You gotta love those Latvians

Is it unpatriotic to cheer for the other team when you’re wearing a Canada t-shirt, with the Maple Leaf tattooed on your face, watching Team Canada at the hockey world championships?

Because I just couldn’t help myself.

Never in my life have I ever wanted the other team to score more than I did while seated at the Metro Centre in Halifax on May 4.

It’s not that I didn’t want Canada to win. Besides, they couldn’t have lost if they tried. There were up 7-0 and I had cheered for every one of those seven goals.

And while it’s exciting when your team gets the shut out, I just really wanted Latvia, the other team, to score.

Just once.

Why?

To see the reaction of their fans.

And I wasn’t the only one pulling for the underdog. Everyone sitting in my section, and I’d dare say the majority of the arena, was hoping for the same.

If anything, I think it was an even greater display of how patriotic we were because we didn’t want the Latvia fans, who had traveled so far to cheer for their national team, to leave empty handed.

I didn’t want to leave empty handed either. If they cheered that loudly when their team didn’t score, imagine the frenzy if they did.

When I had bought my tickets weeks earlier, I admit I was a little disappointed that my son and I were going to a Canada-Latvia game. A Canada-Russia game would have been my choice.

Where the heck is Latvia anyway?

But man, I had fun at that game.

The Latvia fans, estimated at about 500, were a hoot. They came decked out in jerseys, wigs, hats, hats with horns, and scarves carrying flags, horns and drums.

Yes, they had drums. Many drums. And they pounded those drums throughout the game. There was one fellow in particular that the people in my section couldn’t take our eyes of off. Never in my life have I seen anyone pound a drum so fast with so much intensity. You just couldn’t look away. And his drum, and all of the others, shook the Metro Centre as their fans chanted in a thunderous collaborative effort – “LAT-VI-AHHHH…” “Their whole country is here and a few from a neighbouring country,” laughed a Team Canada fan sitting behind me.

I always thought Canadian fans were the hockey crazy. Until I met the Latvia fans.

The truth is, we Canadian fans had nothing on them. And it was infectious. I swear the entire three-hour drive home I was still tapping my toe to the beat of the drums.

Just one Latvia goal, that’s all I wanted.

The problem is the team wasn’t that good. The scoring chances they had never materialized into anything. They’d come close, but then they get a little too fancy or the puck would slide off the stick. They’d make the centering pass when no one was there. And the couple of breakaways they got – the ones that left many Team Canada fans on the edge of our seats – well, they just broke away from them. “You’re kidding me, you’re kidding me,” a Canadian fan shouted, almost pleading, behind me. “You’re killing me, just shoot the puck.”

To their credit, and that of their second goalie in the game, Latvia did shut down a Canadian 5-on-3 power play for two minutes and 14 seconds. It was exciting, but not as exciting as had they scored.

So I couldn’t help myself. I was torn between my love of my country and our national team, and their love of their’s.

Bummed pretty much sums up how I felt when the game ended and their side of the scoreboard read zero.

Still, at the conclusion of the game and Team Canada’s 7-0 win, there was something about watching the Canadian flag being hoisted to the rafters as our national anthem played. There was a sense of pride and patriotism.

It’s a feeling you just couldn’t beat.

No matter how hard the other team’s fans pounded their drums.