Day 24 : Cortina D'Ampezzo 2nd Annual International Tournament

The night before it was very hard to get any sleep as 1 of the 4 of us was having himself a good time at the rest of our expense , no matter we were still ready to go play hockey. Mario and myself were the early risers and went on a stroll down the road from our arena parking spot to get ourselves a coffee ( on our walk we saw the trail of destruction left from last nights debauchery LOL ) . Arriving at this nice little cafe we sat and had ourselves a coffee and talked about our team . Most of us felt as though we were just there to have fun , if you told me at this point that we would do well i might have laughed at you !

Having to play for the Feldkirch Chiefs meant i had to be on the ice for the game before my game for the Rainman Allstars .Feldkirch is a team from Austria that showed up without a goalie looking to have some fun , unfortunately in this game we played Squali Cortina ( Italy ) and basically got schooled . The Feldkirch guys were not bad , they just did not have their A game and seemed a little dysfunctional but i could see glimmers of hope . We lost to Squali 5-0 and i had to stay on the ice for my first game with the Rainman Allstars vs. Milano Veget ( Italy). Our team was made up of Petri ( Finland), Klaus ( Germany),Rainer (Germany), Mario ( Germany) , Rudi ( Austria) ,Alex ( Germany), Melanie ( Germany) and we were given 2 Italian skaters Marco and Romeo ...we were a mixed jumble of everything you could say .

We had our first game and won quite convincingly 8-2 , our team pest really made a name for himself ( Mario) when i say team pest i mean he was like a Sean Avery type player that everyone hated but would have loved him on their team . He drew the attention of the Milano guys but what happens on the ice stays on the ice . After our first win we had a few hours break so i wandered around and looked for some food to eat . Let me say that the organizers of this tournament ( Luca and all that helped ) really know how to hold an amazing tournament . There was a beer garden set up just outside the rink with a bbq cooking sausages there! So i went with Petri sat down and had a sausage , people were mingling and i saw this guy with a Canada hoodie on so i approached and said hi ....he was Canadian ( from Montreal and a Habs fan but he was alright , honestly LOL ) Vince Fazio . We sat down had a chat , i found out we had just played his team , he was living in Milan playing hockey with these guys . Vince introduced me to his teammates and we went for a stroll and i got to know a few of the guys ( Francesco and Roger primarily ) . I have said it before and will say it again Hockey Players are the same all around the world and the fraternity amongst us is amazing !

We hung around for quite some time and basically he had the next game out of the 2 of us and we were planning on our next game which would be later that day when i play for Feldkirch vs. Milano . Next on the agenda for me just so happened to be Feldkirch ! I did not want my team to take them lightly ....during our pregame warmup the team would circle me and for some reason there would be a silence and i would basically start talking , not knowing if everyone understood what i was saying somehow i felt that what they understood was still inspiring them . Then came the chant Kackvogel , Kackvogel , Kackvogel with my yelling LETS GO RED to soon follow .

Our team had basically 2 lines with Rudi , Rainer and Petri on one line and Marco, Mario and Romeo on the other line ! Both lines were clicking , we won this game and our defense ( all 3 ) played amazing with Alex as our team captain and Melanie and Klaus holding down the fort . This game was very monumental for me as i have played in dozens of games overseas and aside from shutouts in USA i have never had one outside of North America . This was my first shutout overseas :) we won 8-0 but i could see that the Feldkirch guys were playing better than the first game that i had played for them . My next and my fourth game of the day was for Feldkirch vs. Milano.

Unfortunately my paesano Vince was kicked out of his game earlier and was not allowed to play in my game against them with Feldkirch :( . Feldkirch came out flying ,  i  gave them a small speech that seemed to work too . I knew they were not that bad of a team , they came into this game 0-2 with 0 goals for ...that soon changed ! Pretty sure we were up like 3-0 almost instantly , the guys were playing much more inspired hockey and were keen for the win ...i could be wrong but i think the final score was something like 7-3 . Way to be Feldkirch and sorry Vince and the Milano guys ....i came to play hockey :)

After that game was he big battle of the undefeated teams , Rainman Allstars vs. Squali Cortina ...i would not say this was my greatest game . It was my 5th game of the day and i was tired and apparently looked it too, we had an up and down game and i let in a couple softies , we were actually down 5-3 late in the game and Alex and Rainer scored 2 critical goals to give us a tie and first place in our pool , meaning we play tomorrow vs. second place in the other pool which was Auronzo Senators ( Italy) a team with ex Italian National team members . Klagenfurt was the team we practised with the day earlier that we were surprised to hear were not doing so well ....they ended up in 3rd in their pool so these other teams must be really good . After winning our pool with a big 5-5 tie i had myself just a couple beers and my 4 camper mates and myself decided to turn in early to try our best tomorrow, we were all definitely surprised to have not lost a game tomorrow could be magical !