Cesky Hokej!

It's not like hockey is uncommon in a lot of Europe - I'm still kicking myself for not realizing how accessible things would have been when I was over there if I'd only stopped being stupid and asked our housing admin how to get to Pardubice. But I haven't had a lot of really weird hockey sightings so you'll have to bear with me because it was at least a weird coincidence.

So two summers ago I was in Prague on my birthday. My roommate and I went out for a great Czech dinner and drinks, and were supposed then to meet up with a group of people at Lucerna Music Bar for what promised to be an absolutely ridiculous "90s music night". Because a lot of us didn't know each other yet, the Czech who was organizing it told us all to wear red so we could find each other easily. So of course, I pulled out the trusty Red Wings shirt and we headed out and had a great time - Czechs love them some 90s music. When we finally left Lucerna it was around 2:00 am - this was only our first week there and we hadn't been out that late so we had a heck of a time figure out how to get home via the trams, and while we were meandering aimlessly all of a sudden I hear, "GO WINGS!"


And right here, on this street side, there is a guy from Detroit hollering at me and informing me that he was hoping he ran into me because, "I saw you on stage in there, I'm from Detroit!" (Uh, yeah, we were.) Weird. He taught us how to use the tram, though.

Of course there's no way I could mention hockey sightings in Prague without mentioning the obvious one - we knew Jagr had a sports bar, but we didn't expect to run headfirst into a life size portrait of him sitting outside of it. Of course we had to go - the bar itself had pretty good food and was neat looking, complete with confusing Red Wings goalie and winding staircase centering around a nifty cup replica. I think they might have gone a little too far though...

Because Jagr watching me in the bathrooms creeps me out. (I hear the bar is gone now - wonder who got to keep those photos.)