VANCOUVER, British Columbia - The women of the Canadian hockey troupe politely accepted their gold medals and waved to an adoring crowd. And then the earnest honouring began. More than half an hour after they over the United States 2-0 on Thursday, the players came back from the locker compartment and staged a shindig on ice - swigging from bottles of champagne, guzzling beer and smoking cigars.
In a frisk that Canada invented, there was never an election exclusive of gold, and with it completely in hand, the digs pair let loose. Meghan Agosta and Marie-Philip Poulin posed wearing goofy grins. Rebecca Johnston in point of fact tried to high-pressure the ice-resurfacing machine.
Haley Irwin poured champagne into the aperture of Tessa Bonhomme, gold medals in the swim from both their necks. The extolling raised eyebrows at the IOC, which said it would appearance into the matter. Informed of the antics by The Associated Press, Gilbert Felli, the IOC's leader conductor of the Olympic Games, said it was "not what we want to see." "I don't characterize it's a worthy promoting of distraction values," he said.
"If they praise in the changing room, that's one thing, but not in public. We will analyse what happened." Poulin, who scored both goals, doesn't the hay 19 - permissible drinking long time in British Columbia - until next month.
The drinking epoch in Alberta, where the Canadian group trains, is 18. Photos showed Poulin on the ice with a beer in her hand. "We penetrate that they were asked to go back onto the playing react to after the amphitheatre had emptied to walk off a photo," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.
"We perceive that some commonalty may have felt that their behavior was over-exuberant." Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said the COC had not provided the the bottle nor initiated the party. "In terms of the verifiable celebration, it's not surely something uncommon in Canada," he said. While the council does not condone irresponsibility, Keough said, "I consider Canadians arrange it's positively an touching interest for our team.
It was not our objective to go against any IOC protocols." Not even uncommon at these Olympics. After Jon Montgomery won a gold medal for Canada in skeleton, he walked through the streets of Whistler guzzling from a pitcher of beer that he gripped with two hands. American Scotty Lago, who won a bronze in halfpipe, asked hand the games after a photo surfaced of a maiden kneeling below his waist to touch the medal.
