"Where were you when we won Gold?"

We watched the last part of the big hockey game in a very huge, noisy bar in Tempe, Arizona. My sister and husband needed to be picked up at the Airport right when the game was being played. They watched part of it on the plane. We listened to part of it on the radio in the car.

As we waited for the luggage to come down I kept running back to Merv in the parked car to see if the score had changed. Then we discovered that another guy who was waiting at the luggage carousel was checking at home for the score, and he kept us up to date.

When we finally got on the road, we decided to go for a beer. We picked the most popular place in Tempe - huge and always packed and never a place to park. The game was near the end so we sat in the car and counted down the seconds. When the U.S. scored, we thought we would die!!!!! No! NO! No!

We decided we would watch overtime on TV in the bar. The place was packed but we got a table at the back with a huge TV. They must of had 25 TV's in there. We had been here before. We loved their beer. And when the perky waitress arrived I asked "Was there a huge cheer when the U.S. scored?" "Big big roar" was her answer. I said "Well, we're cheering for the other team." "Oh yah, for sure" she laughed and went to get our beer. I told Merv he was going to have to turn his baseball cap around so she could see his Canadian flag on the back of it.

But we weren't sure about everyone knowing we were Canadian. The crowd was boistrous. All of them young people. They yelled and shouted and were very excited about the game. A lot of them went outside for a break before the overtime, and things were noisy and unsettled. It was a sunny day and there must have been 400 people. It was an old steel building of some kind - could have been a flour mill. Now it was a Brewery making incredibly good beer, serving great food, and obviously making a fortune.

We ordered food and got settled for the overtime. We discussed what we should do when our team won. "Let's stand up and cheer and start singing O Canada". Hmmmm. We weren't sure if we had the nerve.

The waitress by this time had decided that we weren't making it up when we talked about "cheering for the other team". "Hey, you weren't kidding, were you" she laughed.

The overtime period started. We had a good TV, but there was so much noise, and yelling, it was difficult to hear. It took us a few seconds to realize that we had won! We had won GOLD!"

We "High-fived" and did our thumbs up and "Way to Go! Way to go, Canada!" congratulating ourselves over and over and talking about how great it was that Sydney Crosby had scored the goal.

Things had become a bit quiet. People were not saying a lot. They started leaving. We finished our sandwich as the bar slowly emptied. When the medals were done and the Canadian flag started rising, we sang our song. Not loud. Not standing up. But we sang every word. And we cried here and there through it all. We were so happy to be together.

Four Canadians together in that bar in Arizona.

A couple of young guys were at a table in front of us. They stayed for the medals and the anthem. They never said a word. But when they got up to leave, they shook our hands and said "Congratulations!" We thought that was great.