Categories
People

Snow Rocks!!

Underwood finds love and snow
Nashville is about as different from Ottawa as two places can be on one planet, but living in two capitals — the capital of Canada and the other the country music capital — is a challenge that country superstar Carrie Underwood is learning to balance.
One thing is certain: Underwood is in love.
The singer, who got engaged to Ottawa Senators centre Mike Fisher in December and is nominated for six Academy of Country Music Awards (ACM), including entertainer of the tear, top female vocalist and album of the year for her latest release, Play On, quietly makes the trip for a snowy weekend to watch the 29-year-old hockey star play at Scotiabank Place, hang out at Fratelli’s restaurant (one of their favourite haunts in Kanata), or laze around Fisher’s home in Carp.
Yes, we might be seeing a lot more of this self-professed “southern girl,” if it weren’t for one major obstacle.
Snow.
They don’t get a lot of the white stuff back home in Oklahoma, where the Grammy Award-winning singer is originally from. It’s not something she’s used to.
“It’s another world here,” she says with a laugh during a break in final rehearsals for her Play On tour, which begins Thursday in Reading, Pa.
“Don’t forget, we’re just north of Texas. So when it snows in Oklahoma, we close everything, but it doesn’t seem to bother people here. I’m waiting for the day I drive my truck into a snow bank.”
A Christian whose traditional southern values matched well with Fisher’s own devout upbringing, Underwood was pleasantly surprised to find that Ottawans are every bit as welcoming as people back home.
“The people I’ve met here are great, helping me to adjust to life in Canada. And they love Mike. That warms my heart.”
However, she recently discovered that marrying a fan favourite like No. 12 puts a lot of competitive romantic pressure on the new bride-to-be.
“A woman came up to me at the grocery store and chewed me out, telling me if I thought I was going to take Mike away from Ottawa, I had another thing coming, and she wasn’t kidding. She let me know she loved him and he was going to stay here, period, no matter what I said. She might have been kidding, but she wasn’t being funny.”
When the glamourous couple do tie the knot (when, she won’t say), they’ll split their time between Nashville in the summer and Ottawa during hockey season when she’s not touring.
She loves living in the country music capital because she can hang out with family and friends, go to tailgate parties and watch NFL football.
Underwood, who calls herself a huge football fan, sang the American national anthem at Super Bowl XLIV.
“I like hockey now. I’m still learning the game, but I grew up watching football.
“Mike’s right at home in Nashville. He’s got friends there long before he met me.”
The couple met when Fisher visited Underwood backstage following her concert at Scotiabank Place in March 2008.
“We took our time to become friends first. Our relationship grew organically. Now I know that this is the one God’s chosen for me.”
The ACM awards will air live from Las Vegas on April 18 at 8 p.m. on CBS.