Wednesday, Feb. 24: Hockey night in Canada

About Nicholas Kohn and Marissa Heiser

Nicholas is the younger brother of Olympic bobsledder and bronze medalist Mike Kohn, who is competing in the two-man and four-man bobsled in these Olympics. Originally from West Columbia, S.C, Nicholas currently resides in New York City where he is an actor in the Tony Award winning Broadway Musical Avenue Q. Marissa is a singer/actress, writer and stand up comedian living in New York City. She is no stranger to winter sports herself as she is originally from Layton, Utah. Nicholas & Marissa met 10 years ago while performing together in summer stock theatre in Cape Cod, Mass. Last year they fell in love, and enjoy running, playing with dogs, and making each other laugh.

Wednesday, Feb. 24

Another wonderful day in Whistler, well a rainy day, but still beautiful nonetheless. We failed to get tickets to the women's bobsled events, so we decided to go into town and watch it at one of the festive pubs. We picked a seemingly mellow bar called Citta (http://www.cittabistro.com/). They had a patio that looked out into one of the main squares which have big stages and screens for entertainment.

The entertainment of the day was a traditional Russian folk band with 25 members all in authentic garb. The music was loud, different and celebratory. Every mouth was singing and opened wide in a grin even though they were performing in the pouring rain.

As the Russians finished up, Canadian hockey fans poured into the bar. At the same time of the bobsled race there was a quarterfinal hockey game between Russia and Canada. We asked the waitress if they would be showing the bobsledding event and she looked at us dumbfounded.

"This is Canada," she said. "We will only be showing hockey. I'd go ask if they could put it on the big screen, but I would feel ashamed."

Following Canada's 7-3 win over Russia, the local station played the final run of the Women's two-man bobsled races. Canada took gold and silver while USA II, consisting of Erin Pac and Elana Meyers, took bronze. That medal gave the U.S. it's 28th medal for these Games -- first place among all the countries with Germany in second with 24, and Norway in third with 18 medals.

We then emptied into the street and found ourselves at another stage by the Blackcomb Gondola. There was a Canadian aboriginal rap group called Team Rezofficial performing. There were fire dancers, traditional aboriginal costumed dancers and lots of people dancing to the infectious music. It was loud, fun and a great way to end the evening.