Hockey Night in Paris (May 10th Journal Entry)

Today I woke up absolutely hung over. The night before I had gone out with three nice American girls from who go to UConn, and drank under the Eiffel Tower for most of the evening. Upon returning to my hostel and after they crashed, I stayed in the reception lounge to chat with two other Americans from California along with the very friendly owner of the hostel, Pablo. Pablo is a jolly Samoan from Hawaii who managed to start this very successful establishment. If anyone is in Paris and needs a hostel, find the Aloha. This is why my hang over was so awful. Pablo and the Californians were shooting gin, and insisted I joined in. Big mistake. It resulted in heated political debates, and to my own astonishment, they did not know we Canadians had our own currency. 'Do you use the Euro or US dollar up there?'. Mother of God I thought. On that note I decided it was time to retire as I was feeling rather wobbly from the liquor.

After nursing my hang over for most of the afternoon, I realized that Canada and Russia were playing each other in the Gold medal game for the IIHF World Championship. I had seen a pub called 'The Great Canadian' on my way to the hostel, so I phoned ahead to be sure they would be playing the game. After a quick metro ride I was there. Sitting on the patio which was right by La Seine, I met a fellow hockey fan named Max. He hailed from a town about 400km east of Moscow. One can only imagine how desolate his hometown is. Turns out he was in a band that just finished cutting an album in Toronto, sharing a studio with Tokyo Police Club. I have since forgotten the name of his band...Utopia? Utopians? Who knows.

I quickly found myself surrounded by Russians which surprisingly enough was a nice change, I had never watched an international hockey game with fans who were against Canada. Admittedly, conversation was difficult at times for they were constantly switching from French to English, and back to Russian. Sadly our Canadians came out the losers in a hard fought 2-1 loss. Ilya Bryzgalov, the Russian goalie stood on his head most of the game, and I am convinced he is the only reason they came out on top. My new Russian friends were graceful winners, buying me a couple of pints to drown my sorrows in. I happily drank my beer, and stumbled back to the hostel for a nice beer-induced slumber.