Tonight we attended a hockey match between SKA Saint Petersburg and Dinamo Riga from Riga Latvia. It was a game of the Kontinental Hockey League the second most popular one in the world after then NHL. Now, I am not knowledgeable at all about hockey and I can count the number of games I have seen on one hand but it was a lot of fun. Many of the people in my group are big hockey fans (i.e. from places with real weather) and they were really into it and ready and able to help explain this “sport” to me.
But I get ahead of myself. First of all I have not updated my blog for several days thanks to a preoccupation with my increasingly difficult 3 hour a day Russian class and its associated work and the cold I have just recovered from. Now I expected both of these things coming into Russian and we able to effectively deal with them. But that does not make it any more fun to do. However I am in Russian doing it so everything is an event and a possible adventure.
But back to tonight’s events… First of all SKA is an abbreviation for "Sports (K)Club of the Army" and many Russian sports teams of this name where stated in the 40s and continue to this day under their traditional names despite the demise of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
We headed out for the game on the StPb metro, which as we got closer became much more crowded to the point that it became a physical impossibility for us to fit any additional people into the car. Upon entering the stadium I noticed a few differences between it and American stadiums. First of all it is much smaller then I would have guessed, capacity was around 10,000 I would guess. When you buy food, you have to eat it at the tables and eating alcoves around the perimeter of the stadium, you can’t bring the food to your seat. And on the subject of food, it consisted of normal stadium things like hot dogs and popcorn… and smoked salmon. The music they played was about 50% American music, the kind you would hear in any American stadium, 25% german heavy metal and 25% russian techno and metal. I must admit I never thought I would hear rock anthems of the 80s or the White Stripes in a Russian Hockey stadium.
Some of the fans are crazy. There is a special section for the super fans of each team situated at either end of the stadium. The whole place was full of jerseys and mostly scarves with the team name which seem to be very popular. (I considered getting one but decided on a baseball hat instead) Before the beginning the game they played the Latvian national anthem and sang the Russian National anthem which was quite interesting to say the least.
The game was fun to watch and had plenty of suspense with the lead constantly switching sides. And the end was full of suspense with both teams scoring in the last 30 seconds of play to force a sudden death playoff. The Latvians eventually did win to the great disdain of many very proud fans.
Conclusion of the day, Russians LOVE their hockey, I saw more Russians smiling tonight then I have total on this trip so far! Tomorrow I have my 2 electives (Early Russian History and History of Russian Communism) for the first time and no Russian language class (a much needed respite). And then Saturday we are going on a tour of the city to discuss the 900 day siege of the city during World War Two.
Until next time... Tолько ска и только победа! (Only SKA, Only Victory!)
But I get ahead of myself. First of all I have not updated my blog for several days thanks to a preoccupation with my increasingly difficult 3 hour a day Russian class and its associated work and the cold I have just recovered from. Now I expected both of these things coming into Russian and we able to effectively deal with them. But that does not make it any more fun to do. However I am in Russian doing it so everything is an event and a possible adventure.
But back to tonight’s events… First of all SKA is an abbreviation for "Sports (K)Club of the Army" and many Russian sports teams of this name where stated in the 40s and continue to this day under their traditional names despite the demise of the Soviet Union 20 years ago.
We headed out for the game on the StPb metro, which as we got closer became much more crowded to the point that it became a physical impossibility for us to fit any additional people into the car. Upon entering the stadium I noticed a few differences between it and American stadiums. First of all it is much smaller then I would have guessed, capacity was around 10,000 I would guess. When you buy food, you have to eat it at the tables and eating alcoves around the perimeter of the stadium, you can’t bring the food to your seat. And on the subject of food, it consisted of normal stadium things like hot dogs and popcorn… and smoked salmon. The music they played was about 50% American music, the kind you would hear in any American stadium, 25% german heavy metal and 25% russian techno and metal. I must admit I never thought I would hear rock anthems of the 80s or the White Stripes in a Russian Hockey stadium.
Some of the fans are crazy. There is a special section for the super fans of each team situated at either end of the stadium. The whole place was full of jerseys and mostly scarves with the team name which seem to be very popular. (I considered getting one but decided on a baseball hat instead) Before the beginning the game they played the Latvian national anthem and sang the Russian National anthem which was quite interesting to say the least.
 |
| Victorious Latvians |
Until next time... Tолько ска и только победа! (Only SKA, Only Victory!)
No comments:
Post a Comment