So this is it , i have been home for a couple days now catching up on the blog . My trip is over and i am going through pictures now thinking of all the great people i met ! First thing is first i could not have done this trip without the help of my German brother seen above proudly wearing my club ( Ghetto Blasters ) tshirt on our first night together . Rainer makes these trips really happen , sometimes it is difficult to know or find out where we are sleeping the next night when we arrive in a new country LOL but he gets it done and he makes it as cheap as it can get where ever we are ! Thanks Kackvogel .
When we finally got to Tallinn , Estonia we were to meet these Estonian guys that were jumping onto our team to fill our roster . Artjom Trefov was the main contact that Rainer had never met , what a surprise it was when he brought us out to skate with his club team . I was singing he's got the moves like Jagr in my head , this kid could dance ! Artjom led the tournament in scoring :) and brought out 3 other great players . Urmas Rohtla,Argo Servet and Aleksei Fedorov ...without these guys and a few other fill ins that Artjom brought in when we had injuries we could not have won the championship trophy which i now have to repair :) 
Our team was truly international with Rainer (Germany) , Kalle Tahkaaho (Sweden) , Kalle Valitalo (Finland ) ,Christian Rautalin (Finland) , Vesa Torsti (Finland), Antoine Motte (France) , ME (Canada) and the Estonians/Russians i already mentioned LOL ! Aside from the hockey all the guys i just listed were really the reason i went to this tourney , i met both Kalles in Finland a couple years ago and i knew they would make this trip worth while ... it is too bad it was a short visit for us all , i hope you all consider coming to Iceland in October ! Valitalo your birthday was so much fun , the sauna with these guys was all jokes , it was a great honour to say i played with all of you guys and shared a championship !
We took a bus to Riga from Tallinn that cost only 20 Euros for a 5 hour trip , when we got there we had nothing planned aside from an apartment to stay in and tickets to a KHL game . We got really lucky in Riga when we met Viktors Rozkalns on the road home from that amazing KHL game ! Viktors showed us how it really is to be a Latvian , showed us around the city , came out every night and stayed late knowing he had to work the next morning ... i think he was hungover all week at work because of us :) Viktors showed me the true heart of a Latvian ... a heart of gold . Tasted great food , learned about great music there , went to amazing bars and met some great people through him ...tell that politician i am still sorry for burning him LOL ! Viktors made Riga a place i want to go back to someday .
Viktors was not the only amazing Latvian person i met in Riga ... in fact without this next person we would have not had the chance to skate there . We had a contact but he wasn't replying and we couldn't wait for a call that might not happen . Rainer contacted this person named Zaya , she is a member of the Latvian Inline Roller Hockey Federation ...hope i got it right this time Zaya ??? LOL ... she got us onto the ice for a beginners lesson and there i met Toms and taught him some goaltending tips . They seemed to work :) Both of these great people came out to drink with us and were both very gracious hosts at the arena . Thank you both for being so awesome !
When we got to Sweden we were lost , no contacts replying to play hockey and when we got replies it was like they knew we had no chance to play . Rainer had never played here either so it was a MUST ! Good thing Jonas Rudberg replied :) it was really unfortunate that the skate was on our last night in Stockholm as it would have been great meeting these guys the night before at least ... Stockholm is expensive but i am sure these guys would have made it much cheaper for us as the locals always know where to go . They had 5 goalies and 1 of the guys decided to step aside to let me have more icetime ...Thomas Nylander i thanked you that night and i thank you again , that was a very classy move and i hope someday to have you visit Toronto . I am gonna finish my wrap up tomorrow , it might keep some of you reading this in limbo .... maybe it's a bit more interesting this way :)
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