Hi everyone.
[Friday] was an off day for the team. We went to the rink to start packing up as we are leaving the Blinov Arena now for the Semifinal at the Omsk Arena. We went to a mall for an hour. It was a lot like home with North American stores. We didn’t really buy much, but it was nice just to walk around.
After the meal we had a trip to a Russian Army Tank College. It is where soldiers from all over Russia come to learn how to operate tanks. It was pretty cool. We got to see them drive around their training range and then did a tour of their tank museum.
After the Tank College we went back to the hotel and then the team went to a local arcade for a couple of hours. It was a close contest but I beat Derek Schoenmakers [@dschoe8] in arcade basketball, 380-365.
Following the arcade, we went back to the hotel for bed because we have a big day tomorrow!
This morning we woke up early for breakfast at 8 a.m. and then to the new Omsk Arena for a 10 a.m. morning skate. We have a great dressing room here, and this rink is really nice.
After practice, we went back to the hotel for lunch and a nap.
We got back on the bus to the Omsk Arena for our game against Belarus. We were able to watch a bit of the Waterloo-Sweden game which was amazing as Waterloo tied it with 1 second to go and then won in a shootout!
Our game with Belarus got off to a good start as we took a 1-0 lead. They quickly replied with a goal to tie the game. After that, we took control of the game and pushed our lead to 4-1. Belarus scored early in the third to make it 4-2, and were pressing but we were fortunate to get an empty net goal with four minutes to go that sealed the game and a berth in the Championship game [on Sunday].
Follow Nick Baptiste on Twitter at: @NickBaptiste
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