Gold rush

Wow!

Since my last post on Wednesday, Canada has gone into gold medal overdrive in Vancouver. The women duly beat the USA to claim the hockey gold, making it Canada's most golden Winter Olympics in history, and five further golds have been added in the last 48 hours in speed skating (thrice!), snowboarding and men's curling. The women's curlers missed out in their final against Sweden - whose team seemed to be comprised of the slightly overweight relations of Dr Cameron from House - but nonetheless this is now Canada's most successful Olympics ever, summer or winter.

In fact, if Canada can pick up one more gold, that will bring the total to fourteen, which would be the most golds won at any Winter Olympics by any nation, and there will be one last chance in the final event of the whole beanfeast as the men look to emulate their female counterparts by knocking over the Americans in the hockey final. A Hollywood scriptwriter could hardly have crafted a more fitting finale to the Games, and all that remains now is for the team to play their part and finish the deal.

As you are probably aware, I'm not the greatest hockey fan, but I shall be watching tomorrow regardless and I shall probably be on the edge of my seat from start to finish. There won't be any running into the street if Canada wins as it's -20 outside at the moment and forecast to be even colder tomorrow, but I might allow myself to crack open the maple syrup and cook up a celebratory pancake or two if all goes well.

Not that I need an excuse for pancakes and syrup...

Get your skates on!

Yesterday the whole school - the students and staff, as opposed the building itself - took a trip to the arena for an afternoon of ice skating. Most, if not all, of the communities in Nunavik have an arena, and the arena here is called the Nurraujaq Forum; nurraujaq is the Inuttitut word for goat and before you ask no, I don't understand either. Now, whilst the idea of building an ice rink in the North might at first seem akin to building a swimming pool in the middle of the Pacific, these arenas are well used and provide a focal point for the community in a land where skating in general and hockey in particular are part of the national psyche.

Hockey tournaments are held regularly in the North, and each community has its own teams, male and female, which are proudly supported whenever they play. I'm not quite sure who named the team here - maybe it was the same person that named the arena - but they either lacked a basic knowledge of geography or were simply highly sarcastic:

I'll leave you to ponder that for a moment...

I didn't skate yesterday - skating's just not my bag, baby - but I had plenty of vicarious fun watching everyone else glide, stutter and stumble around the rink, and although I've now lived in Canada for over four years I don't think it's ever going to be something that I take to. I have tried in the past, but I decided that the bruises weren't worth it so now I'm the one who looks after the shoes and coats.

Somebody's got to.