Hockey is back… (Finally!)

I came home from our meeting earlier than usual so I’m able to write about the hockey season premiere events already tonight. There isn’t that much to write about, but I’ll try nonetheless. Last Sunday friends and I and I attended at premiere event of the Cologne Sharks in Cologne.
They used to have a stage outdoors with some bands and a tiny fashion (teamwear and stuff) show and a team presentation with really short talks with almost every player. After that usually the players spent some times signing autographs and such. It always is crowed, because the Sharks have a lot of supporters.

This year all these (or a lot of) fans were there as well, but the whole thing took place inside the arena and was combined with a test game. Which meant paying entrance fee, a presentation on the centre ice, which was just too far away from the crowd and just felt… not right. Definitely not like a season opening event should feel like. There once again was the most stupid competition called “Competition skills”, which is a perfect example for German officials (advertising, PR etc) trying to speak English and failing miserably. It was a competition OF skills. Or a skills competition or whatever a thing like this is called in English. Who has got the hardest shot? Who saves the most penalties? Who can skate the fastest? You have to have competitions skills to compete, but… Terms like this really, really annoy me, as you might have gathered. I know that my English is far from perfect and I make mistakes, but I hope my English language skills are not that bad.

Anyway, the test game against a Swedish team was rather uneventful and boring and Cologne only won after shootout. Mike Johnson (a former NHL player) the only one scoring for the Sharks, thank God we finally got one, who can get the puck in at shootout. The other new players seem to be ok and so an adequate replacement for the players who transfered to another team. But I’m afraid none of the four new ones will be able to replace “my” Sebastian Furchner when it’s about just being a nice guy. Fun to talk to, down to earth and be a good hockey player. I’m really going to miss him in Cologne. And I guess I’ll keep his Jersey for another season, because none of the new or the other old players will make me buy a new one of any of them.

Yesterday we went to the premiere event in Iserlohn, our second favourite team It was great to meet all of the nice hockey fans we got to know over the years via Bro1 and some of them even were part of our Canada travel group. The schedule for the Roosters event was different with a test game against Frankfurt Lions and team presentation (outdoors!) after that.

Iserlohn lost against Frankfurt in the seventh game of their playoff series, so Iserlohn wanted to take revenge of course. During the playoffs there were some other typical hockey fights (on and off the ice via the media) going on so there were some other scores to settle :-)
There was free seating at this test game so we took our seats directly behind the Roosters bench, because it’s always a lot of fun to watch the players and the coach during the game. To see the assisting coach on a box to be able to watch the ice. To see angry players beat their hockey stick against the glass. And to see how “cuddly” tough hockey players can be *g*

So sometimes watching the bench might even be more interesting than the game itself, although that wasn’t the case yesterday. Frankfurt played rather nasty, the ref sucked (sometimes) and there was a lot of fighting going on. Scores had to be settled :-) At one point I thought they might have to add some seats to the Frankfurt penalty box though.

I think the regular season games against Frankfurt might be really really entertaining as well. I’ll definitely have to check the dates and my calendar. Cologne will be playing in Iserlohn on September 11th already. We’ll have to see how that goes. The new players seem to be a good addition to the team, at least some of them had some really good moments during the game. The team presentation after the game was entertaining for the most part. It just took too long, because there were too many questions asked. And they didn’t even talk to all players or more than a couple of them, which was a bit disappointing.

Which only leaves me with one thing to write about. Not the most important, but definitely the most interesting. Paul Traynor’s haircut. :-) I really really loved his look in the first year in Cologne. It was a shock to see him return for his second year with rather short hair. I really really mourned that hair. :-)

It grew back though and he looked pretty good for a while. During the last year (or even longer?) he stopped having a haircut though. At least that’s what it looks like. The hair length at the season farewell party in April was… tolerable.

And summer is the time to have your hair cut shorter, right? I usually have to, because I can’t stand the hair covering my neck when the temperatures climb. Paul don’t seem to mind that though, because he returned with even longer hair… And fresh out of the shower he now seems to prefer the samurai look. 

Oh my, we really have to come up with a kidnap and drag him to the hairdresser plan soon :-) He is still one of my favourites, so I guess I have to forgive him for that haircut.

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