TORONTO (CP) _ Olympic curling champion Brad Gushue arrived home
Monday to a hero's welcome.
``It's been a long trip, we've been away from home for a month,''
the Newfoundland skip told reporters after flying from Turin to
Toronto. ``It's nice to get back in Canada and hopefully start
eating some good Canadian food.''
Gushue's next stop was St. John's, N.L.
``I think this (reception) is maybe one of 100 we're going to get
(in St. John's),'' he said of the Pearson International Airport
welcome.
He expects the celebration to go on for a while.
``I would imagine a couple weeks. There's already stuff being
planned for us and we're ready to take it all in and enjoy it.''
The curlers, wearing their medals and Canadian team gear, were
greeted by a crush of media and applause from onlookers.
Rebbeca Milward, 19, was at the airport to pick up a family
member, squeezing in time to cheer curlers' arrival.
``That was crazy,'' she said after. ``Really quite amazing to see
them actually win and then see them come through.''
Milward had her picture taken with some of the curlers but didn't
touch the medals.
``It's a bit of a personal thing,'' she explained.
Gushue said he has actually taken the medal off since winning it.
``It's very heavy and the neck gets a little bit sore after a
while.''
Another curler proudly displaying an Olympic medal was Calgary's
Shannon Kleibrink, whose rink captured a bronze medal in women's
curling.
``It's awesome,'' she said. ``It feels like a gold medal to us
after the struggles we had there, so, yeah, it was great.''
Skeleton champion Duff Gibson also received a warm welcome when
his plane arrived in Calgary on Monday.
About 100 people, most dressed in red and white, were waiting to
meet Gibson and the other skeleton athletes.
His flight was escorted in by three rescue fire trucks _
co-workers of Gibson, who's a firefighter.
He was overwhelmed by the reception from his co-workers.
``I was afraid that I was going to be a blubbering idiot, but so
far I'm good,'' said Gibson.
Gibson, 39, says he has slid his last race.
``It can't get any better than this, so I'm done sliding.''
Some members of Team Canada made a much more anonymous arrival
earlier in the day. The men's hockey team, considered one of the
gold-medal favourites, was eliminated by Russia in the
quarter-finals.
``When you look at what we've been doing the last number of
years, we've done very, very well on the international stage,''
Hockey Canada president Bob Nicholson told reporters. ``Here we lost
a quarter-final game against a Russian team that played very well.
``We'll certainly all go back and look at the briefing, but not
in a panic mode at all _ I think we're just really disappointed that
we didn't get the job done.''
Added defenceman Adam Foote: ``It's definitely a disappointment
for us _ we feel like we let everyone down, but there's good teams
over there and there's teams that came together quickly. ... We'll
learn from this and be better next time.''
Members of the gold medal-winning Canadian women's hockey team
were slated to arrive in Toronto later Monday night.
