Arctic Winter Games: Grossmann and Smith Continue to Score.

Well Day 3 was filled with snow, cold winds and lots of hockey action at the Multiplex here in Yellowknife. When I arrived at the rink today for the TeamAK Women`s 1:30 hockey game I was directed to a special seating area for athletes and coaches as they had closed the open seating to ticket purchasers only. Apparantly the hockey games have become such a big attraction that the stands get filled fast and those folks that purchased tickets were not finding seats. Alaska`s women continue to prove effective on the ice. They shut out the Yukon Women`s team today with a 10-0 victory. Coach Bounds runs a steady three lines and rotates his starting line up each game. Every player on the team has done well on the ice and there have been a variety of goal scorers. Annie Grossmann got another goal today and an assist though the score keeper failed to record the assist. She only had 2 penalty minutes, an improvement over yesterdays 6! (I miss stated that she had 4.) Her mom was glad to see that today`s minutes weren`t for roughing! Women's hockey is no checking and sometimes the girls who play boys hockey forget that. It was a good game and Yukon`s goalie stopped many, many more shots than got by here. She was great in the goal and worked very hard. TeamAK remains undefeated and in first place. Tomorrow they face the Northwest Territories team, which we here is tough. Both teams will head into the crossovers whether they win or loose tomorrow. So TeamAK will play at 10 and then in a crossover game in the evening. On Friday the medal round games will be played. The standings are:

TeamAK 3-0-0,
Team NWT 2-0-1
Team Alberta 1-1-1
Team Yukon 1-3-0
Team Nunavut 0-3-0.
The top 4 teams go into the crossovers.

Coach Tvenge`s team played a great game today against Team Yukon and Brett Smith scored the first goal. The play was back and forth all through each period and remained tied at 3-3. Team Yukon has a large group of fans cheering them on and Alaska seems to garner more each game they play. The Bantam team remains in 3rd place. Standings are:

Team Alberta 3-0-1
Team Yukon 1-0-3
Team AK 1-1-1
Team NWT 1-1-1
Nunavut 0-4-0

Team AK Midgets are also playing hard and hold 2nd place in the standings.

Today I met folks from Anchorage who had figure skaters in the games. They were there cheering on the hockey teams from Alaska along with lots of athletes from the Alaska contingent. It is nice to see the athletes cheering on each other. I was able to enjoy some of the wonderful figure skating competition today while at the rink. Alaska did really well and received several medals. There were at least 3 golds as that is how many times I heard our national anthem being played. The Uluu medals are given out just like medals in the Olympics. There is a 3 level podium and the athletes are called up 3rd, 2nd and then 1st. Medals are placed around their necks, sometimes flowers are given and then the national anthem of the gold medal winner is played. It is very impressive and will be exciting if some of our hockey teams make it to the medal podium. Medals are shaped like Uluus and are inscribed with the Arctic Winter Game name, year and logo. You see some happy faces sporting medals around the different venues. I enjoy stopping them when I see them congratulating them and asking about their sport. Even with the language difference there is no barrier between us when it comes to joy and encouragement.

From a snowy Yellowknife, good night and stay warm.
Dawn Grossmann