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Dozens turned out to the Saskatoon airport Tuesday night to scream as Emily Clark stepped back onto Saskatoon soil for the first time since winning a gold medal.
The airport was pristine and silent until about 9:40 p.m., as various groups began to gather in front of the arrivals gate at the far end of the building.
Clark — who won gold with Canada’s women’s hockey team at the Beijing Winter Olympics — stepped through the automatic doors to be greeted by a wall of sound, with young girls shrieking and chants of her first name carrying through the room.
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Clark went straight to her family first, giving her mother, father and siblings each hugs before turning to her friends and fans.
Young female hockey players — in particular, the entirety of the Saskatoon Stars hockey team, fresh off a win against their Prince Albert rivals — stood in their jerseys with posters and hockey paraphernalia, waiting for photos and a chance to see Clark’s gold medal, draped proudly around her neck against her red Lululemon uniform.
“There are so many emotions going through my mind, it’s hard to put words to,” Clark said when asked about the feeling of being back in her home city.
“Honestly, I think this is the first time it’s felt real. Getting to be back in Saskatoon, see some friends and family and share that with them … it feels real now and it’s just super special.”
Leading up to Clark’s arrival, Stars players Halle Helperl and Marisa McClocklin said they were excited to see Clark walk through the doors.
“Just to welcome home Emily because some of us know her personally but she’s also Stars alumni so we’re kind of just welcoming her home, hopefully she feels good,” Helperl said.
“She’s a big part of women’s hockey so we want to give her a nice welcome home and support her,” McClocklin added.
Members of the Saskatoon Stars hockey team rush to embrace Emily Clark in a group hug upon her return to Saskatchewan at the Saskatoon airport on Feb. 22, 2022. (Libby Giesbrecht/650 CKOM)
“It’s inspiring to see them here, it really is,” remarked Tracy Clark, Emily’s mother, acknowledging the surreal feeling of seeing so many girls out to support her daughter after her Olympic performance.
Clark’s mother said her daughter has always been good with younger girls who look up to her, and recalled when her daughter had “fangirled” herself over her Canadian hockey heroes.
“She always did (dream of going to the Olympics) … She always worked so hard and she was always the driver,” Tracy said, remembering the summer Clark decided she wanted to try training instead of vacationing at the lake.
“I think we were always excited for the next challenge,” Tracy reminisced.
After spending weeks with only FaceTime and WhatsApp exchanges, Tracy was ready for time with her daughter.
“I really want to just give her a hug and the emotions, I think we’ve been holding onto them. We haven’t been able to sleep. We’re just on a high,” she shared.
“(It’s) more emotional than I thought it would be … because we couldn’t be with her … We’d be getting texts at three in the morning because that’s when she’s waking up.”
For Clark, her Olympic experiences — apart from the colour of her medals and the masks and COVID tests required this time around — were more similar than she said many might think.
She did miss the chances to see her family on her off days of competition, but said there were benefits to being in a bubble.
“It made it maybe a little more easy even just to focus on performance and really be in the moment because you’re literally in a bubble but very in your zone,” she shared.
Clark said the day she won the gold medal with a 3-2 victory over the United States felt different, somehow.
“The whole day was a dream, honestly,” she said. “Waking up, I had a really good feeling, honestly a lot of belief in the team. I’ve never felt that way on a championship game day.”
She said she made it a priority to live in the moment that day.
“(I was) so in the moment that when the game ended, I realized that we won but I don’t think that it really hit me that we won an Olympic gold medal,” Clark reflected with a smile.
