Week 3 – Practice, Bear Crawls, and Condoleezza Rice

Happy Halloween

Our third week here in Russia was definitely tiring, but a lot of fun. The Russian National Team players on our team (which is about 10 girls) were away for the week for one of their camps leading up to the Olympic games in February. They will do this a few more times before the games and when they leave, there are about 8 of us left here in Dmitrov. We still practice, and work hard on and off the ice while they are gone. Less girls on the ice = more repetitions of drills = tired human beings. We had two on ice practices one day, and the other days had scrimmages and practices, as well as weight room sessions. One day we had a scrimmage against each other, our coaches, and few guys that came out to play with us. We played two halves and after the first half, my team was losing, so instead of doing push ups or something, our coach made us bear crawl on our hands and knees from the goal line to the red line. It was pretty hysterical. This reminded me of something that happened during one of our first practices here that I totally forgot to write down. When someone makes a bad mistake during practice.. there’s no getting on the line and skating like in college, or doing push ups after the drill is over. No no.. the coach stops practice, and in front of everyone, makes you do somersaults on the ice (like forward rolls that you learned in 3^rd grade gym class.. you all know what I’m talking about). Now.. I haven’t had to do any of these yet, knock on wood, but it is so awesome. When I end up coaching, this is definitely something I am implementing on my team. Because who wants to do forward rolls on the ice while the whole team watches because they didn’t dump the puck in? Not me. Any who, after all the hard work during the week, by Friday afternoon after practice and lift, my body was telling me to lay in bed all day on Friday and watch Glee. And you have to listen to your body right? Right. So that’s exactly what I did.

But back to the week.. it was a ton of fun to work hard and get to know some of the girls a little better. Probably one of the best days was when we scrimmaged against our team owners, directors, and sponsors.

We left Dmitrov at about 6am and drove in 3 hours of heavy traffic to Moscow (a drive that should normally take about an hour). We got to the rink and had to hurry onto the ice to start the scrimmage. We played against about 11 men roughly aged, 25 to 45? Most of them were incredibly talented and we definitely had our work cut out for us. We were told (after the game) that a couple of them had played in the KHL and professionally, which definitely explained why some of them could skate backwards circles around us. Their passing was the most impressive. You would look one way to anticipate a pass, and while you were looking, the puck would whiz by you the other way. But it was a lot of fun to be able to joke around and try your best to hit 6 foot 3 brick walls while they brush you off like you’re a mosquito. One of the men was the owner of our team, one was our director, and multiple others were sponsors of our program and women’s hockey. It was really cool to get to meet some of the people that make it possible for us to play the game we love. They were all very nice and were quick to compliment us and thank us for letting them skate circles around us. Afterward we got to talk with a few of them, including our team owner who, after finding out a few of us were going to spend the day in Moscow, was nice enough to arrange an authentic Russian meal at a great restaurant for us later that evening.

An amazing panorama of a room in the WW2 museum

After a quick coffee to make me forget that I had woken up at 5 in the morning, me, Cherie, and our roommate Zuza spent the day in Moscow. It was a little bit colder than we would have liked, maybe 35 degrees, but we visited a World War 2 museum which was really awesome. They had a ton of artifacts from the war, as well as huge dioramas that depicted scenes from the war, statues and monuments, and a ton of old clothes and uniforms that the

Russian men wore in battle. It was pretty cool and it didn’t hurt that it was indoors.

Afterward, we visited the most prestigious university in Moscow, who’s main building was one of 7 identical structures that Stalin built just after the war. It was pretty incredible. We didn’t get to go inside, but we got an up close view. Shortly after we went to a spot just next to the university that looked out over the entire city of Moscow which was an awesome view.

We made friends

We had a little time to kill before dinner so we visited Arbut street which is the most famous street in Moscow and a lot of people compare it to a European street as far as it’s design. There are no cars allowed on the street so it was nice to walk on the cobble stones and check out some of the small shops along the way.

The best part of the day was the dinner that our owner organized for us. There were probably about 10 of us at the restaurant, which looked like an old castle from the outside. The inside was just as incredible, with wooden pillars, staircases, ceiling, and a massive wooden boat in the middle of the entry way that was lit up with various string lights. The tables and chairs reminded me of something from medieval times and the food was incredible. Now.. if the food in Russia is the only reason why you’re not visiting.. you’re crazy. I left feeling like I had just eaten two Thanksgiving meals and fell asleep in the car about 5 minutes after I sat down. (For those of you that know me well.. yes I know this

Downtown Moscow at night

is normal. I have a problem.. don’t judge me). It was an amazing dinner. As we were leaving, we also noticed a bunch of photographs in the entry way of the restaurant that depicted all the famous people that had eaten at the restaurant. Of course, Alexander Ovechkin was up there (if you don’t know who he is.. you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog.) and then.. Hello Condoleezza Rice! There she was smiling at us from the picture frame. All in all I couldn’t have asked for a better day in Moscow! I met a lot of great people, spent time with great friends, and ate great food. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Week three in the books. Next week’s highlights include a couple huge league games against a very good team 7 hours away in Nizhny Novgorod (google it people). Oh.. and a potential Halloween extravaganza (which they don’t celebrate in Russia).. should be interesting. Speaking of Halloween.. we did carve some pumpkins to spice up the apartment. Some of their names include, Don Julio, George, and Frederick. Please disregard our friend doing inappropriate things to her pumpkin in the photo.

Stay tuned.