Cold-calling Iceland, for the love of soccer and Euro 2016

They first caught my eye a week ago as I was sitting behind a desk, workingaway at a computer.

Mid-sentence, my producer tailed off topic and leaptto his feet, hisarms in the air. A rag-tag group of Icelandic footballers on the TV at theend of the room had just scored a late goal in a game they had no businessattending. They went on to win that day, beating Austria to advance to theRound of 16 at the European Championship.

On Monday, the team continued its streak. The Icelanders channelled theirViking ancestry and besieged the English, knocking them out of the tournamentin an upset worthy of the silver screen.

• Euro 2016: Iceland basks in underdog status ahead of quarter-final vs. France

In the hours following the match, pundits and fans raved about Iceland the nation of 323,000 people that shocked the world.

Eight percent of itspopulation was in France for the tournament. One player remarked hepersonally knew half the crowd. The team's assistant manager is a part-timedentist.

It's just the perfect sports story.

It's a small world, after all

But if there's one thing I love more than a good sports story, it's a great 'small world'story.

Iceland has roughly the same population as Halifax, slightly higher thanthe Avalon Peninsula. If this were an Atlantic Canadian team taking on the world,every pint-guzzling beard in a bar would be bragging about their thirdcousin, the team's second-string striker.

So I wondered, how many random Icelanders would you have to call beforefinding someone who knows a member of the national team? With a strong caseof curiosity, I started cold calling Iceland.

First up was Alex, from Hafnarfjrur, who gave a shocking response. TheCanadian version of Alex is a hipster who hates hockey and feels obligatedto let everybody know it.

"Most people here are crazy," he said.

"But I personally do not care about22 men running around a field in shorts."

Ouch.

As I began speaking to other Icelanders, one thing became clear:Alex was in the minority.

'We thought it was a dream'

"There was no traffic outside [during the game]," Stefan, of Reykjavik,said about the atmosphere in the country's capitalduring the game against England.

"Everybody is watching TV. It's such a big event... We couldn'tbelieve it. We thought it was a dream. And there's still people thinkingthat this is a dream today."

I stumbled through the Icelandic phone directory landing on disconnectednumbers, confused non-English speakers and strange techno ring tones. Toeach person, I posed the same question: "Do you know anybody on the team?"

"Two of them are from my hometown, but I don't know them," one woman said.

"You just know the faces," Stefan told me. "And you know a little bit abouttheir families because this is not so big a country, but I do not know any ofthe players personally."

Three others, a little confused by the strange Canadian man on the otherend of the line, offered a simple "no."

Cold calling success

And then, with the sixth connected call, I reached Erna Sigurdardottir inRejkyavik, and asked her if she had any team connections to share.

"Yeah," she replied nonchalantly. "We had a dinner with Ragnar[Sigurdsson], one of the players that scored yesterday, in Copenhagenbecause he was playing beside my step-son."

Her step-son, Solvi Otteson, is a veteran of 28 international matches withthe Icelandic national team, but was not selected for the Euro Cup roster.

Despite this, Sigurdardottirstill travelled to France for the start of thetournament, and has purchased tickets to Iceland's Sunday quarterfinalgame againstFrance, though she likely will not attend.

The soccer mom has doubts her team can knock off the heavily favouredFrench club, but then again, they weren't supposed to beat the Englisheither.

"France has done this before and maybe they are not as hungry as us," shesaid.

"But everything can happen. It's a fairy tale anyway. They have gonereally, really far and everything is sort of going crazy for it."

For the next 15 minutes, Sigurdardottirand I chatted about sports, our countries andher family. She was at ease in her second language, excited to share whatused to be the secret of Icelandic soccer.

For the next few days, the worldwill be watching. After that, she hopes the passion will stay when the spotlight fades, so her young daughter can have the same opportunities toshine.

It was as if answering an international phone call and speaking to acomplete stranger was nothing out of the ordinary.

A few minutes after hanging up, the studio phone rang again. It was ErnaSigurdardottir,leaving me her email address and thanking me for the call.

I guess Iceland and Canada are not so different after all.