No Goals, Three Assists, +2 Rating.

I'm playing the equivalent of Little Rock Men's League A. My tryout was Saturday, and it went well. As I suspected, my skating skills and speed came in handy. I'm playing with a bunch of middle-aged pack-a-day smokers, so their skating abilities are a little compromised, but they could stickhandle through autobahn traffic. In other words, the start is a good one; we have things to learn from each other.

My first game was a lesson and a roaring success. I learned how out of shape I am. My first two shifts were nightmarish, and though it got much easier from there, I learned that I have a long way to go before my skills are back to a standard I consider satisfactory. Give me two games, and I'll be back to where I want to be, and it'll hopefully be all uphill from there. I recall mentioning that my endurance hasn't suffered because I've been walking so much; I forgot that you use a totally different, much larger group of muscles when you're playing hockey versus just public skating. I'm not nearly as sore today as I thought I would be, though, so I suppose that's a positive indicator. I had another opportunity to play in an informal, optional scrimmage this morning...at seven AM. I don't know if I've taken adequate time to grumble about the Bratislava public transit system, but it's pretty close to innavigable. You can't get anywhere from anywhere directly. I won't complain anymore, though, because I know that Bratislava's public transit will be a dreamboat compared to Kosice's. Taking into account both the time it takes to transfer from tram 2 to tram 1 to bus 34 to bus 83 and the necessary time in the locker room, I hae to leave the hostel a good two hours before any kind of engagement at this rink, which is in rural Bratislava. Needless to say I woke up to my alarm and the grumbles of my dormmates at 5:00 and thought for about ten minutes before saying.."no. Sorry boys, I'll see you tomorrow." I play again Tuesday night at nine.

From a technical standpoint, I really think I prefer the European rink. The wider surface creates more skating, passing, and scoring opportunities...of which I had many. As you've probably deduced by the title of this entry, I did fairly well in our 4-3 victory. On the whole, I think the guys are more or less impressed. They're more than a little baffled that I'm in Bratislava to play hockey and learn the language and culture instead of just frequenting pubs for cheap beer like most anglophones. Thus being diplomatic is easy at the moment, because the standard of behavior for English speakers is pretty low. I've learned from the locals that Americans have a reputation for being clueless and well-meaning, but Brits come over here to have stag parties and break things. Mache, my goalie friend, showed me a statistic online about the ratio of Slovakians arrested to UK residents arrested during Bratislava's tourist season. The ratio is almost ten English to one Slovakian. So when someone knows more of the language than "beer" (pivo), it makes an impression. I think I also got some respect points when I kept playing after getting hit in the face with a puck. My helmet repair kit... didn't, so I played without a cage, and got a pretty nifty shiner for my troubles. There was a momentary pause in the game (not a stoppage of play, but everybody just kinda stopped and looked at me with concerned expressions). I was laughing my ass off, I passed the puck, and we scored. I went to the bench with a huge smile on my face, with my glove over my left eye. So now they think I'm pretty tough or pretty crazy. I'm not sure which. At any rate, we're underway, and I have to research schedules, fit my mouthguard, and look for a helmet repair kit that actually has the right has the right bolts. It'll be fun, and so will the rest of the year, I suspect.

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Later kids.

Josh