Game 4: The Good News is...

...Team Canada will be playing for a medal tomorrow!!!  They will match up against Norway in the Bronze Medal Game on Friday night (7pm PT/10pm ET).  At the post-game reception, Captain Jean Labonte thanked the families, friends, and Hockey Canada for their support and said they would play for the medal as if it were the Gold. 

Four of the Nicholson Gang at the Canada-Japan Game

So, the semi-final results today were:
Japan 3 - Canada 1
USA 3 - Norway 0

The Japan win was a huge upset in this tournament - by all predictions, the tournament was supposed to boil down to a Canada-USA match up this Saturday.  Team Canada was leading 1-0 at the end of the first period after a goal by Marc Dorion from Jeremy Booker and Ray Grassi.  Team Japan came back to tie it in the second and went ahead with a 2-1 lead in the third.  A third goal when Team Canada pulled their goalie cinched it - Team Japan will advance to the gold medal game versus USA on Saturday.  Another local connection - Mitsuru Nagase (or "Mits" as we call him), Team Japan goalie, attended school in Ottawa awhile back and played house league sledge hockey during that time with many of the Ottawa players.  He was visibly emotional when Team Japan won the game.

Team Canada was understandably very disappointed by this loss - it is times like this where the media coverage we've been so thankful for is not necessarily a blessing...  CTV News lead the six o'clock news with the story with footage of the teary-eyed players.  The flip side of this - Gordie, Kevin, Jason, Em and Carol & Stuart were interviewed by CTV during the game - we are really looking forward to seeing that aired on national TV.

Ger                                                                                           A glance up into the stands

So, a good night's sleep, a re-group, and tomorrow night - time for the boys to git 'er done.

GO CANADA!!!

Jenn~