Thanksgiving Edition

To those of you that celebrate the most delicious and un-nutritious holiday on the planet, Happy Thanksgiving. Those of us who are in countries that don’t have boxed stuffing are extremely jealous.

Since the last blog, our team traveled about 8 hours via bus to play a very talented team in our league called SKIF. The SKIF program contains two teams; SKIF 1, a much more talented and experienced group of players, and SKIF 2, a younger developing squad. Our first two games of the weekend were against SKIF 1 whose roster contains ta couple talented Finnish national team players and multiple Russian national team players with great skill.

The first game got off to a slow start and we found ourselves trailing SKIF 2-0 going into the third period. Fortunately we were able to get a late third period goal, but it wasn’t enough and we lost our first game of the season. We were later told it was also the first time in over 70 games that our program had lost. Disappointing wasn’t even close to the right word to describe it. After a lot of reflection and discussions, we were ready for the second game the next day. Again we came out flat and didn’t make the most of our scoring chances. We lost 3-2.  Not experiencing a loss in over 70 games obviously made our program accustomed to winning. However, to win that many games in a row is almost unheard of in the game of women’s hockey (you’re almost there University of Minnesota) and especially when you are playing in a professional league that is composed of a large amount of players that represent their respective countries. That said, our team wasn’t happy or satisfied with the efforts we gave on the weekend and we know that in order to have the outcome we want at the end of the season, we cannot lose anymore games. Sometimes it takes a kick in the face to bring back the fire and the passion and the will to win. Watch out world.

Though our travel to SKIF wasn’t as eventful as the 8 our airport delay that we experienced on the last road trip. It was highlighted by two major accidents, one on the way there, and one on the way back, that delayed us significantly and allowed for some serious team bonding on the bus. Nothing like packing 20 girls on a small bus for 8 or 9 hours to build camaraderie.

Speaking of camaraderie, our apartment was home to the team Halloween party (which turned out to be only about 8 of us because most of the team left on our two off days). However, 8 people or not, Halloween in Dmitrov was one for the ages. We had two “cats,” one gypsy, one pirate, one robot, a swimmer, and two escaped zombie prisoners.  There was great food, awesome music, and a couple sodas here and there. The party started around 6 and ended with a noise complaint around 1am. Needless to say, we had an awesome time. Highlights of the night included watching the two zombie prisoners try to eat carrots through the tiny holes in their masks, throwing carrots off the balcony at unsuspecting passers-by, throwing a large kids bouncy ball at everyone in the room while they were trying to carry on conversations, and singing at the top of our lungs to Luke Bryan, Rihanna, and various Russian artists. Pictures are worth a couple thousand words in this case. If you’re wondering who the good looking little furry guy is. His name is Lenny and yes. he should be on the cover of GQ. 

Next up - a couple away games about 2 hours from Moscow and a trip to Germany at the beginning of December for Euro Cup qualifiers!

Week 3 – Practice, Bear Crawls, and Condoleezza Rice

Happy Halloween

Our third week here in Russia was definitely tiring, but a lot of fun. The Russian National Team players on our team (which is about 10 girls) were away for the week for one of their camps leading up to the Olympic games in February. They will do this a few more times before the games and when they leave, there are about 8 of us left here in Dmitrov. We still practice, and work hard on and off the ice while they are gone. Less girls on the ice = more repetitions of drills = tired human beings. We had two on ice practices one day, and the other days had scrimmages and practices, as well as weight room sessions. One day we had a scrimmage against each other, our coaches, and few guys that came out to play with us. We played two halves and after the first half, my team was losing, so instead of doing push ups or something, our coach made us bear crawl on our hands and knees from the goal line to the red line. It was pretty hysterical. This reminded me of something that happened during one of our first practices here that I totally forgot to write down. When someone makes a bad mistake during practice.. there’s no getting on the line and skating like in college, or doing push ups after the drill is over. No no.. the coach stops practice, and in front of everyone, makes you do somersaults on the ice (like forward rolls that you learned in 3^rd grade gym class.. you all know what I’m talking about). Now.. I haven’t had to do any of these yet, knock on wood, but it is so awesome. When I end up coaching, this is definitely something I am implementing on my team. Because who wants to do forward rolls on the ice while the whole team watches because they didn’t dump the puck in? Not me. Any who, after all the hard work during the week, by Friday afternoon after practice and lift, my body was telling me to lay in bed all day on Friday and watch Glee. And you have to listen to your body right? Right. So that’s exactly what I did.

