Country #48 Slovenia 🇸🇮
Sometimes you get lucky and fortunately for me Dado had to drive his son Luka to Bled which is right beside Jesenice which is where I’m going ! I hit the jackpot and when Dado picked me up he also had a Croatian national team jersey for me …. Winner / Gagnon ! I guess you’d know that if you lived in Canada and played the lottery .
The drive was around 2 hours from Zagreb and we chatted about the state of hockey in Croatia . It’s not great with two rinks and no big hockey teams playing hockey in big leagues like when Medvescak played in the KHL . They desperately need the government to put more funds into hockey there and even at that point it might be an uphill battle with everyone being huge football fans and even at that they don’t get enough support for all the top league clubs also .
We had a beer in the bar beside the rink in Bled which I might add is a beautiful barn and the youth team playing there all looked like they could wheel ! But I had to get to my hotel to check in and get ready for my next skate . Two nights in a row in two new countries , not bad :)
My goalie buddy Rok Sarlohar who I had met a few years back in Skopje and is the national team goalie for North Macedonia has organized everything in Slovenia for me unfortunately he was not here but his buddy Dejan picked me up and brought me to the rink . Dejan is a good hockey player and he introduced himself to me graciously by potting a few by me during the skate 😝
When I got to the room I introduced myself and the guys were all wondering who I was but didn’t talk too much to me . The ice is Olympic size and it’s a beautiful rink . Jesenice was the heart of hockey when this used to be Yugoslavia and the local team here won the championships 15 years in a row or something like that . They were a dynasty but now things are much different but people still love the game here . When we hit the ice I had that typical warmup with guys sniping me and deking me out which is a pain for any goalie . We had a pick-up game and to start I played like garbage not tracking pucks and not dropping my pads to the ice …. In an instant it was 6-3 for the other team and I started to get warm …. Gripped my stick with my blocker hand harder and started making saves one by one and so did the other goalie . We must have played a half hour with no goals but then my team started the comeback and they gained confidence in me . I can’t imagine how shit it would be if I didn’t get my act together . Pretty sure we were on ice for 1.5 hours and we came really close to tying it up but ended up losing 7-6 …. It was respectable and the guys were all happy that it was a good game .
After the game we went back to the room to have some beers and they ordered a bunch of pizzas and we had a snack with our beers as we all talked hockey in the room . The guys seemed more accepting of me and Dejan gave me a Hockey Mafia hoodie as a gift , thank you 🙏. Hockey Mafia is a local hobby club here in Jesenice . After we hung out in the room for about an hour or so I got a ride back to my hotel which is Ejga Guest House which is a restaurant that has some rooms upstairs . My room has three beds , tonight I’m gonna crash on the big bed .