From The Editor's Chair: Edition 14

It's a European special this week in edition fourteen "From the Editor's Chair". Blog Editor and Podcast pundit Mark wasn't in the en-suite bathroom for the beating of the Edinburgh Capitals, he was elsewhere. Here's the continential edition, especially for you all.

This trip was planned as soon as we, Steelers, had lost to HV71 in the Champions Hockey League. As I was away in Ireland with my girlfriend at the time of the away encounter in Sweden, I knew after the CHL game that I had to make the trip to Jönköping this season and experience a bit of SHL hockey; enhance the hockey education more after watching it in the States, Latvia, Estonia and Czech Republic. The SHL is probably the best, some say, league for hockey in Europe eclipsing places like Germany. Here is my story.

 Jönköping

Well it all began at the unearthly and probably stupid o'clock hour known as 4:45am on Friday morning when my alarm went off. I'd been working until 7:30pm the night previous and finished doing the packing at 10:00pm. For once it was not with any panic, I'd even got my passport, Swedish Krona and travel documents with me and unlike some recent adventures abroad, it was as smooth as you could get. The train to the airport was on time, arriving there at twenty past seven. Check in was also smooth, even enjoying great banter with the young lady behind the check-in desk. 

However the queues to get through security control were incredible, they were that long - people were standing outside. Good job I didn't book a later train! But we got through fine, my jeans didn't fall down even when the belt had to be removed. Looking at the boarding pass, I was sat on row 32 of the plane which I finally boarded the flight - was the final row of seats and in the far top corner of seats as if you were looking at the seat plan from when you get on. That was a first.

The flight itself was comfortable, I even had a beer at 10am because I kinda felt like I needed one. However the weather approaching Stockholm wasn't great, and we landed about 25 minutes late at 1:25pm Swedish time and it was teeming it down with rain as I disembarked the Boeing 737/800. Border control and baggage reclaim was like clockwork, and then onto the airport shuttle bus into the centre of Stockholm arriving there just after twenty to three. With my coach to Jönköping not due to leave until a quarter to five, I had plenty to grab a sandwich from Subway and make a courtesy call back to Sheffield which kinda surprised Mam completely.

I should have known something was not gonna be right with the coach travel, as soon as they called us passengers for it - a family of five (and I believe their origin was East African) started to push their way forward trying to get their baggage onto the coach first. That infuriates me even back home here in England, when these type of human beings try the same trick on buses and trams. Don't they know what manners are? Safe to say, these five were getting some really annoying looks from my fellow passengers. We were to set down and pick up at the following points Nyköping, Norrköping and Linköping. The coach had not long since left Nyköping on the E4 which is the motorway that connects all the above towns/cities with Stockholm, when pop!

One of the coach tyres suddenly popped and you knew something was seriously wrong. I had never been on a coach that had had this misfortune added to it, but I can imagine this was like when you see it happen on F1. It certainly shakes you up, but the driver managed to control the vehicle expertly and reduce the speed so quickly so we limped along for a few extra kilometres before it became nigh on impossible for us to continue. A two hour delay followed whilst they sourced a replacement vehicle. Luckily I had enough on my mobile to call my hotel and inform them of much delayed arrival.

I arrived at the hotel eventually at just after 11:00pm, 2 hours behind schedule. But the hotel, even if I hadn't contacted them before, were so understanding about everything. They even said I could help myself to a couple of free sandwiches and bottles of Pepsi Max to relax with, you don't get anything like that in some UK hotels I've stayed in over the years. Arriving in my room, I was amazed how spacious it was. It certainly was ticking all the proverbial boxes. I switched on the TV and immediately found the closing stages of the San Jose Sharks and New York Islanders game; hockey fix pretty much applied straight away.

After an excellent night's sleep, and some said it would be noisy staying in the absolute centre of Jönköping, I had breakfast and then chilled out again until about 3pm by listening to some of the music I have stored on my external hard disk drive or the internal one on the laptop. Despite the temperature being just a shade over 3 degrees Celsius, I was dressed in my 2011 Robert Dowd Steelers shirt (when me and Mam sponsored him) and a pair of shorts, something that made the locals look on in sheer amazement. It's not the first time I have done this, just ask Lee or Alan about Latvia 2013 if you don't believe I am that mad. 

I got the rink at around 3:30pm, 3 hours before face off. Nothing new there, I'm usually found having a few calming drinks in the pub and watching Jeff Stelling on Soccer Saturday with Gibbo when it's a Saturday night home game. Took a few pictures, and was in awe as I walked around the outside of the rink. It certainly gave the expectation that this was a hockey rink designed for hockey, and nothing else. 

 Outside the main entrance to the Kinnarps

After this, I got talking to a guy who originally came from Edmonton, AB. As soon as he spotted my Steelers jersey, he was amazed. Turned out he kinda knows both Thommo and Jerry, bit of a small world eh? So we went off for a beer in the hotel across the road from the rink which looked proper swish. I was surprised they let me considering what I was wearing but considering they were making money from the drinks I don't think they really cared. It was then when I got some directions to the North Bank Supporters Bar, so we headed over there. And what a welcome we got; especially when again the Steelers jersey was spotted. I was given the best hospitality I have ever had in all the years I have watched hockey. It was amazing.

By 6:00pm we were still drinking with the game just 30 minutes from starting, so Ronnie (one of the HV71 fans) said let's go and finish our drinks en route back to the Kinnarps - well it was only about five minutes over the bridge and along Stefan Livs gata (the street named after the popular former HV71 netminder who was tragically killed in the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash in 2011). I picked my ticket up, 140 Swedish Krona (basically about £13 at the current exchange rate) and watched a great game from the North Bank (a standing area) with the guys from the Supporters Bar (they're a noisy bunch equivalent to Rock The Block but even more vocal). Even in between period break I was chatting away and drinking more beers with Ronnie and some Luleå fans who had made the long trip south. A brilliant experience.

I got my HV71 shirt too which is now part of my jersey collection, I really wanted the special edition yellow one that I had been told so much about pre-game. As stated above, the game was a fantastic one with both Fredrik Petterson-Wentzel (the former Flyers draft pick) for HV71 and 18 year old Filip Gustavsson (drafted 55th overall by the Penguins this year) having stellar games, Gustavsson especially was awesome and mark my words he's going to be brilliant if he plays like this. Luleå took a second period lead through Anton Hedman and they looked certain to get the points until former 400 game NHLer Erik Christensen (Penguins, Thrashers, Ducks, Rangers and Wild) forced overtime with just 1:39 left. The crowd went nuts! No further scoring happened after that including overtime so we had a shootout. Only Christensen could score and Petterson-Wentzel shut the door on the Luleå shooters to complete a two day double (HV71 had won 3-2 in Luleå the night before).

More beers, definitely in celebration, followed until it was time to lock the supporters bar up for the night and me to catch the bus back into the centre of Jönköping. After grabbing a lovely pizza from the takeaway across the road, I finally went back to bed exhausted at 1:00am Swedish time. Six hours later I was up again to start the journey back to Stockholm. Thankfully this time, we had no pushy people and problems with the coach but I did see some snow. We took off in a snowstorm too, at 5pm Swedish time but made good tracks to arrive back in Manchester at a quarter past six GMT. It had been an incredible weekend, one I will never forget and one I want to experience again. Thanks to the HV71 fans who helped make it so, you made one Steelers supporter feel like a king.

And that's the story of FSB went to Jönköping and had a proverbial ball. Sorry it's a bit long, but I couldn't really do this in two parts and leave you in suspense at the end of part one. Well I could have; but that would have been so cruel.  

 

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