But back to the week.. it was a ton of fun to work hard and get to know some of the girls a little better. Probably one of the best days was when we scrimmaged against our team owners, directors, and sponsors.

We left Dmitrov at about 6am and drove in 3 hours of heavy traffic to Moscow (a drive that should normally take about an hour). We got to the rink and had to hurry onto the ice to start the scrimmage. We played against about 11 men roughly aged, 25 to 45? Most of them were incredibly talented and we definitely had our work cut out for us. We were told (after the game) that a couple of them had played in the KHL and professionally, which definitely explained why some of them could skate backwards circles around us. Their passing was the most impressive. You would look one way to anticipate a pass, and while you were looking, the puck would whiz by you the other way. But it was a lot of fun to be able to joke around and try your best to hit 6 foot 3 brick walls while they brush you off like you’re a mosquito. One of the men was the owner of our team, one was our director, and multiple others were sponsors of our program and women’s hockey. It was really cool to get to meet some of the people that make it possible for us to play the game we love. They were all very nice and were quick to compliment us and thank us for letting them skate circles around us. Afterward we got to talk with a few of them, including our team owner who, after finding out a few of us were going to spend the day in Moscow, was nice enough to arrange an authentic Russian meal at a great restaurant for us later that evening.

An amazing panorama of a room in the WW2 museum

After a quick coffee to make me forget that I had woken up at 5 in the morning, me, Cherie, and our roommate Zuza spent the day in Moscow. It was a little bit colder than we would have liked, maybe 35 degrees, but we visited a World War 2 museum which was really awesome. They had a ton of artifacts from the war, as well as huge dioramas that depicted scenes from the war, statues and monuments, and a ton of old clothes and uniforms that the

Russian men wore in battle. It was pretty cool and it didn’t hurt that it was indoors.

Afterward, we visited the most prestigious university in Moscow, who’s main building was one of 7 identical structures that Stalin built just after the war. It was pretty incredible. We didn’t get to go inside, but we got an up close view. Shortly after we went to a spot just next to the university that looked out over the entire city of Moscow which was an awesome view.

We made friends

We had a little time to kill before dinner so we visited Arbut street which is the most famous street in Moscow and a lot of people compare it to a European street as far as it’s design. There are no cars allowed on the street so it was nice to walk on the cobble stones and check out some of the small shops along the way.

The best part of the day was the dinner that our owner organized for us. There were probably about 10 of us at the restaurant, which looked like an old castle from the outside. The inside was just as incredible, with wooden pillars, staircases, ceiling, and a massive wooden boat in the middle of the entry way that was lit up with various string lights. The tables and chairs reminded me of something from medieval times and the food was incredible. Now.. if the food in Russia is the only reason why you’re not visiting.. you’re crazy. I left feeling like I had just eaten two Thanksgiving meals and fell asleep in the car about 5 minutes after I sat down. (For those of you that know me well.. yes I know this

Downtown Moscow at night

is normal. I have a problem.. don’t judge me). It was an amazing dinner. As we were leaving, we also noticed a bunch of photographs in the entry way of the restaurant that depicted all the famous people that had eaten at the restaurant. Of course, Alexander Ovechkin was up there (if you don’t know who he is.. you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog.) and then.. Hello Condoleezza Rice! There she was smiling at us from the picture frame. All in all I couldn’t have asked for a better day in Moscow! I met a lot of great people, spent time with great friends, and ate great food. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Week three in the books. Next week’s highlights include a couple huge league games against a very good team 7 hours away in Nizhny Novgorod (google it people). Oh.. and a potential Halloween extravaganza (which they don’t celebrate in Russia).. should be interesting. Speaking of Halloween.. we did carve some pumpkins to spice up the apartment. Some of their names include, Don Julio, George, and Frederick. Please disregard our friend doing inappropriate things to her pumpkin in the photo.

Stay tuned.

First Two Weeks.. Borscht.. Hannah Montana.. and Hockey

Well it's official. We have been in the great country of Russia for two weeks! (We = Kelley and my teammate Cherie.. or Cherry as she is known in Russia). But we will get to that later. We are playing for a team called the Moscow Region Tornado and we play an train about an hour north of Moscow in a small town called Dmitrov.

For those of you that told us we couldn't learn the language, wouldn't like the food, and would dominate the hockey realm.. YOU'RE WRONG. The first thing we learned upon landing in Moscow was that the way we were saying "hello" (as learned from a language book) was actually "hello hunny bunny." Thank you to the nice Russian man on the plane who told us we were saying it wrong. He saved us a lot of embarrassment. Imagine walking into a locker room full of 20 Russian girls you have never met and who don't speak the same language as you.. and then saying "Hello hunny bunny." Yikes.

