The Fox’s Tail: Boxing week madness … without the sales

Blog — By fox on January 9, 2012 1:59 PM

Editor’s note: This post is the second in a series about my trip to the World Juniors in Prague in 2007/2008. I went with a large group, about 350 Canadians, and spent time with them in Vienna and Prague before venturing to visit family in London.

A collection of tales from my trip to the 2008 World Juniors in Czech Republic.

The Fox’s Tail is a blog featuring a hockey perspective from a girl working with a hockey team in Canada.

By Fox

Dobry Den. (That’s Czech for Good Day.)

So last I told you all, we had our wonderful Christmas dinner at the hotel in Vienna and were getting up at the crack of dawn to head’er to Prague. We were supposed to have breakfast at the hotel, but ended up grabbing our eats on a train headed for the Czech Republic. Best part of this train ride?

Remember I told you about that gingerbread house I made in German class in Grade 11? I used what very little German I could recall to both order my breakfast AND ask where the facilities were. (I can no longer recall really anything, other than “I would like a beer”).

That day, part of our group got off the train in Pardubice, the little town about an hour outside Prague that was co-hosting the tourney, and where Canada would be playing all their games. These folks were staying in nearby Hradec Kralove, which played host to the tourney back in ’02 (I will definitely be dating myself here, but this was my personal favourite Junior team of all time … ABC line, Aulin-Boyes-Cammelleri and the “Pest” line Sutherby-Stoll-Ott). As for the rest of us, we kept on the road until we arrived in Prague. I was staying at a hotel downtown about a block from the top of the main square. Our room was spacious, had an awesome wrap-around balcony, that I didn’t get to use much other than to smoke (filthy habit!), nice flat panel TV, and a GIANT bathroom with heated tile floors.

We didn’t have much time to unpack, however, because we had to get to the rink, where we took in our first couple of games:  Sweden vs. Slovakia  and Czech Republic vs. Canada at Cez arena in Pardubice. The first intermission, we found out the most depressing piece of news ever. NO BEER IN THE ARENA. (No, seriously. No beer in the arena.) So, while I’m trying to crush a brew, that was pouredby some saucy teenage fox (hey, I was still young enough to look at him back in 07!) I was in the little entry way into the arena, and these two dudes are also crushing their pints trying to get back inside. I could see some of the action, but not quite all. I was trying to peek past the tall one’s shoulder when I noticed they were wearing customized jerseys that were NOT standard fan issue. “Those jerseys are sweet, where’d you get em?” I casually enquired.

“We work for Team Canada,” they said. Team Canada’s personal chefs. Right. The one guy, Andrew, turned out to be originally from Toronto, so we got along off the hop, and they were telling me about their gig with the team. SO SWEET. We’re chatting away and then this guy in a suit comes up and says, “Man you guys are lucky, I’d kill for a beer.” I stare at him for a second. Wait. It’s James Cybulski from TSN! No way!

The next day, we had a pair more games to attend, and Canada was playing the early game, so after Canada picked up their second win of the tourney, we missioned outside to the team bus. Best part about going to the tourney in Europe? No pesky Hockey Canada people telling you things like “HEY! You kids can’t do that!” So, we just waltzed on down, waited for Team Canada to come out, and I had a second jersey that still had tags I wanted to get signed sooo Tavares, Marchand and Subban all signed. We even got a couple photos with them, well, not me because I was the one doing the taking. It was cool to be able to get to actually meet the players and tell them how excited we were to be there. They were surprised to see how many Canadians had given up their Christmas to come overseas and see them.

A couple days later, the rest of our group joined us, and I met my friend Sarah, who is still my friend now, years later. (We went to the 2010 tourney in Saskatoon together.) On the 29th we had our morning off, as the first game wasn’t until 4 p.m. so we had some time to do a little exploring. I was mostly trying to find a resto that served traditional Czech fare. My grandmother used to feed us all the staples when we were younger, and I was dying to find some.

(Side note: in the mornings at breakfast, I had been loading up on a traditional Czech pastry, which I mentioned in my Christmas post, which is called kolache. One of the boys in our group, Newf, wanted to know what it was. I told him it was not good and he wouldn’t like it. He liked it so much, he told the rest of the boys and I had to start dashing down to the dining room before I showered in the morning and scooping a few before they ransacked the entire place. Jerks.)

I ended up buying a shirt and some Czech crystal beaded jewellery for my girlfriends back home and picking up some post cards — I use them in my scrapbooks.

That afternoon we all piled onto the bus … and headed to the rink for Slovakia vs Czech (Rowdy, rowdy game, we all got completely smashed) and then Canada vs. Sweden. I found out that particular night that it was possible (and allowed!) to stand in the penalty box during warmup and shoot photos. No joke. Amazing, again in Canada this would NEVER be allowed.

In between reading Gone With the Wind on the bus rides there and back (about an hour each way) I made friends with people in our group. Much like my hockey team back in Alberta (Jickers, O.P., Brutus, Pigpen, Peeps, T-Bag and Goo) the boys all doled out nicknames, and because I was living in the mountains at the time, I got dubbed “Rocky.” We had Pennypacker, Newf, Newman, the Greasy Lawyer, Kramer … we got to know each other pretty well over the couple weeks, and I still keep in touch with lots of these beauties.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will be mostly about the massive gongshow that was New Years in Prague!

- Foxy

Question, comment, chirp? Get at me … Twitter @hockey_foxx or e-mail me at redline_blueline@hotmail.com .. For girl stuff (and hockey) check http://hockeyfoxx.blogspot.com