QiQiHar
October 26, 2006
Last weekend we went to the northern city of Qiqihar (find it on Google Earth) to play hockey against 2 junior teams as well as a mixture of their coaches (ex national team members - 40 to 50 year old) and the juniors. We played 3 games Saturday (2 juniors and then an intra-squad game) and I got injured in the intra-squad affair. Craig of the Engleson Files took one of his better slapshots and I took it off the ankle. I returned to the play 5 or so minutes later cause we only had 3 D per side and then took a tumble over our goalie in a vain effort to save a goal. I landed on Gabe’s goalie stick on my ribs and promptly forgot about how much my ankle hurt. Add to that taking a slapshot off the shoulder in the morning warmup and I was a mess. I know - whine, whine, whine. I had hoped a few beer at dinner after the game would mend my wounds but not this time. Long and short - I didn’t dress for Sunday’s game. Bummer!
Qiqihar is a great little (1.8 million) northern city without the hustle and bustle of other major cities. Cold, clean crisp air with beautiful sunny skies all weekend. Great food and an awesome old style grand hotel built in a park made for a fantastic weekend. Qiqihar is definitely on the Ice Dragons annual itinerary.
Will do another post once I get some photos from the weekend.
