Belgrade - not quite as known for its plethora of hockey talent as Minnesota or even Finland for that matter, but nonetheless, it recently served as the location for the annual London Spitfire hockey club weekend "tournament", which I had the pleasure of taking part in!
I have been playing hockey in London for the last 7-8 months just steps away from the Queensway tube station at a combination bowling alley hockey rink. The rink is about 1/2 the size of an NHL rink, but given the cost of real estate in London, the fact that any rink exists in Central London (8 minutes on the bus from our place), is amazing! The club, a great group of guys ranging from 23 to 50 and originating from Australia to Norway to France to Germany to the US and Canada, takes an annual trip to an exotic Eastern European location that includes a some good hockey, but mostly getting to know the local hot spots and restaurants.
I am not familiar with the names of all the places as for once I took a backseat to let some of the others do the planning, but I snapped a few photos to capture some of the highlights.
We arrived to some serious rush hour and after making it to our hotel, which I presume used to be an Intercontinental Hotel but is now shortened to the "Continental" hotel (simply by taking the "Inter" from the top of the hotel), we had a couple beers in the bar before making it to the first restaurant. The size of the olives at the restaurant are nothing to shake a finger at (golf ball sized?). However, they were well outdone by the size of the steaks they brought out thereafter, big enough for the proudest tuscan man... perhaps big enough to make grown men cry. However, when 18 grown men in the form of a hockey team are dining, food doesn't stand a chance.
Following dinner we got a good glimpse of the old town on our way to a couple bars, followed by a club that had the top Serbian singer singing at it in front of a well-heeled crowd. Funny enough, this was the same singer that Joel, Erin and I saw at an over-the-top performance in Montenegro in August 2009, which included pyrotechnics that would never meet code in a fully industrialized country! If it wasn't the same singer (which I am 95% certain it is, I'd be surprised if someone reads this that knows enough Serbian pop to correct me).
The following day after a good nights sleep ;-) we did a bit of touring around town, seeing the castle/fortress, which is pretty much one of two sights in the city, the other being the orthodox church. If you aren't here for a sporting event, I would lean towards the other, more prominent cities of eastern europe (Prague, Riga, Krakow, Tallinn, anywhere in Croatia - if that is even eastern europe). See Antoine below trying out one of the old tanks.
After some sightseeing we made it to the rink, even getting in a round of synchronized some pre-game stretching amidst soviet-style housing.
I have been playing hockey in London for the last 7-8 months just steps away from the Queensway tube station at a combination bowling alley hockey rink. The rink is about 1/2 the size of an NHL rink, but given the cost of real estate in London, the fact that any rink exists in Central London (8 minutes on the bus from our place), is amazing! The club, a great group of guys ranging from 23 to 50 and originating from Australia to Norway to France to Germany to the US and Canada, takes an annual trip to an exotic Eastern European location that includes a some good hockey, but mostly getting to know the local hot spots and restaurants.
I am not familiar with the names of all the places as for once I took a backseat to let some of the others do the planning, but I snapped a few photos to capture some of the highlights.
We arrived to some serious rush hour and after making it to our hotel, which I presume used to be an Intercontinental Hotel but is now shortened to the "Continental" hotel (simply by taking the "Inter" from the top of the hotel), we had a couple beers in the bar before making it to the first restaurant. The size of the olives at the restaurant are nothing to shake a finger at (golf ball sized?). However, they were well outdone by the size of the steaks they brought out thereafter, big enough for the proudest tuscan man... perhaps big enough to make grown men cry. However, when 18 grown men in the form of a hockey team are dining, food doesn't stand a chance.
The games went well, we won all four games against varying competition. We definitely were a bit woozy on the second day, but ended up winning all four games. The last team we played was the best, and they took us out to a good dinner spot that night, which ended at a great club called Stefan Brown's. The main pedestrian street in the city provides a great stroll and was nice to eat on for 2 of the 3 nights.
The last night was a blow out night for the team, celebrating our success in Serbia on many levels, being the ice, at the dinner table, and at the bars! These are poor pics but it looks like DDS is about to do some breakdancing for the crowd.
That pretty much sums it up, a little touring, a couple sentences about hockey, and no memory of most of the bars and restaurants we went to. So please don't use this a a guide to Serbia, because you won't get very far; mostly this is to share with you all back home that there is hockey in Belgrade!
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