VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The women of the Canadian hockey team politely accepted their gold medals and waved to an adoring crowd. And then the real celebration began.
More than half an hour after they beat the United States 2-0 on Thursday, the players came back from the locker room and staged a party on ice — swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars.
In a sport that Canada invented, there was never an option besides gold, and with it finally in hand, the home team let loose.
Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed wearing goofy grins. Rebecca Johnston actually tried to drive the ice-resurfacing machine. Haley Irwin poured champagne into the mouth of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals swinging from both their necks.
The celebration raised eyebrows at the IOC, which said it would look into the matter. Informed of the antics by The Associated Press, Gilbert Felli, the IOC’s executive director of the Olympic Games, said it was “not what we want to see.”
“I don’t think it’s a good promotion of sport values,” he said. “If they celebrate in the changing room, that’s one thing, but not in public. We will investigate what happened.”
Poulin, who scored both goals, doesn’t turn 19 — legal drinking age in British Columbia — until next month. The drinking age in Alberta, where the Canadian team trains, is 18. Photos showed Poulin on the ice with a beer in her hand.
“We understand that they were asked to go back onto the playing field after the stadium had emptied to take a photo,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. “We understand that some people may have felt that their behavior was over-exuberant.”
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Updates:
2:57 pm EST, February 26th, 2010 — The national shame of some happy athletes having a little fun
A beer 1 month before being legal age of 19 and being from a place where 18 is the drinking age …… ” The HORROR ” !
I don’t agree with underage drinking, at least in the sense of getting stupid drunk, but one low alcohol beer or one glass of wine or champagne doesn’t bother me at all depending on context ( Adult supervision and no drunkenness and not very far from the legal age ).
The girls do seem to have more testosterone than some of the guys at the Olympics ! ” Not that there is anything wrong with that ”
http://www.tv.com/seinfeld/the-outing/episode/2297/summary.html
( Just joking, even if I offend the very sensitive politically correct … LOL ).
Has society become much much too ” delicate ” when it gets upset about trivialities ?
Meh, whatever. A small, controlled amount of alcohol never destroyed Europe’s youth.
Yeah, we often had wine at family diner parties when I was around 14 years old or so: Just one glass and it did wonders in making me appreciate tasting wine as opposed to gulping large quantities of booz.
The first time I got a little too drunk was at 25 and I can count of the fingers of one hand the number of times I have had too much to drink and I never liked the feeling of the room spinning.
Got a little to happy once drinking saki at a favourite Japanese restaurant and the friendly people at this restaurant let me lie down in an unoccupied tatami room for an hour or so until the room stopped spinning: It helped that this was a place I was a regular at and although ” drunk ” I was polite and courteous: By the way this is very acceptable and common behaviour in Japanese culture where getting a little drunk after work is considered sort of normal by the ” salary men “.
Anyway, got sidetracted with off-topic drinking story: It’s good to not take all discussion as serious life and death subjects.
Note: Serious belligerent drunkenness, drinking and driving and alcoholism are not humorous and are a different subject.
Not supporting Fox on this story!!Not sure why the US has to be a poor sport over the loss of one medal. i am proud of the hard work and great game played by the Women’s hockey team. Go Canada Go….
And what kind of beer are the winners drinking, Why that would be Canadian. Would it be OK if it was a Bud or maybe a beer that the (elite clown act) IOC preferred.
LEAVE THE LADIES ALONE
Women’s hockey is on the “bubble” as to whether it will continue as an Olympic sport. This type of thing will just make elimination more pallitable to the IOC.
I support the women’s hockey team and the pictures I’ve seen look more like a photo shoot than a party. Have fun ladies – you deserve it.
Canada-USA can form a 2 team Hockey league and it would still be a great game to watch.
I think it was great for them to celebrate, they earned it! These players are worried that the this will be the last Ladies Olympic Hockey tournament in history. I don’t really think they care what the IOC thinks at this point!
I suppose this incident will give the IOC the necessary reasons to delist women’s hockey as there has been talk of doing. Damn those Canadians!!!! Too good for IOC standards.
They deserve it. They earned it through years of hard work and dedication. I wonder how many years of dedication and hard work some of their critics have ever committed themselves to? My guess. Zip, zero nada. So just shut up.
Hey, this is Canada and there are two things we cherish above everything else — beer & hockey so anyone complaining about our winning girls team — take off eh!
If it had been the americans winning the gold, they would probably be firing off their guns in the air.
Double Standard!
Jon Montgomery wins gold for Canada, strolls down the street drinking beer from a whole pitcher of draft, gets invited to be on Oprah. Women, tsk tsk. Shouldn’t be doing that, think of the children. Biggest load of BS I have heard in a long time.
/rant over
I don’t have an issue with the beer, but I admit to raising an eyebrow to see ‘athletes’ smoking.
Annie, a beer and a stogie after winning an Olympic Gold over the bad old Yanks does not seem out of place. I am certain you will not see the ladies lighting up on the street. Call it a one off. I sure love these gals. Hockey, beer, stogies, gold medals, how Canadian. Have fun ladies we are all proud of you.
Just goes to prove, we Canadians love to party.
The IOC has just proven once again that they are self rightous prigs
Annie, I have news for you – some of the best athletes ever to emerge, in all history, were smokers. Think of the soldiers who jumped from planes , who marched for miles, who spend 24 sleepless hours, on the run, fighting on uneven terrain while being shot at; who jumped in and out of trenches at lightning speed, who could ride and shoot under fire, who sailed through blasting winds and submarine attacks -no sleep and no breaks…the best athletes of all time were the men/women who fought for your right to be ‘indignant’ about their habit – and to deprive them the right to enjoy that habit in their legions!!
By smoking those stogies with their beer and champagne the Golden Girls scored a goal for Liberty, IMO. Imagine smoking in an enclosed space, in PC Vancouver and not being jailed?? If they get away with that – then everyone else should take their cue and end this bigotry against people who indulge in a LEGAL habit. Hypocritical should be in capitals – ‘glad to have them fund health care and slush funds, the righteous antis nevertheless marginalized people who smoked and labeled them as child abusers and murderers”.