I think i'm ready ...

1 more month until i embark on my next adventure ... really the adventure starts on June 18th when my friends from England will show up here a few days before my tournament here in Toronto . They will be staying at my house that night and i am almost sure i will have a few more guys staying here over this time before i take off . The night before i leave i am having a party/bbq at my house so i am sure Rainer , Timo and maybe someone else will be passing out here that night . Should make for an interesting hangover flight down south !!! Go big or go home :)

Pretty sure i got all my stuff together ... Brazilian Visa ( check ) , Maltese Passport to enter and exit Argentina ( check ) , flights (check ) , hotels ( pretty sure , check ) ahh oh yeah there is just some small things i have to buy as gifts for my hosts . When we arrive in Punta Arenas we will be greeted by the mayor and we should probably have some gifts representing our countries , i already have an idea but don't want to ruin it in case he is reading this . My squad that i am putting together to play there will have an international flavour ... i have my buddies from Germany obviously Timo/Dr. NO & Andi/Tanzmanian Devil then i am pretty sure my friend from Puerto Rico will join us Philip Painter ... you never know with this guy anything goes ! Then i have a guy from Canada joining us as he is travelling there at the time of the tournament , he came across my blog and wrote to me and now is joining us his name is Tyler Eddy . It is a 3 on 3 tourney so at the moment i have 4 skaters .... if anyone reading this wants to make it down there let me know ????

We will do a couple hockey clinics for some kids in all the countries we visit which should be a lot of fun ... i have gifts for the youngins too ! My local MP (politician) gave me a bunch of Canadian lapel pins that i am sure they will all love . At the moment i am contemplating adding another bag to all my flights to split with Timo .... basically that is the only thing i have yet to do .... book my gear for the flight ! I have to call Air Canada and tell them that Timo and myself are travelling with ice hockey equipment . You should always do that when flying ! The only concern is that we are going to some cold countries , yes it is cold down south in July ... there will be mucho snow ! This means i will have to pack heavy , which tells me i probably will be overweight for my baggage allowance . The only saving grace is that Timo might not be so i might be able to toss gear into his bag , but that is a risk too . Got some thinking to do ......

Ok enough thinking , that was hurting my head LOL !

Starting to work on another trip ...

I know ... i haven't even left for this trip i have next month , which no doubt will wipe out my account . I'm an addict and travelling to play hockey in other countries is my fix LOL . Hoping to take my gf along on this trip i am planning back to Europe !! Looks like we are agreeing on some places to visit at the moment , everything is up in the air .... originally we are set to go with the main part being the Spengler Cup in Davos,Switzerland . I have never played there , so it would be amazing for me and i am sure the view there is breath taking . Hopefully we will be there for New Years Eve with some of my great friends .

IF not i am already looking at alternatives like going to Belgium or going to play on this outdoor rink in Liechtenstein . Obviously i will be in Germany as it is my second home and i love it to bits ! Probably will head there for Christmas with friends and then head off somewhere else , hopefully i can get in on a tournament around this time too . Hoping to make my way south and possibly pop over to Malta for a short weekend type visit then keep going to some destination on the African continent ... possibly Morocco . There is a rink there and i plan to skate on it !

This will be a tough one to make as i come back at the end of July , hopefully work is super busy and i can get a flight paid off quickly . Was looking around online this morning and i hear that cost of flights might dip this summer *fingers crossed * i miss the good old days when i could find a flight to Europe for $800 these days my eyes light up if i see it just under $1,000 ... it makes it tough on everyone i know , but i have to keep on travelling . If i die broke and get to see the whole world i will die happy ! you can quote me on that one , more then likely i will die broke unless i win that darn lottery ... i will probably die broke if i won the lottery anyways now that i think about it LOL ! 

Amazed ...

Yesterday i woke up and checked my blog ... sometimes i like to see how many people are reading it :) To my bewilderment i had more hits then i had ever had before in 1 day . I don't usually have more then 200 blog hits a day and when i awoke i had already 700 !!! Not sure who or how i found these new readers but welcome aboard .

By the end of the day i ended up with over 1,500 hits which for me is unreal as that is more then i have in the average month . Today i wake up and see the numbers growing still  , and it makes me wonder how many people would be reading this if it ever went viral ??? are we talking 100's of thousands ? that would be unreal LOL . It seems that my blog gets a bit more popular every year and i don't mind that , hopefully someone reads this and offers to follow me with a camera , that would be AMAZING . For now i will keep on trying to make this as interesting as possible with me odd rants , goalie tips ( complaints ) and my worldly travels .

