Kladno

January 8th (continued)
Robert, Lenka and I drove from Prague to Kladno. By this time I hadn't slept for more than a few hours for three days, so when I got to Honza's house, Lenka's host family's home, I slept. We had a practice in the evening, but I was very tired and didn't skate or play very well. My first thoughts on Czech hockey compared to hockey in Juneau is that there is a lot of passing. Also compared to the North Stars or Firebirds hockey I played in Anchorage, the passing was much cleaner.

January 9th, 2010
I slept until our first tournament game, we won 4-2. I couldn't play because I didn't have a picture for my registration card. Here, instead of rosters for each game, teams submit players' cards, so the game score keeper has pictures and detailed information for each of the players to look at, rather than a list of names and numbers. Also the ice is zammed between each period, so we get a little pep talk (in Czech, which I can hardly understand the words of, but still is motivating) and rest. After the game we went to one of the nicest Czech restaurants in Kladno, I had a mushroom chicken dish with pomme frite.

A few of the Czech words are similar to French words, which confuses me because usually the words are only similar, and most of the words are very different. Another similar word is mort, which means something like violent death, e.g. a heart attack. Other words sound similar, but have completely different meanings.


January 10th, 2010
After falling asleep around 21:00 (9pm) I woke up at 3:30 in the morning, and couldn't go back to sleep. It was the weird to me, to be awake for so long in bed in the morning when I know I should be sleeping, not feeling tired, instead feeling like I would at 14:00 or 16:00 in the afternoon.

My roommate Mechy (her hockey nick name), and I went to the grocery store in the morning. I couldn't find vanilla. Also, fruits and vegetables are tagged with the weight and price near the fruits and vegetables in the store, so that when you check out the clerk scans the item, and doesn't need to spend time weighing and labelling at the check out stand. This and many other things make a lot of sense. Luckily, this grocery store, which is really close to our flat, takes Visa. Unfortunately, most places in Kladno only take crowns, Czech money. Then, no surprise, I slept a few hours until our next game.

We won our second game against Karvina 4-3, in a very exciting overtime shoot out. We didn't play very well in the first period, I don't think we broke out successfully more than a handful of times. It was 3-3 at the end of the third period.