Who the heck is Kristers Gudlevskis... and, y'know, beer stuff

This Latvian dude stopped nearly everything Team Canada had to throw at
him. For that, and that alone, to me, he is the biggest hero of the Olympics!

My biggest hero from the Sochi Olympics didn't come from Canada. Oh trust me, I have dozens and dozens of deserving Canadian heroes from the 2014 Winter Olympics and like my friend Glenn, I think they are heavily stacked on the ladies' side...

But no, my Olympic hero comes from Latvia. Where's that, you ask? Up there in northern Europe off the Baltic Sea. About 2 million people. Nice country, I assume... pretty in the Summer, maybe? No idea. But this Latvian dude, who doesn't even play in the NHL, named Kristers Gudlevskis played goal for Team Latvia... and against all odds, he held Team Canada during the playoff round to a standstill... in hockey!

The very beautiful face of winning. Marie-Phillip Poulin
tied the gold-medal game against the USA with 53 seconds
left, shown here. And then, she scored the winner in OT. 

And you know what? No one gets more patriotic than me when the Olympics are on. And I love gold. Oh man, I love gold. But sometimes, it goes beyond winning. Sometimes, it's about just being your best... and letting the world see you at your best... whether you win or lose. And on that one day - in that one game - that he truly needed to be his best, Gudlevskis was precisely that... or more. For all we know, that could be the best-played game of his life... and he did it on the world's stage against the toughest of possible opponents.

And thus, Kristers Gudlevskis was the best athlete I saw in this Olympics. Canada beat him 2-1 eventually... but by gawd, he made us ready for our game against the USA. He faced 57 shots from the best multi-millionaire snipers in the NHL... meanwhile, our goalie, Carey Price faced 16 shots from guys no one's ever heard of and probably could have spent most of the third period updating his Twitter feed.  (Likely Price Tweets: "This is boring. Going for a smoke", "Who IS that dude down there?", "I should skate over to the boards and get a sip of that guy's beer" and "If I left the net, would anyone even know? I haven't been on camera for 27 minutes.")  I raise my frosty mug to you, young goalie Gudlevskis!

Americans, you want your Olympic hero? Look no farther
than T.J. Oshie who scored four times in six tries against the
Russians  in the round-robin game shoot-out. Take it from a
Canadian, that was some of the BEST hockey I've ever seen

And yes, we eventually won gold against the Swedes but it took very tough one-goal wins against Latvia and the USA to even get there. Don't even get me started on Finland, who took the Bronze... holy crap, so fast!

Most Canadians would say the best hockey game they saw this time was the Women's gold medal game where we were losing 2-0 to the USA with the final minutes ticking down before we finally got one with three minutes to go. At that point, the lovely Marie-Phillip Poulin decided "enough is enough" and tied the game with 53 seconds left. Not long after that, she potted the winner in OT, thus magically turning silver into gold. Clearly, she's taking her university Medieval Alchemy courses seriously.

But the Yanks had their shining moments, as well, especially in that round-robin USA vs Russia men's hockey match. With the score deadlocked after regulation time and then OT, they went to the shoot-out.

A Molson Canadian skate mug, just like the
one I used during the Canada-USA game

And here's when things got a little bit crazy and a whole lotta awesome. Olympic rules dictate each team gets three shots from three different shooters but if it's still deadlocked after that - and it was - they can choose anyone they want. The Russians continued to juggle shooters as the shoot-out stretched further but not the Americans. They just kept using T.J. Oshie over and over... and over again. Oshie was on-the-bubble to even make the team but was brought aboard at the last minute, due to his phenomenal skill (and luck) in NHL shoot-outs. It paid off. He connected four outta six times and landed the USA on top of their division going into the playoff round. Some of the most heart-stopping hockey I've ever seen in that USA-Russia game - unbelievably great hockey from two talent-laden squads.

Now when it came to the Canada-USA semi-final men's match, my co-worker Gordo and I finagled our way out of the office and squeezed into Burlington bar Joe Dog's just in time for the third period. The favoured beverage of the hundreds sardined into the place? Molson Canadian, of course, being served on tap that day in a 32-ounce skate mug which I erroneously referred to as a boot numerous times... only to be corrected every time. Look at it!  It looks like a ski boot! Me: "Damn, my boot's empty. I need more."
Gordo and everyone else: "It's a skate!"
Me: "Y'know, the 'need more' was the only part of that sentence that's actually important..." Besides, how do they know that I'm not a Newfoundlander trying to say the word 'about'?

