John Flemming, second left, is pictured with Canadian fans at the Blues Canal sports bar in Milan before the Gold Medal Women’s Hockey game between Canada and the United States on Thursday.Robyn Doolittle/The Globe and Mail
It’s an hour until game time at the Blues Canal sports bar in Milan and the Canadians are everywhere.
They’re jammed shoulder-to-shoulder at each table in red and white hockey jerseys. They’re lining the walls in red toques, sitting on the floor with Canadian flags over their shoulders and overflowing onto the patio.
Fire codes? Italy doesn’t seem to have them.
By the time the Canada versus United States women’s gold medal hockey game begins, at least 300 people sporting Maple Leaf insignia are either in the bar or circled around outdoor televisions that are broadcasting the game.
It’s been this way for the past two weeks at the Blues Canal.
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The bar has become the unofficial Canada House of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics. The Canadian Olympic Committee usually runs a venue for people to watch events together, but for these spread-out Games, the organization has opted for pop-up celebrations in different cities.
For Jeremy Cummins – a Kelowna, B.C., resident who had been planning his trip to Milan for a year – the idea of not having somewhere to gather with other Canadians during the Olympics was a non-starter.
He searched online for pubs in Milan’s trendy Navigli district and found the Blues Canal. On Jan. 25, he wrote the owners on Instagram.
“I said, ‘Do you guys want to adopt us for two weeks?’ And they said, ‘Yes, sure,’” Cummins said. From there, Cummins started a WhatsApp chat and then posted about it on different Facebook groups.
“It’s just grown into something we never thought possible.”
The scene from the Blue Canal sports bar during the Canada-U.S. gold medal game.Robyn Doolittle/The Globe and Mail
More than 800 people have since joined the chat and every day hundreds of Canadians jam into the bar to watch Canadians compete.
Around 4 p.m. on Thursday, only a single table in the very back corner was open. On the loudspeaker, the bar is playing The Tragically Hip. (The assistant manager, Frank Gabriele, whose family owns the place, said that Cummins sent him some suggestions of music that Canadians might like so he made a playlist.)
Gathered in the middle of the bar is a table of friends from Nova Scotia.
“We came here for a pregame pint,” said Halifax’s John Flemming, dressed in a maple leaf-pattern checker blazer and bucket hat.
This group has tickets to see the gold medal women’s game in person and heads out about two hours later.
At the other end of the bar are Holly Brown and her boyfriend Christopher Rowland, both of whom are from Ontario, but now live in Britain.
They staked out prime seats near the front television about three hours ahead of the game.
This is their third time visiting the bar.
“It’s a lot of fun. We keep coming back because we always meet people,” she said.
Kelowna, B.C.'s Jeremy Cummins was active on social media in the lead up to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and encouraged Canadian fans to come to Blues Canal to watch hockey games. On Thursday, over 300 people came to support the women's hockey team in its gold medal match against the U.S.Robyn Doolittle/The Globe and Mail
While Canadians comprise the overwhelming majority of the bar’s current clientele, a handful of men in USA jerseys are pocked around the room.
Among them is Ryan Mac from Chicago, who said there’s been some playful comments, but no one has been rude.
“Everyone has been super nice as we would expect from our Canadian neighbours,” he said. “I think the Canadians are pretty nervous about tonight’s game actually.”
At 7:10 p.m. the puck drops. The only sign that this isn’t a bar in some small Canadian town is the fact that the commentator calling the game is speaking in Italian.
There’s a quick “Let’s go Canada!” chant off the top, but then people turn to look at the television screens. Many watch with their hands over their faces. No one concedes to being nervous.
And then in the second period, Canada’s Kristin O’Neill scores the first goal and the Canadians are on their feet. They’re high-fiving friends and strangers. They’re crashing pints together. They’re jumping up and down.
When the United States ties it with just minutes left in the third, the bar is worried together heading into overtime. And when the kill shot comes from Team USA’s Megan Keller about four minutes into extra time, the bar mourns together and chants for their team anyway.
Brown said that if they were going to lose, she was happy to be with Canadians when it happened.
“Silver still deserves lots of recognition and the girls worked hard to earn that,” she said.
As for Cummins, he’ll be back Friday for the men’s semi-final against Finland.
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