More than a month has passed since the Canadian women's hockey team won Olympic gold, but for local defenceman Meaghan Mikkelson, the medal on her neck isn't any heavier.
Mikkelson and many other staff and athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic games participated in a celebration ceremony at Churchill Square in Edmonton on Tuesday afternoon.
“It was amazing,” Mikkelson said. “It's great for the city of Edmonton to have all the [local] athletes and staff that participated in the games, and the fact they wanted to recognize us. It's a huge honour to represent Canada and your hometown. It was a great day to see everyone come out and show their support.”
After months of preparation and more than 60 hockey games leading up to the Olympics — one each against all the teams in the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League, including a 4-2 win over the St. Albert Raiders — the team took a brief hiatus to Jasper. Mikkelson said it was good to get away for a week from the pressure and media coverage that surrounds the Olympics, particularly on home soil. She said it was valuable just to get back to the mental and physical training the team was used to.
And even then, the team was definitely nervous, though the former Wisconsin Badger said it was a good kind of nervous.
“Leading up to it, the team did a really great job of preparing us for what was to come and preparing for the games. Arriving at the village a couple days early was great for us to get settled in,” she said. “I'd say if you're not nervous, you're not ready. It's tough to put into words how exciting it was to be at the Olympics here in Canada. To walk out into the stadium at the opening ceremonies is a moment I'll never forget. I was overcome with emotions and pride. You work so long and hard to get to that point and when it finally arrives, it's an amazing feeling.”
Although the adrenaline was pumping before the team stepped out on the ice in their first round-robin game against Slovakia, Mikkelson credited the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) for their job in making sure all of the athletes felt at home.
And that's before the fan support. In a speech on Tuesday, Olympic champion curling skip Kevin Martin said he never experienced that sort of fan-base he saw in Vancouver when the crowd in the 10th end of the men’s curling gold-medal game started singing an impromptu rendition of the Canadian anthem.
Mikkelson agreed the city was unbelievable.
“We set up in the village and couldn't ask for any more. VANOC did an incredible job from the village to all the venues. The volunteers were so welcoming, friendly and helpful all the time,” she said. “Being around the other athletes was a pretty cool thing, and seeing what their regime is and how they prepare for their events. Being a hockey player, seeing the NHL superstars and running into them in the cafeteria and seeing what they're like was neat.
“The whole thing was amazing. It's going to be tough for any other host country to top it.”
In the final game against the United States, Mikkelson and the rest of Team Canada felt if they played the game they had learned and fine-tuned during more than 60 contests, they would win gold. But they still didn't expect to be ahead after 20 minutes on two goals by Marie-Phillip Poulin.
“We knew we had to be ready for whatever they threw at us. We'd played them a number of times in the year and knew what to expect but they showed you can't be complacent either,” Mikkelson said. “You come into the dressing room [after the first period] and people are screaming and excited but one person said we need to get out there and keep the lead and jump on them and play the full 60 because that’s how important it was. It was an incredible game. I look back on it fondly. I'm sure I'll look at it as the best game I've ever been a part of in my life.”
The post-game celebration was too good to be true.
“It's so hard to describe. Standing on the carpet and being presented with all my teammates, just knowing what all we've been through as a team and individually, the different paths we took to get there and singing the anthem with them with gold medals around our necks, in Canada, nothing will top that.”