In two weeks, we not only can say hello correctly, but we can say most simple phrases (thank you, please, etc) and can even order our own food at the cafe in the rink! Learning everyone's name was a bit more of a challenge but we did pretty well! Our teammates had some trouble with Cherie's name.. and they call her Cherry.. or the Russian word for cherry the fruit (Vishna). During a long break in one of our games (confusion with a penalty), we tried to explain how to say Cherie's name correctly to one of our teammates. She proceeded to skate around in circles saying "Cherie.. no no no.. Cherry!" over and over. It was hilarious. So.. Cherie.. is now Cherry.

Our awesome rink located right across the street from our
apartments.

 Speaking of cherries, the food here.. is great. There are some differences in how things are prepared and the fact that there are like 20 different kinds of ketchup here (which is awesome). But other than that, pretty much anything you can find in the grocery store in the US, is in the grocery store here. On top of that, all of the Russian dishes we have tried, have been awesome.. including the well known soup called borscht. Needless to say.. we might be gaining a few pounds while we are here because we like the food so much. It’s funny because so many people told us it would be so different here, but it’s really not that different. It shows you just how similar most cultures are and how we can all find common ground. And here, a lot of that common ground is found in…..

The hockey. The first couple practices with the team were definitely rough. THANK YOU jetlag. Looking back on our first day.. I'm surprised we weren't cut from the team immediately. After a 24 hour travel day.. we had about 5 hours of sleep and then practiced the next day and the only person we had met was our awesome Slovakian roommate who was definitely our Mom for the first week or so (we love her). We walked into the locker room.. and probably looked like we weren't very friendly because we couldn't keep our eyes open. Most of the girls came over and said hello (in Russian, but some in English). We got on the ice.. and struggled through a good practice consisting of some flow drills, 2 on 1s, etc. Our team has about 10 Russian national team players and a couple U18 national team players as well, so the talent level is great. We are constantly pushed to compete at a high level which is awesome. There are definitely some differences in how the game is played.. as far as systems (forechecks, breakouts, etc) between the Russian game and the North American game which took us some time to adjust to. But between the coaches and the girls, everyone has been great and has been trying to help us as much as they can. We have had 6 games since we arrived and have beaten every opponent. Some of the teams here are weaker than others, but we have very competitive games with UFA and SKIF. We played UFA about a week after we arrived and we are traveling about 7 hours northeast to play SKIF at the beginning of November. The games against these teams are face paced, very physical, and hard fought. All of the games that we play are within our Russian league, but we have a couple games in December against other European Hockey League teams in order to qualify for the European Championships at the end of March. These will also be great games and we are really excited to be able to travel and see some different places. We may have only been here for two weeks, but we feel settled, happy, and ready for the rest of the season!

One of the coolest things is that though most of the girls on the team don't speak English (only about 3 speak fluently), we have found ways of communicating with all of them and are able to laugh and joke all the time. For example, two of the younger players love dancing and singing to any song. So probably on the fourth or fifth day we were here, they came up to us in the locker room (with Miley Cyrus playing the background) and started dancing and screaming "I love Hannah Montana."

We communicate a lot through music and dancing and acting like little kids.. which is fun! Another thing that I think is so cool is that all the girls listen to a ton of English music and can sing every word without knowing what they mean! So sometimes, we will walk by someone singing Justin Bieber or Flo Rida as loud as they can.. but they have no idea what the words mean. And I won't lie.. there are a couple Russian songs that I find myself singing without having any idea what I'm saying.

One of the many beautiful buildings at
the Kremlin

On one of our off days we also go the opportunity to go into the city of Moscow (we live about an hour north) and explore with a couple teammates, which was so cool. The city is beautiful, with tons of history and culture. Sometimes I have to pinch myself because I can't believe I'm so far from home, seeing a completely different part of the world and being able to play hockey. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to live and play here. We got to walk around the Kremlin, which houses a lot of the Russian government buildings (similar to our Washington D.C.) and the Red Square. We also got to meet some pretty cool characters.. Spongebob, the squirrel from Ice Age, and scary dudes with swords. Obviously we got pictures with all of them. There is definitely a lot more to see in Moscow and we will be going back as much as we can.

A lot has happened in the last two weeks and we know there is so much more left in store for us the rest of the season. Including lots of snow! :)