Crazy Game

Yesterday I played in one of the craziest games yet. We were supposed to play a home game against Triglav, Slovenia which is a team in the European League that we play in. The starting time was set for 3pm but we didn’t actually start the game until 4pm. Why you ask, well the team apparently went to the wrong rink which was in Prague. We are affiliated with a professional men’s team which plays out of Prague in a beautiful new rink that seats about 15,000. Unfortunately our average of 50 fans a game wouldn’t really fill that stadium, so instead we play in Kralupy a smaller city about 30min outside of Prague. It actually suits our team just great as we have our own locker room and it’s a fairly nice rink. So upon Triglav’s arrival we find out they only have 8 players. Chelsa was not scheduled to play in our game because we are only allowed 3 foreigners to play in the game so she was sitting out and letting a Slovakia girl on our team play. Well little did she know but our coach offered her to go and play for Triglav. So what became her day off became probably the most defensive game she has ever played as we won 12-1.

We are to play Salzburg today and it should be a good game as we only beat them 3-2. Then this Thursday we are off to Berlin to play in the second round of the European Champions Cup. We’ll be playing three games Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with teams from France, Germany and Switzerland. The competition should be good so it will be a real test for our team as we have not been tested so much this season, so I’m really interested to see how we respond. The top two teams move on to Sweden where the finals will be played at the end of January. I’ll keep you posted on our results.

Czech Republic vs. Slovakia

Last Saturday night Chelsa, Sara, our friend Erin and I were luckily enough to be able to attend a Euro 2008 qualifying soccer match between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I had heard about the game and wanted to go but figured that the game would be all sold out. Well low and behold it wasn't and we got great seats the day of the game for only about $25 Canadian. It was being played at the home arena of Sparta Praha which is one of the two professional soccer teams in Praha, and only a 20min walk from our house. The game was fantastic to watch granted it was raining for about half the game and had about -1C temperatures. The fans were super crazy and chanted cheers the whole time. But that was to be expected. It was pretty funny as we had no idea what they were saying and we all ended up jumping up and down to this one cheer that they always sang. Come to find out, thanks to our teammates translation after the game, that they were chanting "If you don't jump then you're not Czech". Sounds awkward in English but has a good rhythm in Czech, but was a good thing we jumped along. The Czech's won 3-1 so it was nice to be on the winner's side. The game ended with a five minute fireworks display which I don't know was going to happen, so it was a great end to my first international football match.



National Anthems



Action Shot



Police in riot gear just in case



Super fans!

Budapest Road Trip

Well I was back at it with games this past weekend after having the previous weekend off. We took a road trip to Budapest after practice on Friday as we played them on Saturday at 12:30pm. The road trip was pretty uneventful compared to other ones that I have been on. Granted I must say that I still have not gotten used to watching Czech movies. The Czech movies are pretty crazy, but they do throw in a couple of English movies dubbed over in Czech, and if we’re lucky we get English subtitles. It was a crazy road trip in the sense that we got our hotel in Budapest at about 2:30am, woke up at 9:30am then went and played our game at 12:30pm. Needless to say we did not get to see much of the city. It did look beautiful from the bus with a huge river flowing through the city. We won the game 4-1 which was good, probably could have won by about 10 goals but we were having trouble scoring. Then after the game I thought that we would eat in the restaurant like we have done in the past. Word had it that we were going to stop in Bratislava, Slovakia for super which was 3 hours away. Hum...that is totally different from any other team I have played on before where they pretty much shove food down your face after the game, especially when you play the next day. I had asked if we were going to stop at a gas station to get some snacks, our coach said we were going to, so I decided not to grab some food at the rink. Well two hours later we finally stopped for a “snack” at a gas station. Then we didn’t eat in Bratislava but in Brno which is only like 2 hours away from Prague. They must think we need to lose some weight.

The next day we played Kladno, a team that is in our Czech League. Back in October we lost to them in a shootout. It was our first and only loss of the season. Well we came out hard and beat them 12-3. It was pretty crazy and I really don’t know how we ever lost to them. Our coach was pretty pumped after the game and actually said some positive things which doesn’t happen very often. I have to mention also that we will not be going to Russia any more. For some reason we have switched pools and no longer in the Russian pool but the one in Berlin. I was kind of disappointed in a way cause I was pumped to go to Moscow and maybe get a chance to see a couple of sights, but Berlin is pretty great as well. Granted I’m not sure how much sigh seeing well get to do, but I guess we have a better chance in this pool so should be are going to be in a different pool of teams and instead we are headed to Berlin in a couple of weeks. Apparently we have a better chance in this pool of making it to the next round. So I can’t complain too much as the finals are in Sweden and it would be awesome to go there!

Short Trip Home

Well it’s been awhile since I last wrote on the blog mainly because I was at home in Canada last week. My grandma has been diagnosed with cancer in her lung as well as a couple of places in her liver. So things are not looking too good. My parents were supposed to fly out and visit for that week but instead I came home to be with my grandma. I had a great week or more like 5 days hanging out at home spending time with my grandma and family. It worked out really well because we had the weekend off from games since most of my teammates were gone with the national team at a training camp all week. I did get on the ice a couple of times at home. A big shout out goes to my brother, Julie and Josh Horni for coming out on the ice with me, as well as my cousin Greg who skipped school to come and play net for me one day! It was really great to have that week off from everything and just hang out and enjoy what North America has to offer...I think I had Tim’s coffee every day! Now it’s back to the old routine in Prague. I was back at school today and I think I lost all brain power on the flight over. Not to mention I’m a little worried about practice tonight so hopefully that week off didn’t kill me too much!