one goal. Afterwards though the Czech's stepped it up and continued to play hard the rest of the game. During the second period, the Czech's scored two goals within the last two minutes of the period - the second goal during the last TWO SECONDS of the period!!! I felt both teams really played hard and were quite aggressive; the Slovakies played a good game despite their loss. It was neat too to see the rivalry between the two teams, amongst the fans. Such a close game though made for some really exciting and tense moments!!!