My Last Road Trip...Thank Goodness

Last weekend was our last road trip of the season and it was a memorable one for that matter. Not only was it our last road trip of the year but there were a couple of other factors that made it a trip that I will probably never forget.

First off we left on Sunday morning at 4:30am. Yes that’s right, my team was too cheap to leave the day before and drive the 8 hours, stay in a hotel and get a good night’s sleep before a very important game. How important? Well we had to win that game in order to clinch 1st place in our European League, as there are no playoffs. Let’s just say I was less than excited with the thought of leaving at 4:30am. That means we were up at 3:30am and out the door by quarter to as our rink is about a 20min drive away. And of course nothing is ever really on time here so our bus pulled up about 4:45am. So we load up and were on our way.

There’s another factor to this trip that I have not talked about and it’s the fact that I had the flu. As I had said in my previous blog, Thursday was my last day of school. For some reason after school I started to feel sick. That night I had to babysit a friend’s son and after that came straight home to bed. Didn’t get much sleep of course as I was in the bathroom most of the night with the runs. So Friday I laid low, didn’t go to practice that night, then Saturday started to feel better and thought that I was kicking it. I was being too optimistic. Did not get much sleep on Saturday night and it didn’t help that I had to be up at 3:30am.

I pretty much slept the whole ride to Maribor minus the times that we would stop for a bathroom break which in my case seemed to be needed every time. The thing with our buses is that you never know if you’ll get a bathroom on it or not. There is always a bathroom on the bus but sometimes it’s locked and out of service. Makes complete sense of course as everyone is trying to drink as much water as they can (well more like us Canadians are doing this) in order to hydrate for the game. Thankfully (I think) we stop almost every two hours or so because my coach/the bus driver have to have a smoke. Oh yes and you probably are thinking that we would stop for a pre game meal somewhere along the way. Nope that never happens, you just pack your own meal consisting of sandwiches and what not for your pregame meal. Basically anything that we have been taught over the years for preparation for a game is thrown out the window as soon as your plane touches down in the Czech Republic. The luxuries of playing college hockey seem so long ago.

We get to Maribor, Slovenia an hour and a half before our “big” game. We walk around the rink a few times to wake up, then start our warm up for the game. Surprisingly enough we came out hard and after the first period were up 2-0. I was hoping this could continue so I could sit out the third but unfortunately they came back and tied it 2-2 going into the third period. We fought back and won 4-2. On any other given day we would have killed the team but due to the circumstances that was not the case. I was extremely thankful when the game was finished. I had four points on the night which I was quite proud of as one time I scored a goal, grabbed the key to the locker room and went to the bathroom and was able to make it back in time for my next shift. Luckily for me that was the only time during the game that I needed the bathroom as by that point I had nothing in my system. At the end of the game my equipment wasn’t exactly wet as there was pretty much no water left in my system.

So after the game it’s back on the bus for the 8 hour drive back. Now back in college we would have pizza’s waiting for us on the bus, which at this point in my career would be like heaven but at the time I didn’t think much of it. But nope, refuelling the body after an important game isn’t exactly on the minds of our coaches. They said we would stop for supper later once we were in the Czech Republic. Humm...great that’s only two countries and 6 hours away. Like seriously could they not just go to the bank and exchange some Czech Krowns into Euros cause really it’s not that difficult or not to mention they have these plastic cards now and days called Visa’s and wow...they work in every country! So 12am we make it across the border and stop in the all night cafeteria where most of our team ate. Tea was of course all I could keep in my system as a few hours ago I had to have the bus make an emergency stop for me. Quite funny really. Finally we made it back into Prague at 2:30am. So 22 hours later my last road trip FINALLY ended!