Another morning of waking up and having no clue where i was , i jumped out of the camper and immediately knew i was on the side of a highway ...but where? Strolling towards the closest building i have the urge for a coffee , as i walk in i immediately draw myself to anything that looks or smells like coffee. The man behind the counter speaks Italian :) . I have been to Italy before in Bolzano and Meran but over there they speak Austrian so this was my first pure Italian adventure ! So the man behind the counter tells me i have to purchase a ticket to get a coffee and points me to the other counter where i obtain a ticket and promptly get my nice shot of Espresso mmmmmm! still don't know where i am but i know i am in Italy .
Semi stumbling back from the shop i find Petri awake at the camper and he is asking what i found so i take him to my hidden treasure. We decide to get some food to eat so i grab a bread stick, fromaggio , and some carne and we were off to mangia ....Rainer wakes up we have a nice roadside breakfast ( Gypsy style ) and are back on the road....i need to sit in the front now , we are in Italia :) , during our cruise into the mountains we decide to stop for a looksie and spend a good 10 minutes just grasping the idea of where we were . Our ears are popping as we travel further and further up the mountain ( camper is not a good mountain climber ,we were lucky if we were going 20 KM at some points ) It took us quite some time to do the 200 km trek from where we started so right before entering Cortina we stopped on the side of a mountain beside a golfcourse and had lunch . Lunch was amazing , Rainer likes to cook ...we had this pasta that comes totally prepackaged with sauce and parmesan , grand total of something around 2 Euros a box ( fed 3 of us LOL ) Rainer definitely saved our wallets on this trip !
We gently arrive in Cortina D'Ampezzo around 2 PM and meet Luca ( tournament organizer) . Top shelf guy that added me on Facebook when he found out about my coming there and we were getting on quite well online, was really looking forward to this moment. Just after meeting him the Klagenfurt Teatro HC show up and they have a practise and could use a goalie and a couple skaters, we need a shower so good excuse to play LOL! Klagenfurt were all guys in shape with nice equipment and were totally great guys too , when practising with them all 3 of us ( Petri,Rainer and myself) all thought they would be a tournament favorite and would kick our teams ass .
After practising we started drinking IMMEDIATELY , the Klagenfurt guys were playing Bocci , it was a beautiful day and i couldn't have asked for a better introduction to this tournament ! Luca came to gather our drunken ass' to go to have some dinner before going to watch the Italian Serie A hockey game . We went to the best place i ate at in Cortina (can't remember the name , i am sorry) but it was decorated with hockey memorabilia . I had a calzone and it was amazing , the owner of this establishment plays for the Cortina Dinosauri , we had a few drinks with them the week prior in Fussen ! Luca saw that we were pretty much late for the game and he is a huge supporter of his local club , so we took off and left the guys behind .
Fatti Duri is the fanclub for the SG Cortina, i had the honour of sitting with these wild flag waving ,drum beating rowdies that sit at the home end of the stadium ! What a blast too bad the home side lost :( , but that isn't the point of mentioning this, alongside with Luca i got to meet all these crazy guys amongst them was Marco (one of our teammates in this tournament) . Luca gave us 2 Italian skaters for the tournament to give us a total of 9! Among those 9 skaters was another crazy German/Italian named Mario Viggiani , this guy was our team pest and became our 4th man in the camper for the weekend !
The drinks were flowing , Rainer was forcing Ouzo onto all the Klagenfurt guys , Mario had his cowboy hat on and some of us were more ready to party then others, i was in the list of others as i wanted to play well tomorrow as i found out that i was being asked to play for the Feldkirch Chiefs and the Milano Viget ...i need to sleep but tonight was tough as our devil for the night was out to haunt , we all know who i am speaking of LOL! Tomorrow i have early game at 9 AM for Feldkirch and i need to find someone to pick up the games for Milano ! Ciao .
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