Today on my lunch hour, I picked up a pair of iPins from the Apple store and decided to hang out on Robson Square. I had heard that gold medal winner, Alexandre Bilodeau, was going to be there. He wasn’t. Well, if he was, I sure didn’t see him. I just walked around with all the other people and took in some people watching. The place was full of plenty of happy folks, snapping pictures of each other with all the different art pieces. Also, they were standing in lines. It seems that standing in lines is part of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games experience. We’d better get used to it for the next few weeks. Just an aside – the line up to get into The Bay downtown for those cute hoodies was nearly a block long – all along Seymour Street from Georgia Street down to Dunsmuir. Huh? You came all this way to stand in line for 4 hours to go shopping? Crazy!
But back over on Robson and Howe Street, I was keeping a sharp eye out for anyone in a track suit to take photos of - I just assume anyone in a track suit is an athlete. Sometimes that’s not always correct because it is possible they could be tourists from Florida, or Lorne Sear. But today I got lucky when I spotted a gaggle of lean looking men in puffy white jackets. I had no idea who they were, but snapped 4 quick photos of them just in case. I noticed afterward some were holding pink Holt Renfrew bags. Hmmm…high end shoppers. Who were these guys?
Once I got home from work and showed Mike the photos, he (of course) knew IMMEDIATELY that it was the Slovak Men’s Hockey Team. Nice scoop! Here they are:
Mike and I were actually able to do some face recognition with the help of this wikipedia site and the official Winter Games website. We figured out that the first man on the left is Richard Zedník – he used to play for the Washington Capitals but now plays in the KHL (Russian Hockey League). The man right behind the girl smoking is Branko Radivojevic – he used to play for the Phoenix Coyotes (Oof. Sorry Branko) and now he plays for Spartak Moscow. Martin Cibak is the Holt Renfrew shopper – the one with the pink bag over his shoulder. He used to play for the Tampa Bay Lightning, but now also plays for Spartak Moscow.
Here are the other shots – they are very similar, but if you know who the other players are, please let me know.
Woohoo! Real hockey players, guys! Now that was a successful lunch break.
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Yum.
Feel free to hand out my email address if you run into the Norwegian Hockey Team.
So lucky that you’re there – so close!
Hockey players rock, even if they’re not for Team Canada!
I love getting my Vancouver 2010 experience through you, Carol!! We’re gearing up for our whirlwind ONE day in town on Thursday (we want to stay longer but can’t – if all we can get is one day… we’ll take it!). I hope we get to see Alexandre Bilodeau walking about… we’ll tell him the USofA’rs are super fans of his too!
GREAT shots of the Slovak hockey team! Though I worry about that lady lighting up her smoke – their puffy jackets look as though they’d burt into flames.
WOW! I will take the one on the left.
What a scoop! Great investigative reporting. I am so glad I get to watch from my desk. ; )
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