Qualification/Relegation Day

Saturday, February 4th - Qualification/Relegation Day
Awake at 06:30 before my alarm has a chance to wake me. It has been a very short 5 hours of sleep, but the excitement for the days duty makes the early rise very easy. I turn on my netbook, and begin streaming the Current as I prepare my game day gear bag and await time for breakfast with Kevin before our 08:00 transport up to the Medeu, high in the Tien Shan range.
The morning is beautiful for their is a nice snow falling and whitening up the gray and dreary cityscape.
The scene turns even more beautiful, as we wind our way up the valley following our police escort with large snow flakes falling.
Our escort comes up behind a convoy of military vehicles with their own escort with flashing lights - it is a big day for Kazakhstan, for their team will be playing in the Semi-Final and their President will be in attendance.
We arrive at the Medeu about 45 minutes after departing the hotel, and we have one hour and fifteen minutes to game time. There are still many items to cover before we take to the ice. With this important game for both the Japanese and Kirkystan teams, we want to be sure that we, the officials, are well prepared.
One of the pre-game activities that Kevin would like to do is for our crew to visit each of the teams locker rooms and give them some timeline information. Kevin has delegated the task to me, and I look forward to it. Our Russian team mate, Alexi, will join us, and provide translation for the Kirgese team. The first item to discuss with the teams is the pre-game protocol, where the teams will be summoned to each of their team benches five minutes before the scheduled start of the game. We do this, so that we may process onto the field prior to the national anthems. This formal proceedure will help set the tone for the decorum on the team benches during the match, and also make for a nice presentation for the Japanese Saturday afternoon television audience. The second item to inform the teams is to inform them, that we, the referees will be setting a low threshold for fouls and penalties. We want to be sure that the game is presented to the audience as the game that we love, and not to be played in an brutal manner that many of the players with their background in ice hockey may revert. The heavy snow conditions can also make for a difficult game to control.
The local organization has had a difficult time keeping up with snow removal, but the rink is ready for the players to begin their warm ups. By the time that the game starts, there is almost 2cm (about an inch) of snow on the rink. As the game progresses, the snow continues to fall at a heavy rate with large snow flakes. By the end of the first half there are some piles of snow in some areas on the rink as deep as 6 cm. As we enter the last minute of play in the first half, the referee supervisor, indicates to me that the teams will stay at their benches and the half time interval will be only five minutes, and they will not be clearing the snow. This comes as a great surprise to me, for the conditions are terrible, and do not portray our game in a favorable manner to the television audience; and the deep snow makes playing the game most difficult. At times, the players are standing around trying to find the ball which often becomes obscured under piles of snow. Apparently rink staff are concerned about being able to clear the snow before the first semi-final. This is most unfortunate.

I will stay at the stadium all day in order to watch both of the semi-finals. Some small bread and meat (sausage) sandwiches are provided along with apples and mini-mandarine oranges. I take my lunch up onto a ledge next to a window overlooking the rink and take a rest.

While there one of the most interesting snow removal machine is making its way down the sideline. The machine has two shovelarms that scoop the snow in alternating sweeps up and onto a conveyor belt that dumps into a large truck. The machine has to wait several times as the dump trucks are filled quite rapidly.

Security is, and will become quite tight in and around the stadium. Later in the day one of the USA players forgot his credentials, and had an incredibly difficult time getting thru the security cordon, and was told that he had to stay in the USA locker room until he had new credentials prepared. He said that when he was coming up the valley, that he saw soldiers tromping thru the woods to secure the perimeter. Inside the stadium when I wandered to the other side of the stadium there were several plain clothesed agents with the survielance ear pieces watching the crowd,

Due to the massive snow falling, the Russia vs Finland game is split into three halves of thirty minutes each. This allows the snow plows to clear the ice followed by the zamboni (Olympia, actually) to resurface the rink. I find a vendor selling souvineers under the scoreboard at the end of the stadium. I do not have any Kazakh Tenge remaining, and am a little disappointed and think that I'll purchase some hat/scarf combinations during the final tomorrow. After I get back to the referee lounge room, I realize that I do have a US fifty dollar bill in my wallet. So I figure out what the exchange rate would be, and begin to figure out what I can bargin them down in price, and what the change should be. The scarf/hat combo is T3000 (US$20.), so I figure that I will offer them two for T5000 (US$34.). They accept and with the help of a voulunteer, I complete the deal. The vendor throws in an added bonus of two Kazakhstan pins, a refrigerator magnet, and two small Kazakhstan flags.