Gameday

Today was gameday #4.  This morning we had our typical meeting.  Here we were told that the organizing committee as taking us to a special dinner tomorrow night and we had to select our meal.  While the menu did have some English it was a bit of a challenge to write out what I wanted.  I swear just about every thing on menu contained at least 15 letters!  Speaking of languages, I say this every year and this year will be no different.  I am so impressed with how everyone here except the 3 Americans speaks multiple languages fluently.  I asked many of them how they learned English and the answers have all varied but the common theme was they started at a young age.  However, one thing that definitely helped the Swede's is many of their television shows are in English.  I rarely turn on the tv on these trips but here I have to watch the Sweden games that are being televised.  As I flipped through the channels I was shocked to see how many were in English with Swedish subtitles.  They even had some typical American channels like Discovery Channel!

Following lunch a bunch of us decided to go take a walk and run to the market to pick up a few things.  While it was cool and windy when we left the hotel the sun was shining.  When we exited the grocery store it was hailing and made for a very unpleasant walk back to the hotel!  We walked in as the first crew was getting ready to leave and they were all laughing at us because we were drenched!  I then got ready for my all important standby duties today.  Every game at IIHF championships has a referee and linesman standby just in case somebody gets hurt.  We all rotate being standbys for games when you aren't working and today was my turn.  If you remember a few years ago in Czech I had to go in as a standby so ever since then I make sure I'm really ready to go.  After the game we came back to the hotel to eat and watched the end of the Sweden game on tv.  Tomorrow is another day off and we are planning to explore Copenhagen a little more!