And just like that it's all over……..

So all the hard work and time put it, all the sacrifices made ~ time away from loved ones and from home, all the time in the gym, on the ice, all the times I had to ask to leave early from work to get to the rinks on time………..all of it combined made for many months of hard work leading up to an important event………the goal, per say, that the hard work was directed towards was the World Championships in Iceland!!
And as quickly as the time came, it has now passed!! The game results were NOT what I’d hope for, I’m sure not what any of us had hoped for…….seems as I can only explain my own time on the ice, I can say for myself that in every one of our games I left everything out on the ice, as I had set out to do before the tournament.
Win or lose knowing that I left everything out there, that I gave it my all, there was no more that anyone could ask of me, more importantly it was all I could ask of myself!!!
I knew going into this tournament that it would be my last!  I had a good run….8 IIHF world championships, numerous countries visited, places toured that I’d never have gone to otherwise………I have no regrets!!  I love this game and even though I’m not playing internationally anymore I will continue to play for as long as is humanly possible and with any sort of luck I’ll be able to officiate for the IIHF!!Now to recap some fun……..interesting………….weird moments of the tour:

1)  In the one game, while they were announcing the team members/starting line ups etc  we left the locker room too early (which we did a LOT!) but we also got onto the ice too early!  Nadine, Sabrina and one other skated out………then Jadi stopped cause the refs weren’t on the ice yet……I made her go!!  Well the next thing as pretty much every one of us are out on the ice, the announcer says; “TEAMS SOUTH AFRICA PLEASE EXIT THE ICE!!!!!!!!!!”  Well I laughed, and laughed………and to top it off I bowed at the crowds when we skated off the ice! 🙂

2)  The first time I’ve ever seen this happen during a tour!!  The NZ team got on the bus and one girl walked up to the other one and kissed her……….I was shocked…..and I’m sure the look on my face showed it!!  It was as if I’d NEVER seen one girl kiss another hahaha!!  It just caught me off guard!  I then laughed to myself for some time about it!!

3)  I think its crazy that all people in Iceland are insured against natural disasters by the government!!  What’s crazy about it to me is that people live in those conditions knowing that any day there could be a catastrophic earth quake or any of the numerous volcanoes could erupt!!  WTF!! LOL!!

4)   Damn I know there’s more things………..OH yeah…..Carla saying, as we walked thru a part of Reykjavik…….”This is like the Harlem of Reykjavik!!” ~ Referring to the fact that we appeared to be in the ghetto!!  It was hysterical!!   And Carla referring to the “Naked Police” in the showers at the geyser pools!!

5)  The fact that there’s enough power generated by the natural geysers to provide water to all of Iceland and electricity for their home heating needs, all of which cost next to nothing within the country!  Also the reason why the water stinks……the vast majority of all of it comes from boreholes in the mountains!!  Also the tap water (don’t ask me how) is more pure than bottled water we all drink everyday and its ICE cold…….filling up water bottles for games tasted way better than buying water at the store!!!

6) One of the volcanoes we drove near to is due to erupt at any point….it has been known to erupt roughly every 10 years, it last erupted in 2000!  Crazy….the people around it are just waiting I suppose to see if they’ll get burnt up or not (ok well that might be my thoughts on how they deal with it!!)

7)  Dominique dancing and singing to the song played while we warmed up for a game……might have been the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time!! 

8)  And who could forget Dalene……..Dalene just wanting a SCISSOR from Carla, then asking for a NICE message but ending up with a CLICK (all said in Dalene’s best Cape Colored accent!) along with all the other things she said/did that just cracked me up!!!

I had a great time……..memories I’ll never forget………Thanks again to everyone who helped me get there!!!  Love you all!!!