The Molson's Marketing Squad got their funny hats on,
posting this ad after the Canadian hockey women won gold

I, of course, happily quaffed down my Canadian while cheering my side onto a 1-0 victory (the USA had Stanley Cup winning goalie, Jonathan Quick in net so this wasn't gonna be a cake-walk). I quickly refilled my boot/skate with the (Molson-owned) Creemore Springs Premium Lager, a lively 5% medium-body amber lager with a nice slightly bitter after-taste that says "Yeah, you're gonna remember me, hockey boy." (I just remembered this is actually a beer blog... so I'll be stickhandling away from hockey for the second intermission...) Actually, if you go to a Beer Store in a Creemore mood, I would strongly suggest their Kellerbier, as well. The unfiltered brew, also 5%, that uses whole-leaf German hops late in the brewing process, pours a hazy orange and has an earthy, lightly fruit taste. The brewery does this one in small batches using their direct fired copper kettles. An outstanding beer!

Very cool bottle... the weakest crappiest beer ever!

In the end, Russia notched the most golds and highest medal tally for the Olympics which is precisely what you hope the host country will do. Well, if you're a good sport, anyway. China finished 12th in the medal standings on the strength of three golds, mostly because they always have some awesome speed skaters. So let's look at a Chinese beer, Lucky Buddha, brewed by the Hangzhou Qiandaohu Beer Company. First you will notice it comes in the coolest bottle ever, shaped like, well, a little green Buddha. Once in the glass, the 4.8% lager's aroma is lightly grainy and a bit skunky but that first sip... will have you immediately racing to the kitchen to pour this down the drain, all the while praying to Buddha himself that your pipes aren't clogged. I don't care if you're Batman and The Joker himself saunters into the room... you don't hand him one of these. Life in prison (or Arkham Asylum, if that's the case) is far more humane.

Craft beer brewed here since... 1871? Seriously? Yup!

Next up is Anchor Steam Beer, a San Francisco offering recommended to me by my New Zealand compadre, Stevil St Evil. Googled the brewery. Ummm, wow, Anchor Brewing Company has some serious history. German immigrant Gottlieb Breckle buys an old saloon in 1871 and turns it into a brewery. Fast-forward 25 years and another German brewer Ernst Baruth and his son-in-law buy it out and rename it Anchor, likely an illusion to the port city. The Great Quake of 1906 sinks it, they rebuild and reopen in 1907. Prohibition shuts it down in 1920... but it's back in 1933 when the No-Fun-Allowed-Law is repealed. New ownership steps in... it does well, than teeters on bankruptcy, more new ownership comes, more potential bankruptcy... it just goes on and on. Check their website HERE for the full scoop. Fascinating stuff, actually... but all signs indicate this may have been the first craft brewery ever and obviously, the longest-running. Not to mention, most challenged.

Ladies, if you're going to pose in a Canada
shirt, NEVER ever stand in the middle!! Your
friends' hair could completely change the word

But how is the beer itself?? Actually, pretty damn good for a 4.9% lager. The nose is a tad yeasty and grainy and the taste malty and a touch bitter. I quite liked it, drank it ice-cold and would happily recommend it to even mainstream fare drinkers. But I just noticed that a sister beer, their Liberty Ale is popping up here and let's face it, that's waaaay more up my alley. I shall report back!

Now quickly, back to Gudlevskis. Here's the reason behind the reason that he's my Olympic hero. Last summer, my son, David, competed in the Provincial Special Olympics Track and Field Championships here in Ontario. He'd never competed at that high a level previously. So I was expecting, you know, hey, a great experience for him. He'll learn about competition and the like. In his first event, on his second throw, he threw the shot-put a full metre further than he ever had. A full metre. (That's 39 inches to American readers.) He won a bronze, as well as two more medals but that's the one that had the most impact on me because, well, his first medal. On the one day he had to be his best, he was. It just happened. He was thrilled. His Mom was thrilled. And Dad? Oh, I totally lost my shit. Gudlevskis' performance reminded me of that. When the moment came, there's no way the Latvian goalie should have been able to shut down the Canadian shooters like that... but he had to be his best when it counted... and like my boy, he was.

Okay, shout-outs... As always, Stevil St Evil continues to entertain, this time telling us the crazy cab rides he's endured since his mobility got more limited and he depended on them more... travelling up and down his rickety old "cow road". See it here in: White Knuckle Fever! And Glenn, who kindly asked me to remind you that he is awesome (surely a solid 7.7 on the Awesome-O-Meter - shhh, that's a high mark for a dude) is just going IPA crazy these days over in Oshawa but he pauses to praise the Canadian women Olympians here in: Our Ladies Kick Ass! Our beer-drinking partner-in-crime, Cat, has blown the dust off her old blog and returns with a spiffy new logo in: The Cat Came Back

As for me, I'll be back inside a week because I left a few new beers out and well, to be frank, ever since Pluto lost its status as a planet, I find my only salvation towards restoring my faith in humanity is my ongoing journey to discover and then drink new beers. Beyond that, I've fairly convinced that beer was invented by The Big Guy on the eighth day to ensure Canadians don't conquer the world, rather than just the Olympics. Well, that's it, that's all and I am outta here! Until next time, I remain...