The Engleson Files

After our fantastic little skate out on the pond it was getting close to 11:00am and our first scheduled game was for 1:00pm, which did not leave us much time to eat lunch. So, we all piled back into the bus that the Jilin guys provided for us and then headed out to a local eatery a block away from the Star Garden Fashion Business Hotel (sorry, I just like saying that name!) Now, as you can see, the food that was ordered for us by our Chinese teammates was absolutely monstrous. We had everything from jiaozi to blood sausage to spicy noodles to gizzard lips and assholes - basically everything that walks under the sun was lying on our table ready to be gobbled up. Needless to say, while some of it very delicious, it was a little bit too much food to hoard down right before our big game. On any given day none of the Dragons need anymore excuses to damage our play any further, but there is no question this meal bogged us down big time.

Was this on our menu? Dog and pig’s tail sautéed with an acetylene torch…

Then, quickly after our lunch we all filed back to the Star Garden Fashion Business Hotel to get our hockey gear on, shuffled back onto the bus and headed out for our first game. Now, we have never played against Jilin before so we did not really know what to expect. As it stands right now the Ice Dragons are a better hockey team than Shenyang but get killed by Changchun (which is an hour’s drive away from Jilin City), so it was all guess work as to how we would compete; Ice Dragons central scouting (Blake Defieux) determined that we would kill them but once we arrived at the arena we quickly learned that many of the guys from Changchun came in to join forces with the Jilin team - so we knew right then and there how this game was going to end up (and the large meal was no longer a plausible excuse to lean on). I think the final score was something like 19-3 for them and I believe my line had one, maybe two, shifts where we were actually in their zone; I felt like a dog chasing after a ball that is always being thrown by its master. So, with game one in the bag, the Dragons were left to lick our wounds and do some heavy soul-searching before our next scheduled game on Sunday. However will this team find the strength to continue on? Find out tomorrow…

Let’s go Dnagons, let’s go!!

Disclaimer: one thing you must keep in mind is the fact that the Ice Dragons are a group of teachers who get the privilege to travel around China and play hockey, we are not stars of the game by any means - even in China. In the Dong Bei region (especially up north) hockey has some very deep roots and the players can all skate like the wind and pass the puck with pin-point accuracy. While extremely frustrating to play against, it can be very beautiful to watch. The Dong Bei style of hockey is heavily influenced by the old Russian style of play, and while strategically I know there are ways to beat them, we just do not have the collective talent to pull it off. The Dragons are simply a team who loves to play hockey and will go wherever we can to do so - even if that means getting our asses kicked!

The calm before the shit-kicking