The day I had been looking forward to for months had finally arrived, the 2010 IIHF World Championships. When I purchased the tickets back in February my hope had been to see Canada play in the Gold Medal game, ideally against the Russians. As the NHL playoffs progressed and the Devils, Capitals and then the Penguins and Red Wings had been eliminated I knew the Russian team would be stacked with Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Semin, Kharlamov, Malkin, Datsyuk and even if the young Canadian team managed to make it to this point they would be in tough. The Day prior the Germans hopes of a Gold Medal had been squandered with a tight 1-0 loss to the Russians. However, the Germans still had a shot at the Bronze Medal and would be facing a very talented Swedish team who had lost to the Czechs.
After an early breakfast we took the regional train about 30 minutes to Cologne. Leighann and I weren't quite sure where the Lanxess Arena was so we rode the train an extra stop and walked over towards the box office to check out the arena. We noticed a number of booths set up for Skoda the lead sponsr, a beer garden, a merchandise tent. Leighann suggested we try getting bronze medal tickets for the Germany game, but she also wanted to check out the famous Cathedral and the Chocolate museum and I thought the tickets might be quite expensive. We walked across the bridge and we noticed a peculiar custom where couples would inscribe a lock and then lock it to the fence alongside the railway bridge. The fence itself has become a bit of a tourist attraction and hundreds of people were milling about looking at all the names of couples my favourite was Herr and Frau Schmau.
Across the bridge we came across a sobering reminder of the terrible past. There was a Memorial set up showing all the photos where available of men, women and children transported across the bridge to Concentration Camps during the regime.
We wandered towards the famous Cathedral Dom a n mpressive twin spire cathedral. This is the biggest tourist attraction next to Carnival in Cologne. We went inside and wandered inside the Church for awhile, this was the one thing Leighann wanted to see in Cologne.
We exited the church and Jeramy informed us she had to leave to take care of painting an old apartment. She showed us the direction of the Chocolate Museum but it was a full 5 hours before the Gold Medal game. I didn't think we could kill 5 hours looking at Chocolate so I suggested we walk back to the arena and see if there were any cheap tickets available for the earlier Bronze Medal game. There was a decent crowd but nothing spectacular so we decided to see if there were any tickets at the box office. Luckily there were plenty of seats and they were 2 for 1, so for less than the cost of a single gold medal ticket game we got into the Bronze Medal game. We enjoyed a beer, outside and got these cute collectible Dinosaur cups. Well there was 2 Euro Pfand or deposit you could return the cup to get your deposit back but Leighann decided we needed to collect two full sets of 3 dinosaur cups (goalie, ref and skater). We noticed Skoda had hired a very Brunoesque spokesperson, we didn't think he was very happy to be there he didn't seem to like hockey very much.
4PM rolled around, game time and we were very happy to get inside having spent a good 4 hrs walking around on a hot bright day the darkness of the arena was quite welcome. We noticed that for 6.5 Euro we could get a litre container of beer, it to came with a 2 Euro pfand but the cups weren't as nice so after each beer we'd return for our deposit back.
The Bronze medal game was very entertaining, it is European hockey so not much hitting although the Germans were actually quite aggressive on the forecheck, The 1st period the Swedes scored on kind of a soft goal and what music do you think the IIHF thinks is representative of Sweden, Mama Mia of course. I'd actually wondered about this, earlier in the tournament I'd noticed whenever Canada scored they'd play Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. Every stoppage they would play the IIHF theme song "Stuck on Replay" by Scooter which features a heavy sample of On My Way by Steve Winwood, it's quite catchy. My recollection of the exact order of things gets a bit foggy the rest of the game. The German goaltender a Blackhawks AHL farmhand was outstanding, the Germans eventually tied up the game in the 2nd. In the third the Swedes went ahead and put in an empty netter. The most odd thing was with less than a second remaining and a faceoff in their own end up by 2 goals the Swedes called a timeout. The only rationale I could think of was for a group hug. The Germans stood up after the game and gave their team a standing ovation. A great performance for the host nation.
We had to vacate the arena inbetween games and Leighann sought to complete her collection of cups. We ran into a few Canadians, who were approximately 5% of the crowd. We made friends with a drunken Russian who didn't understand why he couldn't refill his 1L jug outside of the arena. He told me his KHL team was coached by Nik the Stik Borschevsky of Maple Leafs 1993 Game 7 vs. Detroit OT hero fame and he also used a racial slur to describe former goalie Ray Emery. We were glad when he left.
We re-entered the arena and the jubilant happy laid back mood that existed for the Swedes and Germans was gone. We found ourselves in a section sandwiched between Russian and Czech fans. Seated next to us were people who claimed to be from Toronto but when asked specifically where they were from they said Thornhill as it turns out they were both York students who had flown into Cologne just a few days earlier. The York students turned to a group of yellow and blue clad fans in the row behind us and asked if they were Germans. I laughed. The York students told us they were cheering for the Russians as they had befriended them earlier and the Russians were going to take them out drinking after the game. I suggested that might not be such a good idea since by the looks of most Russian fans everyone had already had plenty to drink and these two kids were lightweights. The York guys quickly changed their mind as to who they wanted to win when the Czechs scored just seconds into the game. In between periods they started chatting up the Czech fans and engaged in what I refer to as "poking the bear" when they asked a Russian fan which hurts more losing the Olympics or losing the World Championships to which the angry Russian answered "both".
The game was one of the fastest paced I think I've ever seen the puck movement was crisp and fast, but there was no hitting. Thomas Vokoun played outstanding for the Czechs and late in the 2nd they went up 2-0. You could just see the Russian fans hearts just sink. Having not lost a single game in the past two world championships it would be devastating to them and equally as sweet for the Czechs to beat the Russians.
As Canadians we always thought of the Soviet block hockey nations as one monolithic block and we sort of hated them all, post Communism we just sort of began to view all Europeans the same. The last twenty years or so we have seen plenty of big strong, physical mean European players come to the NHL and a flourishing of skilled finesse Canadians so I think it's safe to say that players adapt to the style of hockey that will allow them to hold jobs in the NHL.
The 3rd period progressed and the Russians were turned back time after time, finally late in the period they made it 2-1. However it was a bit too late and the Czechs were able to hang on to win. It was actually quite an amazing thing to witness, the underdog Czechs had pulled off the upset, a bunch of unknown Czech players had defeated a Russian team stacked with 14 returning Olympic players and some of the top NHL scorers. Never having been live at a high level Championship it was something, even if it wasn't the Canadians I was very glad that the Russians had been defeated.
Leighann and I made our way back to Bonn for the night with that damn Scooter song still in my head.
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