more ice

I went to a game of Baikal Energia, the Irkutsk hockey team, today. It was pretty dang cool- we got our own, Siberia hockey here, and it does not much resemble the NHL. It reminded me a lot of indoor field hockey, actually, or a cross between that and soccer. The rink is huge, as it is actually just the soccer field with water poured over it; each team plays with 8 players and a goalie; there are no lines painted on the rink to create all those hockey rules I still don’t understand; the goal is big, almost the size of a soccer goal; the sticks are the size of field hockey ones; they play with a ball rather than a puck. What else? There are no walls, just 3-inch barriers around the boundaries that the ball can bounce off of but players obviously cannot; you can’t skate behind the goal; they play out corners like in field hockey, and also corners like in soccer (I actually forgot what those are called in field hockey, when the ball is passed in from the corner of the pitch); I don’t think you can check; the ball was in the air a lot and could be played in the air, which was cool looking; the flow of the game and even the stick-handling just reminded me a lot of indoor field hockey. EXCEPT: IT WAS NOT INDOORS. Seriously, whose idea was it to have a hockey league in SIBERIA IN JANUARY that would play in outdoor stadiums, hours after the sun has gone down? My toes and fingers are still sore. There were a lot of people there though: they’re a tough bunch, these Siberians. There were also a very large number of police officers, maybe one for every 10 people. I didn’t know Irkutsk had so many police officers. They had bullet-proof vests. That is some hardcore hockey. Ok, I can feel Abby’s scorn for this hockey-with-a-ball coming in waves from across the Atlantic, especially after I compared it to field hockey. But... we have a skating nerpa! His costume is just a white tube over his head with a face painted on, but he’s so cute! You can’t hate us, when our mascot has those big melting eyes and is in need of protection from global warming and poaching!