Let's Go Canes!

~As you surely know by know, the Carolina Hurricanes are the 2006 Stanley Cup Champions!

^ Everyone sing together: Let's Go Canes! (tip: right-click the link and select 'Save As...', or for you savvy Firefox folks, 'Save Link As...')

The Stanley Cup series against the Edmonton Oilers was extremely suspenseful, and consisted of seven games in a best-of-seven match. The final showdown saw the Carolina Hurricanes against the Oilers at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. The 'Canes were, of course victorious, with a final score of 3-1!

^This win has special significance for me, because I worked as an usher at the RBC Center for several months. The pay was minimum, but I enjoyed being able to (sometimes) watch the games for free. The staff members were all great and I had a lot of fun working there.

^ In my opinion, the real hero of the series was Cam Ward, the "rookie" goalkeeper for the Hurricanes. In the final game, he blocked 22 shots on the goal! After the game, he was awarded the Conn Smythe trophy, an annual award for Most Valuable Player of the team that wins the Stanley Cup. Somewhat disturbingly, Cam Ward is younger than I am...

Over here in Japan, hockey is virtually unknown. The local sports heroes around here are a soccer team called the Niigata Albirex (official site):^ Ooh, looks like they just lost a game 0-1. Ouch.

Japan hasn't been doing too well in the World Cup. After their loss to Australia, the "Blue Samurai" tied Croatia for a 0-0 tie (not much action there). They're up against Brazil today, and from what I understand, they have to beat Brazil by at least two goals in order to advance to the second round of the tournament. As Brazil is the top-ranked soccer team on the planet, this is unlikely, and most believe that only a miracle will get Japan through.

By the way, today was the summer solstice, when the sun was at its farthest north. This means that today had the longest amount of sunlight, from 14-15 hours' worth depending on your location (so that's why the damn birds were singing when I was trying to sleep! Or maybe I just need to get to bed earlier). It also marks the beginning of summer. In Japanese summer is "natsu" [ 夏, pronounced na-tsu ], your Word of the Post.

^ A photograph of Stonehenge, courtesy of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day. Stonehenge was constructed thousands of years ago in England as an astronomical calendar; on key astronomical dates such as the solstices, sunlight shines through holes in the monument. Or, at least, it used to: in the ~4,000 years since the construction of Stonehenge, the precession of the Earth's orbital axis has moved the sunlight slightly out of alignment. I'm guessing that wasn't in the original blueprints.

If you are currently in the southern hemisphere (Ozzie ozzie ozzie!), I humbly apologize and bid you a happy winter solstice. ~Oyasumi!