Sunday evening, June 17, featured a team dinner. It was a private event limited to players and staff. This was the first time the group had been reunited since winning gold in Buffalo, and the atmosphere was convivial. At some point, a handful of players headed out to join local revelers and to bask in their adulation.
“They were on a tear,” said one person who saw them that evening.
At one point that night, a group of five players gathered to take a picture, set against a blank, sterile wall. They’re huddled together, arms around each other, subtly grinning. The photo, which was posted on social media from one player’s account, according to the person who took a screenshot of the picture, has London, Ontario, tagged as its location. Above that are two emojis: a Canadian flag and a gold medal.
The players’ Monday schedule was filled with commitments — media appearances after the announcement of the Order of Hockey in Canada, a press conference about the international sledge hockey event heading to London in December, and the ring ceremony done during a VIP cocktail hour, culminating with the Hockey Canada Foundation Gala that night.
The gala was staged at RBC Place London, the former London Convention Centre, and included the largest attendance garnered to date — roughly 1,000 people. Tickets were sold out well in advance and over $1 million was raised. It kicked off around 7 p.m. Jennifer Botterill emceed the event along with sports broadcaster Rod Black. An itinerary for the evening was superimposed upon a team picture of the World Juniors team. There would be a Local Londoners’ Hot Stove, a live auction and recognition of the Order of Hockey in Canada inductees, which included Olympic gold medal-winning coach Mike Babcock, Hall of Famer Danielle Goyette, and Ryan Smyth, who earned the nickname Captain Canada for his bevvy of gold medal finishes representing Canada on the international stage.
Attendees took red-carpet photos and posed in front of banners festooned with some of Hockey Canada’s biggest partners; one backdrop showed the logo for BFL, Hockey Canada’s insurance broker. One picture taken was of four players from the World Juniors team, posing with their fists outstretched, championship rings on their right hands.
RBC Place was filled with tables covered in cloth and beset with candles and hydrangea-filled centerpieces. A player or staff member was stationed at some tables so attendees could capture a detail from that World Juniors — a funny anecdote about the bus ride in Buffalo, an unknown detail about the power play scheme, a bit of trash-talking exchanged with the Swedes.
Wine was available to the whole table, and it is unlikely anyone would have looked askance if one of the players, who ranged in age from 18 to 20, had indulged in a glass of red to go along with his steak. It was a celebratory event; this was not the environment for teetotaling. (The legal drinking age in Ontario is 19.) One woman in attendance said some players were drinking heavily at the dinner, and that one player commented that she “had a tight a–” in her dress.
The gala concluded around 10 p.m. Many staff members retired early, exhausted from a long day. Some women’s hockey players went back to the hotel bar at the London Armouries to catch up over drinks. Some Hockey Canada and London Knights staff members and other gala attendees broke off to go to Joe Kool’s, a well-known hockey pub on Richmond Street where Knights team photos and NHL memorabilia cover the walls. Some members of the World Juniors team were there as well, gathered in a back room. One person at Joe Kool’s watched as several players in the back room became increasingly inebriated.
