VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The Canadian women’s hockey team is in hot water after its impromptu on-ice celebration Thursday night. The gold-medal party has drawn the ire of the International Olympic Committee.
Nearly an hour after the Canadians won their third consecutive Olympic gold medal with a 2-0 win over the Americans, the players came back out on the ice in the near-empty arena, smoking cigars and swigging champagne and beer. (Rebecca Johnston even tried to drive the zamboni.)
Star-Ledger photographer Andy Mills captured 18-year-old Marie-Philip Poulin, who scored both goals in the gold-medal game, drinking Molson Canadian beer. Poulin doesn't turn 19 – the legal drinking age in British Columbia – until next month. The Canadian team trains in Alberta, where the legal drinking age is 18.
The IOC said it would look into the matter.
"I don't think it's a good promotion of sport values," Gilbert Felli, the IOC's executive director of the Olympics, told the Associated Press after learning about the celebration. "If they celebrate in the changing room, that's one thing, but not in public. We will investigate what happened."
- Airtight netminder Ryan Miller has US hockey team one victory from title game
- Thursday Olympic postcard: The ominpresent Craig Bohnert
- Joannie Rochette wins bronze medal -- and many hearts -- on women's free skate
- Young star Poulin powers Canada to a 2-0 victory over the U.S. women's hockey team for Olympic gold
- Canadian women's hockey celebration with cigars and beer draws scrutiny from International Olympic Committee
Hockey Canada apologized for the team’s behavior in the following statement:
''The members of Team Canada apologize if their on-ice celebrations, after fans had left the building, have offended anyone. In the excitement of the moment, the celebration left the confines of our dressing room and shouldn't have. The team regrets that its gold medal celebration may have caused the IOC or COC any embarrassment.”
Canadian Olympic Committee spokesman Steve Keough said the COC didn’t provide the alcohol.
"In terms of the actual celebration, it's not exactly something uncommon in Canada," Keough told the AP. "I think Canadians understand it's quite an emotional moment for our team. It was not our intention to go against any IOC protocols."
The women’s hockey players aren’t the first Canadians to celebrate with alcohol during these Games. Skeleton athlete Jon Montgomery took to the streets of Whistler with a pitcher of beer earlier in the week after he won gold.
Manish Mehta may be reached at mmehta@starledger.com.