Me in my Team Canada hockey jersey

While there are 15 winter sports events, most of them with male and female events, Canada, and perhaps the world, looks forward to the one game on Sunday the Men’s Hockey gold medal game.

It is easy to miss the fact, already touted by many media outlets, that Canadian women have won 13.5 out of the 17 medals to date.

There have been many stories and theories published about how that number. Yet here are some of the other reasons why the Canada’s women are golden.

Joannie Rochette
Twenty-four year old Joannie won Canada a Bronze medal today. It was a medal that could have easily been forfeited had she chosen not to skate due to the death of her mother.

Yet, she managed to muster the courage to compete on a world stage with the almost untouchable Kim Yu-Na despite her circumstances. Such fortitude should be an inspiration not just to athletes, but everyone who has to fight through a tragedy and still end up on the podium.

Canadian Women Hockey Team
How badly do you want gold? Apparently putting in the countless hours of practice to get to the Olympics was not enough.

Not simply content to bask in the glory of making it to the games, or even take the almost free, record setting, ride out to the gold medal game, Team Canada Women’s Hockey secretly practiced with exhibition games against the Vancouver North West Giants during their “off days” at the Games.

Beating the USA today as a result of hard hard work. It wasn’t luck, or skill that won them, and Canada, the third Olympic gold medal in a row.

Clara Hughes
At 37-years old, Hughes managed to win a Bronze medal at what would be her last Olympics. She is also the first Canadian to win medals in the Summer and Winter Olympics.

What makes her golden, is not only her illustrious career, but her compassion for fellow Canadians. A wrong turn while driving in Vancouver led her to the downtown east side. To quote from the Toronto Star,

“I will never forget seeing people suffer so much,” said Hughes, who capped a brilliant Olympic career Wednesday with her sixth medal, a bronze in the 5,000 metres. “I just couldn’t believe I was in Canada and this siituation, this reality exists in our country with people who were shells of themselves. It was surreal. I felt like I was in a movie set. I just couldn’t believe it was real.

Even though Canadian athletes are not well funded, Hughes donated $10,000 of her prize to Take a Hike, a charity for at risk youth. She had also made a previous donation after the 2006 Turin Olympics to Right To Play. That one came straight out of her bank account.

The story on Hughes’ contribution, Rochette’s bronze and Team Canada Women’s determination for gold all happened today. There are other stories that have filtered through my attention, or that will surface in the coming days.

These are stories about Canada’s Golden Girls.

More than our record breaking gold medal haul, it is these stories on the side about our athletes, male or female, that make me so proud to be Canadian.