The Engleson Files

7:30pm Friday night

Many of you may remember that the Dalian Ice Dragons recently traveled up to Jilin City for a weekend of fun, shenanigans and, of course, hockey. Now, I have stated this before and I will say it again, these hockey trips are, without question, the greatest personal experience I have ever had while living in China, and I would now like to share with you our trip up to Jilin:

The first leg of the journey began on the train on Friday night at 7:30pm in Dalian. The team all took a convoy of taxi’s into Dalian and just made it to the station on time. Here we can see Blake Defieux on the train with the conductor ready to partake in the 12 hour jaunt north to Jilin City. Once on the train, it is usual Dragons custom to have a few cold ’soda pops’ ready to go in order to ease our weary minds for the long journey ahead. The lights go out on Chinese trains at 10:00pm, but the Dragons always pack ourselves in between the cars and continue on with the festivities until the wee hours of the morning - much to the chagrin of all of those who have to listen to us.

7:35pm on the train

Then, at roughly 6:00am Saturday morning we are woken up very subtly (punch on the leg) by the cabin conductor and are then able to spend a nice leisurely few minutes watching the scenery roll by as our train pulls into Jilin - with the hangover still very much intact. Once into Jilin, we are greeted by a local hockey player who arranged a bus to take us back to our hotel; and when in Jilin City there is only one place to stay: The Star Garden Fashion Business Hotel. Not too sure what the name means, but it was definitely our home away from home for the weekend.

Once all the gear was put into our hotel room(s), we then attempted to eat some breakfast and then the team was off to play some pond hockey at a local park nearby. This was exactly what was needed to get all the train travel (and hangover) out of the system - It felt great to get out in the fresh air and play! Our first game of the weekend was scheduled for 1:00pm Saturday, so we had a couple of hours on the pond to enjoy ourselves, and then it was time for some lunch and then prepare for our big game…

9:30am Saturday morning