Ankara, Turkey - I know what you are thinking, how did I manage to let one goal in?! Believe me it is a lot easier than you think. It was in the second period, I was dreaming that the game was over and then coach decided to put out our 4th line that just started to skate last year. It was a disaster that ended with quick breakaway and my pads sticking to the ice preventing me from sliding leaving a tiny little hole to slide the puck in. But I was glad they scored, made the game a little more exciting.
So the team we played against was Kocaeli Sirintepe SK and they are a team that was thrown together at the last minute and has no import players. Not that import players would help because the team is just horrible. They played the game with 9 players. The only positive is that they have a good young goalie but he broke his hand in the first period from a slapshot from our import D-man Andrii Gorovyi (score was already 9-0, but should have been 18-0). So the team had to dress a forward as a goalie because their other backup is injured.
This became the longest game of my career without overtime. The game lasted over 4 hours!! I faced 12 shots, if you can call them that. The only real shot I faced was the breakaway. The game became very dirty in third period with our import forward Dimitri taking a high stick in the mouth chipping his touth and splitting his lip. But the highlight of the game (for the fans, not just me) came after the final buzzer. Sirintepe's 'goon', I use that termn loosely because he nothing more than a scared man child when confronted, took the puck when the buzzer went and took a slap shot at me that hit me in the chest. I wasn't paying attention to shot coming as I was looking torward the bench to greet my team mates when I felt a puck hit me in the chest. Already upset that I had to be apart of this fiasco of a hockey game I finally lost my cool. My gloves instantly fell off my hand like they were 20 sizes too big. I began my mad sprint towards the 6'2" 220 lbs forward and manage to catch up to him just in time to hear him apologize in Turkish around 5 times as the linesmen grabbed me and threw me to the boards.
My teamates came up to me and were saying 'calm down' and 'what is the problem?' None of them realizing what had happend. The ref came up to me and asked me to calm down too and I asked him "Are you going to give him a penalty or suspension?"
His response was "What would that do?"
I just laughed and grabbed my stuff and headed off the ice, surprised that nothing more had come of that incident. Remembering my junior hockey days as I walked back to the dressing room, I just couldn't put it together why my players had not stuck up for me or even lifted a finger towards the player who had not enough class to take the loss and leave it at that. But I remembered in Turkey that everyone is talk and very little action. Men constantly argue and as soon as someone steps in their way to 'hold them back' that they become even more tough and pretend to try harder to get at the person. I have seen this many times, especially in games. I believe that even if they introduced fighting into the Super Lig that you might seen one fight a game, and that fight being between import players.
But on the bright side, our team finally got new jerseys. The colours do no match our teams red pant and helmet sceme but at least the jersey fits, I got my number (61), and they spelt my name right on the back.
Next game is not until January but Brittany and our newest roomate Kate might have their first game this weekend! Oh and our flat has a horrible mold problem and Brittany, Kate and myself are all crashing in the living room right now until the team finds us a new place.
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