good talk

I had never been to an Olympics and so when Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics I thought that I should take advantage of its proximity to Las Vegas. In the Newspaper and on TV they were saying that there were plenty of tickets available and that you could just go to Salt Lake and buy them there. Seeing good events scheduled for February 20, 2002 I went down to the Greyhound Station and bought a ticket for Salt Lake City leaving from Las Vegas on the Evening of February 19. That was about an 11 hour trip and it was nice and peaceful on the bus and I got a good night's sleep (no doubt by this time you people have figured that I'm pretty easily pleased). I arrived at the temporary Greyhound Station which was a Truck Stop on the outskirts of town at 7 A.M., Truck Stops have good amenities and I caught a nice breakfast buffet to fill my tummy. The weather was cold and rainy which I like every so often and I made my way down to Temple Square via local bus around 8:30 A.M. I walk around a little bit and I'm approached by a guy offering me a $250 ticket for the quarter-final hockey game between Belarus and Sweden at the "E Center" Arena at 10:30 A.M., the price was $100 (scalping was legal). I said OK and gave the guy a hundred dollar bill and he was happy for this business, pretty quickly the ticket would have been worthless. And it took me 35 minutes by streetcar and walking to get to the "E Center," I was there with plenty of time (I always like to get to games early and cat around). Belarus was the 8th Seed having been outscored in their 2 previous games by 16-2 and therefore having to play the lst Seed, Sweden, who was the overwhelming favorite to win the Men's Hockey Gold Medal and had just impressively beaten Canada and the Czech Republic. One of Belarus' players played in the National Hockey League whereas All of Sweden's players did. The Swedes came out Smiling and Relaxed, two and a half hours later they weren't feeling as well. Belarus' goalie was Andrei Mezin, a career minor league goalie who would never make the NHL, Sweden's goalie was the fabled Tommy Salo. But Belarus was leading 2-1 in the 2nd Period when Sweden tied it, in the 3rd Period Belarus was up 3-2 when Mats Sundin, the Swedes' Captain, tied it as by now the Swedes were playing desperately realizing that the game hadn't been going their way. Throughout this Contest the Swedes were shooting constantly at the Belarus Goalie, Andrei Mezin, but with little effect, typically a Swede would wind up and shoot from 25 feet with the puck cracking off Mezin's Pads, Mezin would scoop up the errant shot and give it to a Belarus Player. For the game the Swedes were to take 47 shots with only 3 getting past Mezin, the forever minor league goalie. With 2:24 seconds left in the game Vladimir Kopat of Belarus took a wild 70 foot shot that hit Tommy Salo near his head and trickling over his shoulder, Salo whirled around frantically only to see the puck in his Goal, Belarus was up 4-3. In the 3rd Period Us Crowd had gotten behind Belarus as they had no fans there whereas the Swedes had many, we chanted "Belarus," And "Cute Little Belarus," exhorting them on as we sensed a quite possible upset. The game ended with 4 goals for Belarus and 3 for Sweden, the Belarus Players dropped their sticks and rushed Mezin. Also Belarus had shot suprisingly well against the Swedes, being judicious in their Shot Selection they had made 4 out of their 17 Shots. This Game was played in the U.S. and here we have the Saying, "Every dog........."