Playoff Update

Istanbul, Turkey - Semi-Finals happend tonight and we won 8-1! My club has used all the remaining funds to get us a sweet hotel 5 minutes away from Hagia Sophia in the tourist area of Istanbul.

Of course like true Turkish Hockey Federation style, there was drama leading up to the game. It was discovered that Kocaeli BB (3rd seed) had been playing a player with an illegal transfer card. So the Federation decided yesterday to take points from Kocaeli having them sink down to the 4th seed spot while bumping up Polis to the 3rd seed.

So we played Polis (team we shared a bus ride with on a previous occasion, and actually practised with on Monday) tonight and it was a pretty close game until the third period when penalties got the better of Polis. The game ended with a horrible incident that wouldn't stand in anywhere and would cause a full scale brawl. A player on the Polis team felt that he had been wronged in a previous incident in the game and decided to seek revenge. So he skated up behind one of my teammates and swung his stick and connected with is mouth!! Blood splattered the ice as my teammate, in shock, tried to skate to the bench before falling to the ice. Pulling his hand away revealed that two of his teeth had been knocked out and his mouth had been ripped open.

Nobody on my team, afraid of suspension, was able to retaliate. But, on to the next game. The Turkish Super Lig Championship is tomorrow night at 8:30pm. Winning team gets a cash prize!