The Dates Have Been Marked.

If ever life over here gets tiring, lonesome, drab, etc. I have something to look forward to with great anticipation.

The series of dates I referred to above are May 2 - 18, and, as many of you may know, these days mark the first time ever that the World Championships in Hockey will be taking place in Canada.

Why is this so important? Well, as some of you may also know, I have become quite a hockey fan in the past couple of years and since I cannot watch any games over here, I have made it a routine to check my NHL hockey scores before moving forward with any other aspect of my day.

Unfortunately, this morning routine usually causes the day to get off to a bad start as my team – the Calgary Flames – are, well, not doing so well (as I'm sure any of you Canucks fans most certainly know).

But alas! Just when I was beginning to lose faith in the sport as a whole, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with an Austrian and a Slovakian about the greatest country in international hockey. At first I was delighted to be able to talk sports with someone and not have it be football (though this is also very interesting). However, the more the conversation unraveled, the less apparent their reverence towards Canadian hockey became.

This was not something I would let go. Their reluctance to admit the true dominance Canada has on hockey became an issue of Canadian pride. And this I had to defend.

Luckily the issue was resolved (it was always friendly, of course) and we are now invited to the house of a Slovak national to watch the World Championships take place in Halifax and Quebec City. The only problem will be getting through the remaining 148 days until the first puck drops.

In the mean time here's some riveting tid-bits on Canadian hockey:

1) Canada has 552, 040 registered hockey players. Compare that with Russia who only has 77,000

2) Canada has over 3,000 indoor arenas. Compare that with Russia who has only 142. I wonder how many 'ponds' we have?

3) We rank first in total overall medal count (44) in the World Championships, and have won the highest number of gold medals (24).

4) Women's team won gold in all but one (where they won silver) World Championship tournament between 1990 and 2007.

5) 50.2% of players currently playing in the NHL are Canadian. The next highest representation is from the States with only 17.7%. From there it drops off dramatically.

5) 2006 was a shameful Olympics for Canada, yes, but 2002 was great!