March 25, 2009
"Swiss National Hockey Arena"
Okay, so I've been in Switzerland for 10 days already, time to get integrated fully. What better way than to join a company hockey game, played in the biggest ice arena in Switzerland, here in Bern. How lucky does a guy get? The Swiss National Area, recently renamed after a big quasi government-corporate sponsor, PostFinance, (the U.S. equivalent of the postal service) happened to be undergoing a major facelift and reconstruction in anticipation of next month's IIHF World Ice Hockey Championships, where 16 national teams, including the U.S. Olympic team, the Russians, Sweden, Canada, and Switzerland of course among others, would meet and compete in a tournament lasting from late April into May. Right here in Bern, again, how lucky can a guy get.
As it turned out, a friend of my boss, owner of another Swisscom contractor called Pentag, was hosting an annual exhibition hockey game against Swisscom employees. Unfortunately, last weekend he was also skiing, and suffered some torn ligaments. He knew I was from Alaska, figured I could skate & shoot, and asked me to sub for him. In a heartbeat. Only one problem, I didn't haul my hockey gear all the way to Switzerland, not even my skates. I was quickly informed that practically no one owned their own gear, it was all provided by a rental service. As I'd come to find out, it wasn't necessarily top shelf gear, I mean my helmet looked like a leftover from the 1968 Winter Olympics, but it worked, and amazingly it fit.
We hit the ice at 6:00pm after everyone was geared up and the ice was freshly zammed after a youth team came off and started doing one armed pushups in the hallway. It felt great to be on the ice, and I could quickly see there was a big mix of good skaters and first timers, so this was going to be a friendly competition. Practically everyone knew everyone else, despite the large turnout of at least 20 on each bench. There was lot's of joking before the game, a few beers to loosen up the best players it seemed, and maybe slow them down, and the ref called for the teams to line up. I half expected the Swiss National Athem to start playing on the P.A., but it didn't. The first puck was dropped and the fun began. There was lot's of cooperation and commraderie right from the start, with the better skaters feeding the puck down the ice to the new guys, who would try their best to both skate and shoot, often resulting in comical tumbles. One of the gals on our team took out a player from the Swisscom team by accident, crashing him on the ice as he howled, and our bench went wild.
Team Swisscom would score first, but it wouldn't take long for us to come back as we pressured their net and made their goalie scramble. There were no organized lines or stragegy, just a line of eager players on our bench that rotated down and on to the ice as each skater reached his limit and came in for a rest. They had high expectations for the guy from Alaska, and I didn't want to let them down, so I skated hard, kept the pressure on their goalie, and tried to feed the puck to my teammates and eventually we got our first one in. About a 1/2 hour into the game, play suddenly stopped and everyone went out on the ice for team photos, with lot's of laughs and joking agian. As play resumed, the score would ping pong back and forth for most of the game, and in the end we came out on top at 7-5 as we all shook hands, laughed and hit the locker rooms.
Dinner followed, upstairs in the area at a nice restaurant, with some good Swiss beer & wine, spaghetti, salad, bread and a fancy desert. Sorry no pictures of the food this time, I was hungry, and my camera was too far away to walk given my tired state. Hope you enjoy the hockey pics though, and I bet you're wondering like me, what next? Parachuting?
