Augsburg 2014

Ok i have been to Augsburg before but the last time i was there it was in the evening and really i didn't see much ... that was when Timo rescued me after losing Rainer in London . The morning after we just woke up and he drove me to the airport . So when i was planning out the trip i was keen to go there to watch an Augsburg Panthers game with Timo ! Timo is a hard core fan of this great hockey club so we looked at the schedule and saw that we could go watch them on Jan.3rd and i could fly to Morocco on the 4th ... done booked , but not only booked .... Timo got us a table at Bob's Terrace . I have no clue how much it cost him but he showed us the Augsburg Panthers home in style . As i have mentioned before Timo is consistent ... consistently AWESOME ! 

We arrived in Augsburg on the night of Jan 2nd and we had ice time there in Konigsbrunn , there were a few guys i knew from weeks past and from trips past . Got to see Andy who i met in Plzen and Tobi who i met a few weeks back at the Eisschlampen game i played in . This time he was playing and he was the other goalie . The ice in Konigsbrunn is really nice and well kept but as usual its a bit dark in the evening and the lighting seems a bit off . Regardless it was the best ice i saw on this trip or at least comparable to the ice in Peissenberg ... big olympic size ice pads all over Germany , i personally like playing on the big ice over those small 3 on 3 pads i come across in my travels .... but the bottom line is you get what you get and if you live in a country with a small rink , then use it . Use it a lot and hopefully some day that rink will grow :) At the skate we mentioned that we were going to see the Panthers play and a whole bunch of guys started saying they would be there too .... Tobi ended up jumping on board with us for our trip to Bob's Terrace . 

So finally i got to see Augsburg during the day light ! Its a really beautiful typical small city , with a population around 150,000 it is a University city which is bloated during the school year and less populated in the summer . Big beautiful cathedrals , a newly set up transit system ! Toronto take notes , these guys even separated their transit from the rest of traffic .... trams run on their own paths and from what Timo says traffic sucked during the construction but what they did made traffic much better in the long run . Imagine driving in Toronto and not having to stop at every intersection to wait for a streetcar to drop passengers without being able to pass the street car ? can you imagine , it's brilliant ! That wasn't the only beauty of Augsburg ... they have a wonderful hockey shop filled with Canadian flags called Ziegler Sport . Check out their website http://www.ziegler-eissport.de/ . The staff their were absolutely fantastic and they are probably one of the biggest hockey shops in and around that part of Germany . Loved it ! 

Melanie Blume also joined us , she drove for something like 6 hours from Nuremberg ( i think ) and we all went on our merry way to meet Tobi on the tram . We got to the arena early and met some players as seen above with Steffen Tolzer who is an injured player . When we got inside the party was on ! Beautiful rink , the whole Bob's Terrace idea was really awesome and somehow we ended up with the only table with a Jaegermeister table cloth ... to this day i am not sure if that was planned LOL ... Rainer loves the stuff if you didn't know :) but they don't sell it here . Free beer ,free food , and good times were easily earned ... what a night ! We met up with Michael Wolf who was in Toronto for my tourney last year , good times buddy !!! Augsburg was playing Dusseldorf , game went to a shootout and Augsburg one a tight one ! Couldn't have asked for a better last night in Germany . After the game things got really messy , ended up in a sheesha bar and i think another bar and a bottle of wine with stickers all over the place at Timo's ... pretty sure when i got on the plane to Morocco i was totally drunk , yeah that was like 8 hours after my last drink hahahaha .

Augsburg is a cool city , i would highly suggest it as a nice quiet stop over if you are ever travelling through Germany . There are a lot of nice little restaurants , even breakfast joints near the University and it is very clean and not so noisy as some bigger cities in the region . If you are into strolling around having a coffee at a cafe and looking at some historic buildings and cathedrals then this is a perfect place ... seems to be a good city to pull up a chair and draw or write poems or just relaxing . I don't blame Timo for living there , its really nice . Timo buddy , THANK YOU so much !!! This wouldn't have been so awesome if it wasn't for you , you know how much i respect you as a friend ! I am happy to say i got to see where you live ( in the daylight ) i will be back , so keep that spare room ready for a weary traveller LOL .