Well, hockey was the name of the game on January 19th at the Canadian Tire Centre as the U.S. Embassy hosted the Ambassador’s Challenge Cup where three hockey games were played in three hours. Teams represented in the first game had the Capital City Condors against the Ottawa Service Attachés Association (OSAA) Lame Ducks – B Team, the OSAA Lame Ducks – A Team took on the U.S. Embassy – B Team in the second game, and the title match saw the U.S. Embassy – A Team against the Global Affairs Canada (GAC) Women’s Network team. Good matches all.
To see all the pictures, CLICK HERE:
The first match (OSAA Ducks – B vs CC Condors) was pretty evenly matched with the exception that the Ducks-B had a superior player on the ice in the form of #37 Remington Adams (USA). He clearly had more skills than the other team and my guess is that he was asked to “not play to his potential” as he seemed to change his style of play after the first period to give the Condors a fighting chance. I didn’t see much scoring but by the start of the third period the Condors were ahead 1-0. But the Ducks-B came back and with 2:39 to go in the game, the Ducks-B went ahead 2-1. The game pretty much stopped there as the game was running longer than the 60 minutes allotted and the Zamboni driver was itching to get the ice reflooded for the next game. It was decided to end the game and take the team picture instead of playing the last minutes.
The second game (OSAA Ducks-A vs US Embassy-B) started with almost no player warmup and got right into it. By the 11:00 mark in the first period, The USA-B potted the first goal and it wasn’t until 6:30 that the USA-B popped in a second to move ahead 2-0. Two quick exchanges later and the USA-B were comfortably ahead by 4-0 at 1:50. In the second period, the USA-B added another at 12:47 before Mark Tapsell (New Zealand) got one on the board at 8:54 for the Ducks-A. It wasn’t long before the Ducks-A got another (5:02) to inch closer at 5-2. In the third, the Ducks-A managed a third goal at 3:14 and a fourth at 1:20 which is how the game ended at 5-4 in favour of the U.S. Embassy. As the winners, the US Embassy was awarded the Ambassador’s Cup.
The third game (GAC vs USA-A) was a different game altogether as the skill level of players on both sides was well above the previous two games. While the previous two games did have some skilled players, in this game, all the players had serious skating and stick handling skills. The teams played evenly until just at the end of the first period (0:15) when GAC drew first blood. The second period was just as well fought with the USA-A team finally putting one by GAC to draw even by the 4:36 mark. Not to be outdone, GAC immediately got revenge by moving ahead 2-1 with 4:01 left in the second period. Not wasting any time, the USA-A team responded at 1:40 to even up the period again. The third period went a little differently with the GAC outscoring the USA-A moving ahead 4-2 with only 1:50 remaining in the game and that is how the game ended.
The Ambassador’s Cup was awarded to GAC by the Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy, Ms. Marybeth Turner, and Ms. Tara Denham, Assistant Deputy Minister & Senior Official for Emergency Management, Legal and Consular Affairs at Global Affairs Canada.
At the after party, held at “the Legacy” in the Canadian Tire Centre, there were presentations of most valuable players for each team in each game. Chad Sterr, on behalf of the US Embassy, presented specially minted hockey pucks to the recipients, some who were not present as they played hours earlier. However, among those present, Mark Tapsell of the Lame Ducks (New Zealand) was recognized as was the goalie from the GAC team. Kudos to all involved.