My next trip begins in just over a month but just before that i will be holding my own International hockey tournament here in Toronto . A bunch of my wild hockey buddies will be torturing the citizens of Toronto for a weekend of hockey debauchery , i will try to blog about it on a daily basis but that might be hard as i will be in the eye of the storm . I am not even staying at my house , i booked a room with my friends LOL ! So whoever posted my blog on the site that everyone is picking this up off i would like to thank you for the boost in readership . Welcome to the wild world of travelling to play hockey .

Lets Make This Easier

The last couple weeks i have been trying to get as many of you to sign up on The Hockey Community . Apparently it is working :) If you haven't signed up trust me you should ! It is still quite new and will only get better , and will be much better if everyone signs up and tells their friends . It will bring the world of hockey together , hopefully one day i can look on the events page and find tournaments from all over the world posted there and it will be a staple for me , you and all our travelling hockey friends to look into and plan trips . 

As mentioned in earlier blog posts, there have been a few other guys that have approached me over the years with ideas to bring the world of hockey a bit closer . None of them came up with anything even close to this . No offense to any of them as all their efforts were valiant and had a great cause . The moment i saw this site i knew it was what we were all looking for . I have already added a good portion of my Ghetto Blaster squad onto the site ( hoping the rest sign up ) , if they all sign up we can use it as a forum to talk about team on goings , etc... If you do bother to follow my advice and help me help this get going then add me .... I am The Travelling Goalie 

Hope to see you all on this site soon .

Today's Rant

Just woke up , no i am not bitchy but i am sick of people that don't have a clue what a commitment is ! Today i am receiving an email from a team coming to my tournament that are having problems with players that said they are coming and now that it is time to pay they are dropping out . If you are reading this and have done this before then you should have shame as you are a total piece of shit ....

People have to understand because i am sure it has happened to everyone , i mean there have been millions of times that i have depended on someone to hang out with or go catch a movie with or you know just simple stuff and at the last second you get that phone call saying my dog ate my homework or some bullshit like that . Why can't people just be honest , with themselves and the people they deal with .... i think the word MAYBE is only a losers way of saying no so think about it before you say it to me . Yeah i am kinda jaded from dealing with so many losers over the last 4 years of organizing hockey but i feel as though i have a right to be . 

Now the going out with a buddy thing and him bailing on you is one thing but imagine if you covered me for a few hundred bucks then i bail out on you , actually not even that ... i just stop responding ??? yeah man if you do that shit you totally are a loser and you should go hide under a rock because you are absolutely pathetic !!!! I mean come on , don't tell someone you want to do something and keep talking big game until you are asked to pay up ... that is so lame . Apparently a lot of people apply this practice as it has no effects on their wallets and is the best way to weasel out of paying for anything ... the problem with that is usually the person that does this is so pathetic and knows it so they don't come hang out anymore , they disappear under their rocks . There is a great way to avoid all this , stop being such a bullshitter know your limits and just say NO if you can't afford it or your mommy won't let you go on the trip . 

Yeah i know this is a bit of a rant and honestly it has nothing to do with me , serious ! I am not being affected by any of this at the moment my squad is great , they all pay and they all let me know when they can't make a game . In the past i have dealt with losers like this ... actually quite recently i had a loser that was supposed to bring beer to the last game of the year , he didn't show up and hasn't responded ... some people will know who i am talking about and i am sure they all thought he was a loser too . He probably knows he is a loser too LOL ! if he reads this then he does now :) 

So if a hockey organizer asks you if you wanna play be honest with him because if he has to rent the ice for you to play then he has to pay for the ice for you being a wanker and not showing up or your team mates do and that sucks ..... don't be such an individual this is a team sport . Everybody hates that guy that bails ...

Hockey Community

As of late i have been contacted by a few people about promoting their ideas ... this one was a no brainer as soon as i looked into it ! The Hockey Community is a social network for hockey players. It was started by this guy named Alex Toul who lives out on the west coast in BC. From the sounds of it this website has been circulating around the west coast for some time and they would like to get the word out to the rest of the hockey world .

Alex is from Lille,France . When he arrived on the west coast he had a tough time finding the chance to play hockey so him and his friends began started a blog featuring drop in skates in and around the Vancouver area and they began to gain great success , so much that they all quit their jobs and dropped out of school and began this website . Personally i have been waiting for a site like this to pop up for us all and i am happy to share it with you all ! I have already began adding  my team mates from here onto this website and have been posting pictures and blog posts also , it is pretty much Facebook for hockey players .

