It can't be the Olympics without Hockey

Before we headed north, Randy asked if there was a specific event I would like to see.

For me, it was all about the experience of being at an Olympics. Going to an event would be fun, but I certainly wasn't going to let it dappen my enthusiam. Plus, I'd seen the prices. And ouch!

So, for the first few hours, we wandered the streets just looking.

Every store window was filled with Olympic goodies...

Or signs cheering on the athletes. Well, mostly the signs cheered on the Canadian athletes. You'll remember that Canada was going for Gold at this Olympics.

We stopped at a few but the lines of shoppers waiting. Oh my, the lines were long. The line to just look at the Olympic medals in the bank vault was a couple of blocks. At 9am. I'm not good at lines.

I was content to look. I knew I'd get something eventually.

At some point, we wandered into a pavillion with the Canada's finest - the Royal Canadian Mounties. They were posing for pictures, so, of course, I snapped one.

There was a line, of course, if you wanted to have your picture taken with the women mounties. Dan was in that line. Randy was in charge of keeping us on track. And from getting lost. The woman to his left ended up visiting with him and telling him the best spots for watching events on the big screen. She was very helpful...and Canadian, of course!

After we left the First Nations pavillion, we were approached by a scalper selling tickets to the women's bronze medal hockey game between Finland and Sweden. It had just started and the ticket prices were falling by the minute. Three scalpers later, we bought 3 tickets for $20 each! Then, we just need to find the hockey rink. Oh look, there's the sign.

After walking what seemed like miles, we finally found the entrance to the hockey arena.

Randy and Dan kept walking. I stopped for pictures.

As we walked inside, we glanced down at the tickets and noticed they were for the 500 level. Great - we had nosebleed seats! Oh well, it would still be fun. An usher glanced at the tickets and pointed toward the elevators. "Take the elevator to Level 5," was all he said.

When the door opened at Level 5, there was another usher who greeted us, glanced at our tickets and told us to proceed down the hallway to our right until we found our suite. Our what? That's right, these tickets were to a suite. SWEET!!!!

Randy and Dan made themselves right at home.

Me? Well, of course, I was busy taking pictures. That's the press box just to our left. And there's the rink and the Olympic symbol of the 2010 Canadian Games.

Every participating nation's flag was displayed.

But the real action was on the ice. Can you find the puck?

There were two Zambonis to refresh the ice between each period. And yes, they were painted with the Canadian Olympic scenics we'd seen around town.

And here we are - another picture for the scrapbook! And yes, I am still smiling.

But it's time to get back to the game.

At the end of regulation, the score was tied 2-2. So, the game went into sudden death overtime!

And Finland scores! My, those were some very happy girls.

The team skated together up and down the rink several times before stopping in front of the section where the President of Finland was seated.

Then, they posed for pictures. They were very excited and they had good reason to be. They'd just won Olympic Bronze!

Great game and a fun adventure but it was time to leave for the next Olympic experience. We needed to find a big screen because the US women's hockey team was taking on the Canadian women's hockey team for the Gold!