Game day & Opening Ceremony

Today I had my first game for this tournament. Finland won 4 -0 against Japan, in an exciting game. Japan was very quick and good at handling the puck, but Finland had stronger shots. I lined with Ma Jinping and we had some difficulty communicating off the ice but when it came down to being out there on the ice we had good non-verbal communication. We used hand signals and gestures that were pretty discrete so we knew who would pick up the puck or follow players. Oh by the way, the “buzzer” at the end of each period is the sound of a gong. It is not a recorded gong sound; it is really a person with a gong in the score keeper’s box hitting it exactly at the right moment. The teams are really quite good, not as good as the teams I saw at the Four Nations Cup, but they will probably be players I will see in the future for their country. It is really loud and they do it next the microphone and I thought it was funny. I have not received feedback yet though; we were rushed after showering to get back to the hotel and drop off our stuff and then go to the opening ceremony. We (the people from my game) were not able to eat because all of the confusion so I had a granola bar.

After mass confusion back at the hotel with Stacey about to pull her hair out when she was talking with the lady organizing our bus to the ceremony we finally got there before it started. We sat up pretty high and dead center in the arena. This place was being used for the figure skating venue for the games and seats a lot of people. It was packed! The ceremony opened with the players walking in with the title of their country and its flag, it looked just like the Olympics. They went through all the countries and the Chinese people in the crowd cheered for everyone except for the U.S.A. it was pretty silent and no clapping except for a few pockets of Americans in the crowd. I’m surprised no one booed. They raised the host country’s flag and then had people with the Harbin torch run into the building and out the other side, the handed it of 2-3 times and finally made it to the huge torch outside the building. The torch was handed to a curling guy (the sport curling) and he slid his curling stone down a strip of ice into this metal catcher that had a “rocket” that shot up and then fireworks shot directly down into the huge torch outside. I wish I was outside to see it but it was on the jumbo-tron and I watched and videoed it. They went through a lot of impressive theatrical dances and had singers, drums, electric violinist dancing and playing across the stage. They had peeled back the floor where the player had walked in earlier and the figure skating ice was exposed around the stage. They had props on the ice and figure skaters jumping and doing technical moves. It was really impressive and fun to watch and lasted 2 hours. They sure know how to put on a great show and I felt honored to be there. We went outside after it was done and they had a massive display of fireworks that lasted 20 minutes, we were freezing and watched the rest from the bus as we pulled away to go back to our hotel.

Matt allowed the referee’s that worked the late game to go and eat in a special room in the hotel because we were all so hungry. He joined us and we had a very nice dinner and were so happy that we were able to eat. Now I am uploading photos from the ceremony and putting them on my site, be patient they should all be on there within the next 30 minutes.

Game assignments for tomorrow: I will be goal judging for China vs. Japan.
They have goal judges for this entire event put in place by Chinese workers trained for it. But, to be un-biased they requested that the officials not working tomorrow’s games be the goal judge for all of China’s games. I will be goal judging with Carrie (Canada), so not so much excitement tomorrow but the games should be pretty good because they are rivals.

So anyway, check back soon for new photos and later for a new blog! Goodnight!