From what i have gathered from my email correspondence with Alex there are around 12,000 hockey players using HC as it belovedly referred to on their pages :) Seriously it would be amazing if everyone linked up on their and signed up and got this thing going in full gear globally .... it is still growing but i am sure in the future this will be a great place to find hockey tournaments , pick up games , and a great way to meet like minded people ! There is even a great phone app that you can download for absolutely nothing . Before i keep blabbing on about how great this is here is a link for the website : http://hockey-community.com/ press the link sign up and look me up there :)

Hopefully at some point we will all be able to go on the site and look up hockey games while on the road , there have been many a time that i am travelling and have had no clue how i would get to play in that certain country , the website has a booking schedule for each rink on it but the rink must sign on to update scheduling . If we all get the word out about this site i am sure it will be a hit with everyone and will make hockey an easier thing to do . There have been so many days that friends have called and just said hey wanna go for a skate and we would have no clue where to go until we would research or make a few calls . Now hopefully soon i can just log onto the website and find myself a pickup game in Mexico City per say ... ( yes i want to go play there next year lol )  just imagine the possibilities !!!! After you are done imagining just register and make it a reality . 

Baycrest Pro Am Tournament

For the last few weeks i have been helping out a friend with promoting the tournament he organizes . I have repeatedly told you all about it and i will mention it one more time ! The Baycrest Pro Am started yesterday and a couple days ago Rob Weir sent me a message to see if i could play this weekend as a fill in ... of course i said yes . Here is the crazy part ... every team gets to draft an NHL Alumni player !!! I was needed to play for the Media Team , they drafted Todd Hlushko . 

So yesterday morning shows up and i get a message letting me know that i am not needed , yeah i was a bit upset but i understood that i was just needed to fill in and not to play the full tourney ( which i couldn't anyways ) . After i got that message i went downtown to pick up my Brazilian Visa then i went to pick up my team jerseys from Big Stick Custom Jerseys ... as soon as i got home i got another message from Rob . Apparently the team i was supposed to play for thought it would be funny to tell the organizer that they had a goalie ??? when they didn't , so Rob cancelled me thinking this team had a goalie when they didn't LOL . Yeah makes no sense to me because i could have said no if i made different plans but luckily i didn't . 

Off to York U. to play , basically i threw my bag into car and left immediately ... when i got to the rink i realized how HUGE this event was . There were a bunch of amazing volunteers there that were very helpful ,  for some reason i was named team captain so i had to pick up our team package with schedule , etc ... made my way to my room and there was a goalie in there already ... yeah i was confused , i asked the guys if they were Media Team they said yes and i plopped my bag down in front of the goalie cut jersey hanging on hook  . The other goalie was Greg Zaun former Blue Jays catcher and let me tell ya he was a HOOT ! i didn't notice Todd Hlushko but he was sitting in there chatting away with everyone and Greg was telling a couple of good stories about his playing and broadcasting career . 

Zaun has these great Blue Jays colored pads that are really nice and we started talking about that , then i asked if how he wanted to split the game .... he told me to go out there and do my thing . Greg is new to the game but is really really into it . When game started we needed to add a couple skaters as we only had 6 , so a buddy on the other team Liam and former Boston Bruin Don Sweeney joined us too ! It was a fun game so it didn't really matter what happened in the score line , yeah we lost :) But we had a great time doing it ! There were some snipers on the other team ,  the highlight of the game was when Zaun made this amazing paddle save while rolling around on the ice ... we were all amazed how well he played :) for a rookie ! 

After the game we went up to the bar and it was a who's who of NHL hockey !!! I saw Gordie Howe , Walter Gretzky  , shook hands with Doug Gilmour , talked to Darcy Tucker and had a beer with Marcel Dionne ( also going to make plans to go visit his restaurant this summer so got his contact info too ! ) There had to be at least 50 former NHL stars there inside the arena mingling around with everyone ... i was in HEAVEN .

Next year i am going to try to do some fund raising to help this great tournament out ... everyone i met on my team yesterday were totally class acts and i hope to meet with them again ! Hope you guys get a win today too , wish i could be there for day 2 but unfortunately i had plans already made for today :( i would highly suggest to anyone that loves hockey to try getting into this tournament next year , it is worth every penny ! Good luck to all the participants and thank you Rob and thank you to all the volunteers at the tourney !