We were supposed to meet our team mates at hotel but they all took off before myself and Rainer so we took a cab . Taxis are ridiculously cheap here so it's not a big deal by the time we arrived the Serbian team was beating the Bulgarian . I made my way to the other side of handball courts where we had our room away from everyone else's . It was a ceramic tiled floor so I had to dress with skate guards on which sucks and then walk with guards on to outside the building where it is padded .... Don't ask , remember it's Balkan style ;)
Did I mention both myself and Rainer are playing for Iraklis which are mainly an inline hockey playing team from Greece ... Well we are ! The guys are great guys but haven't seen ice in a while so this was gonna be an experience and a challenge for all of us . We have our first game vs. local club Mettalurg Skopje , basically all the guys I have been hanging out with play for them .
Our other goalie started the game which was 3 x 20 minute run periods and said we can split the game . He would start and right off the bat you could see we were gonna take a beating , these guys were way way better then us !!!! Blah blah blah next thing you know we are down 11-0 and I am being called to duty ... At this point I could tell the other team was taking it easy and we scored !!! 11-1 , yup didn't get any better but I stopped the bleeding with some amazing saves , one save in particular amazed even myself when I pulled off a beautiful two pad stack ;) regardless they solved me in those 10 minutes and scored a goal to go up 12-1 ... Yeah I know :(
The third period wasn't much prettier as they just started to try more to score on me or at least that's what I thought as I pulled a few tricks out of my sleeve but it wasn't enough as I gave up 4 more goals and we lost 16-1 OUCH ... Now those of you that know me probably think I lost my shit and freaked out , I didn't as I accepted that these guys were way better then my team .....
After the game I went to nap at the hotel and got a call from Jure asking if I wanted to go to the sold out handball game ... Why not ? , I've never been to a hsndball game . Rainer was dead so I went down and we grabbed a cab . The place was full beyond full and the atmosphere was unreal as it was European Champions League . Local club HC Vardar has hardcore supporters and the volume levels blew away anything I have heard before . We took the first seats we saw and never actually found our seats as we did it "the Balkan way" of course you don't sit in your seats ? You sit wherever ! So we found first row seats and enjoyed the first half LOL . We got up for intermission and when we came back our seats were taken so we decided to leave to go to the National Football Stadium to meet the rest of the gang . The home team lost the game as we listened to the radio .... It was a really close game .
When we got to the stadium the President of the Macedonian Ice Hockey Federation ... Nikola Tasev .... Met us there with tickets already bought for us . Again in true Balkan style there was no seat assignment so we took up our own area with the group of us that went . The game was a Euro qualifying game and in my mind Macedonia fully outplayed Slovakia but unfortunately Slovakia made the best of their 2 opportunities winning the game 2-0 .... So I lost at hockey , watched a handball local team lose AND watched the National football team lose :( yeah it was still awesome .
After the game Nikola took us for a burek sandwich which was yummy then we made our way home to good ol VIP hotel ... What a day .... Tomorrow we play for 3 rd place as the format only gives each team 2 games . Hopefully with a better outcome .
No comments:
Post a Comment