Paralympic Pride

The Paralympic Games are not near as anticipated or as widely broadcasted as the Olympic Games. I know this is bad, but to tell you the truth, before I got this opportunity with Students Live I hardly knew anything about the Paralympic Games. So I'm going to share with you some of the basic must-knows:

The Paralympic Games run from March 12th to March 21st, this is a little shorter than the 17 days of Olympic Games. The Paralympic Games have their own opening and closing ceremonies, they have their own logo, mascot and torch relay. Most of these things are a lot smaller for the Paralympic Games; for instance section A tickets to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies cost $1100, and section A tickets to the Paralympic Opening Ceremonies are $175. That is quite the difference. The Paralympic Games have been around since 1960, compared to the Olympic Games which have been running since 1896. There are 15 events in the Olympic Games and in the Paralympic Games there are 5. Those events are wheelchair curling, sledge hockey, biathlon, alpine skiing and cross-country skiing. For the alpine skiing, biathlon and cross-country skiing there are 2 categories; standing and sitting. Sitting is for athletes who are missing a leg or foot for example, and the standing category is for athletes who can stand normally, but might be visually impaired.

The Paralympic torch relay is a 10 day journey with about 600 torchbearers, compared to the Olympic torch relay that is a 106 day journey and has about 12,000 torchbearers. The total number of Olympic athletes and officials is around 5,500 while the total number of Paralympic athletes and officials is 1,350. The number of countries participating in Olympic Winter Games is over 80, and the number of countries participating in Paralympic Winter Games is half of that. There are 1.6 million tickets available for the Olympic Winter Games, divide that by 6 for the number of tickets available for the 2010 Paralympic Games. So as you can tell, most of these Paralympic events are not quite as big and extravagant as the Olympic ones.

I think the Olympic athletes are so inspiring with all their talent, effort and determination, they have so much drive to do well and never give up, and for that I look up to them. It is unreal the heart and passion they have for their sport. But then you have to think about these Paralympic athletes, some of them are born disabled, and some are in tragic accidents, but instead of grieving their whole lives, they make the best of what they have. They create goal, and strive for it with everything they have. The Paralympic athletes have so many more obstacles to overcome. Missing a leg, or not being able to see and still being able to ski down a mountain is just amazing!

There's Always Next Year

Tonight was a very exciting night in the world of Canadian hockey. It was the World Junior Hockey finals in Saskatoon. It was an exciting game all the way through, teams Canada and USA looked fairly evenly matched. It was a fast paced game and ended up being fairly high scoring. With only a few minutes left USA was up 5-3, some people would have thought it was over, that there was no hope. But here in Canada, we never let up, after all hockey is our sport, so the boys picked up their game, and scored a beauty! Then we were really running low on time, still down a goal, but that doesn't discourage these players. Not long after goal four, the tying goal is scored. Wow, what a comeback! The buzzer goes to signal end of period, but that's not the last of this game. We're headed into overtime, 5 goals a piece. A Saskatchewan boy himself, Jordan Eberle scored 2 out of the 5 goals in this game, which earned him the title of highest all time Canadian goal scorer in this World Juniors tournament. Eberle is an amazing hockey player, he can always pick up his game when needed the most, he has speed, quick hands and great game smarts. He is also a leader on this young team, as this is his second year with team Canada.

Anyways back to the game. We head into sudden death overtime, both teams are so pumped, and want to win this more than anything, so they come out fast and strong. There were many chances for both teams, lots of shots on net, even some posts and crossbars. One centimeter up, down, left or right, and it could have been all over, but no pucks in the back of the net. With less than 5 minutes left in overtime, Canada gets a really great scoring chance, however an American player picks up the rebound and takes it down the ice. It is now a three on one, and.... I'm not even going to finish this. But Canada ends up with a silver medal. Not exactly the way we would have liked it to end of course, but we have a lot to be proud of! Canada has won this tournament 5 years in a row, this year was going for 6. That is a long streak and is very impressive. We are proud of you boys, you played like champs all throughout the tournament. Anyways, there's always next year, we can take them in their home. We are Canadian, and hockey is our sport!