Country #50 Northern Ireland
It all seems surreal now but when I look back on the last 20 years of my life of travelling and playing hockey I can honestly say I can’t believe I got to this goal . When I first started it was like an addiction to find more places to visit to play in and then it grew into making goals and then the pandemic happened and it really halted my goals which was followed by a year that I thought would bring me closer to my goals with unfortunate circumstances which lead me to three countries that I was supposed to play in and those fell through but here I am now sitting in my hotel room in Belfast relishing the sweet victory of attaining one of my life goals to play hockey in 50 countries before I turn 50 ….. so what’s next ? I haven’t figured that out yet .
Started the day yesterday nursing a bit of a hangover from Friday night and the only way to fix that is with a pint and who can say no to sitting on a patio in this beautiful weather we are experiencing here . The area we are staying in is very lively and it’s not hard to find a good conversation with any of the patrons on the patios here . Obviously this was a big day for me so I didn’t want to keep drinking and show up to the rink only to be a bag of shit . So I cut myself off and got a ticket for the Hop on Hop Off tour here to get a little tourism in while I am here . It was a nice tour with a lot of info about the history of this city .
After the tour we grabbed a sub sandwich and then headed back to the room to chill and get ready to head to the rink . Need to make sure I bring any gifts to hand out to people at the rink and I can’t forget to grab a hotel towel to destroy at the rink 😝 we called a taxi and headed to the rink .
Thankfully we have had assistance from Aaron Guli who happens to be with the IIHA which is the Irish Ice Hockey Association . He organised our ice times for us which made it really easy so for this I am very thankful .
When we got to the rink we were greeted by a player from Latvia who lives here . Really sorry I forgot your name :( he was super nice and seemed so happy to have us joining them for the ice time . We were lead into the rink where we met Aaron and we had a little chat about our mutual friends (yes you Adil) and the politics of hockey today before we were lead into the dressing room . The rink here is Olympic size with a nice seating area upstairs that is on one side of the rink . The dressing rooms were cozy with some odd showers . It was like a stage in the room open concept for everyone to have a peek 😜
As the players came in they all introduced themselves and we all had a good conversation going which kinda kept me a tad late getting on the ice . We did a gift exchange with Aaron also , thanks again for the shirt and hoodie ! Hope you enjoy the bottle .
One the way out to the rink I met Sarah McFarland who is the national women’s team goalie and she’s a riot . Always love talking to fellow tendys and it was great chatting her up . The other goalie on the ice tonight is this young lad named Blaze , I know cool name eh ! We warmed up , had a chat then went to our respective ends and started playing . Tanzer is on my team to start and he opened the scoring and before we knew it we were up 5-0 . We take a breather kinda like a mini intermission after a spell and Blaze is down on himself and I explain to stay mentally fit and not blame himself . He needed a confidence boost and I think it helped because he kept the score a little closer after that .
It was a mixed level of skaters and a few of the better players had their chances but I stymied them . Even made a ridiculous glove save on a breakaway that made my teammates really happy . This happened after we had switched teams and then I let in a goal …. It wasn’t great but it beat me and I didn’t let it bother me but deep in my mind I knew Andi was lurking waiting for his opportunity and then when he got the chance he put one off the bar blocker side . Nice goal but that was it for me ! 2 goals over 1.5 hours during an organized scrimmage is actually quite good no matter what level you’re playing and I can honestly say that on a day that I’m reaching a life goal I had a great game …. Not the shutout I was dreaming about but almost as good .
Both teams I played for won while I was on their squad . It was fun , nobody took it too serious and I’m happy to say we all had a good time but now it’s time to celebrate 🎉 we brought a 6 pack of Harp beer and a bottle of Prosecco but unbeknownst to me Andi brought some schnapps with 50 labelled on it and balloons and a sash all that said 50 which was really nice . So glad I got to do this with Andi , he’s a good friend and we’ve travelled and played together in roughly 12 countries over the last 15/16 years . So we were the last ice time which meant we couldn’t party in the room too long …. Beers in the lot it is then .
I gave Sarah the bottle of Prosecco and we finished our beers while chatting with a bunch of the guys who we thought had left already but were congregating in the parking lot . Sarah then called us a taxi and we dropped her off and carried on to the hotel to drop and dry out our gear . That hotel room is gonna be ripe later but who cares it’s time to find a bar to get some beers to continue the celebrations. We were turned away by a couple establishments because they close so early here …. Google will say the pub closes at 1 am but they cut people off much earlier so don’t believe google if you’re ever over here . We found a sports bar that served us and it was kinda weird with music and older people totally trashed and dancing . We had a drink then found our way to this bar called Filthy McNastys which is apparently open until 3 am and there was this amazing live band playing music with a much younger crowd all having fun we got a couple beers in there until we were asked to go upstairs to continue drinking around 2 am and when we went to grab a drink we were told they can’t serve and this was around 2:30 am not 3 as we had seen on that stupid website 😝 so we hit up this chicken joint on the way home as we watched young people fighting and barfing on the streets . Quite entertaining 😝 we had a good night and it was probably best it didn’t carry further as we have another day to explore here in Belfast .
Thanks again to Aaron Guli and the Irish Ice Hockey Association for assisting us here and thank you to all the other associations and friends I’ve made along this wild trip over the last 20 years who have helped and put up with me trying to play hockey all over the world . What’s next ? What’s the next goal ? I don’t know yet …. But stay tuned !
