Summit Series

This last weekend, Paul had the opportunity to travel on his first ever hockey road trip. The Dalian “Ice Dragons” were heading north to play hockey at an arena in Shenyang and he was invited to tag along. Although he didn’t have any gear, except a composite stick and some hockey tape, he jumped at the opportunity!

The “Ice Dragons” is a team made up of teachers from the school, and is a rag tag group with mixed skill level. About thirty members showed up to board the bus we had rented and we took off shortly after school on Friday. For many of the members, this was an opportunity to have a few adult beverages, relax with their friends and get away for a weekend. For Paul (and Cameron) it was an opportunity to play some international hockey!

Shenyang (pronounced Shen-young) is the capital of Liaoning province (where Dalian is located) and is about a four to five hour drive north. It is the former capital of Manchuria and was one of the most important imperial cities in the 15 and 1600’s, even housing the imperial palace of emperor Hurachi and his son Huang Taji during much of the 1600’s. More importantly, it has one of the only ice-arenas for thousands of kilometres in any direction and a team of about thirty Chinese nationals and North American ex-pats who play hockey three times a week.

We got into Shenyang around 10:00 at night and proceeded to play 3 hours of intra-squad hockey. At this point I had been able to scrounge an extra pair of skates, a pair of shin pads, and some gloves. The skates were so dull they had a convex bevel and only a partial inside edge (no outside edge at all... especially on the right skate) but as long as I didn’t try to turn, or stop, or start to quickly, things worked out just fine! I had to switch helmets with someone every shift, and falling on my hips or elbows while trying to work the puck off someone was less then fun, but I scored to really dirty garbage goals, got a few assists and generally had a huge grin on my face because I was playing hockey underneath a huge communist Chinese flag.

Wearing the CH and a motley assortment of equipment while playing hockey in an arena with holes in the boards, no change rooms and communist flags flying around the rink... priceless.

Epitome of why this weekend was so awesome.

We made it to the hotel and into bed by about 2:00 and after some McDonalds from a nearby restaurant that was open, we passed out, expecting to be up in time to leave by 11:00 the next day. Unfortunately at 10 after ten, we were woken by the trip organizer walking down the hall saying “We are leaving in 15 minutes, everyone get on the bus~!” No breakfast for us!

We split the team into A and B squads in order to play the Shenyang team (I was on the B squad for most of the weekend as the top line center... but I got called up for the last few games as injuries, old age and hangovers took their toll). The Shenyang team did the same thing with their roster, and we played another nine hours of hockey over the next few days. It was a blast and the level of competition was great, with some really skilled players (and some not so skilled) on both sides of the ice.

It was a blast to watch the really skilled Chinese players, as their style was so different from Canadian hockey. Pass, pass, stick handle, pass, pass, pass, stick handle shot goal. Basically they would set up really nice plays that would either work (goal) or not (turnover). A lot of East-West passing, skating back towards their own end, fancy stickwork and two on one rushes. Not a lot of grinding it out along the boards, crashing the net, screened shots, etc.

I managed to make my presence felt offensively with a goal and some great board work and net pressure, but Cameron really had himself a game, the last time we played the A team for the weekend. He pulled off the natural hat trick and had a beauty assist on my goal which definitely had him smiling on the way home. In all it was a fantastic weekend.

Play International hockey- One for the bucket list!

B squads after game one

Cameron (in black on the right) on the forecheck.

Hockey- transcends language and culture.