Sure I'm now back from Estonia a shade under 45 hours when this gets published, but for the final time I bring you my last "Postcard from Estonia". This includes my final day there and fun and games on the journey back to Blighty as some call of us home. All in all it was a great experience and seeing some international hockey was an absolute bonus, thanks to the "Big Man" Lee White for his incredible spot of the tournament.
Enjoy..
Day 3: Friday 6 November 2015, plus a bit of Day 4: Saturday 7 November 2015
Well time for the final day in this Baltic State and it has been a real good break which I honestly needed after having no real holiday abroad for the last 2 or 3 years. I think the last time I was so far away from home was the trip to Latvia with Lee and Alan in February 2013 when we ventured out to watch GB in their final qualifier for the Winter Olympics in Sochi the following year. And that was an experience that will remain with me forever for a lot of positive reasons.
I had a lie-in of sorts on Friday, a good eight hours well needed shut eye after a late finish to Thursday. But it wasn't enough though as I decided to catch a further 3 and half after breakfast. Crikey I must be needing a decent amount of shut eyes these days just to function properly, long gone are the days where I could survive on just five hours sleep. I reckon I need a minimum of nine now to be on some kind of even keel.
So after rising at noon Estonian time, I had a quick shower before heading into the centre of Tallinn again to purchase a few mementos of my visit. That decorative plate I bought will be taking pride of place in Mam's house as will the two pucks in mine. I got to the rink at about 2:15pm, just in time to catch the start of warm up in the first game between Mexico and Israel. That game was a decent game when it started with Israel actually looking a bit better than they had against the host nation less than 24 hours ago. Still Mexico had an extra gear to go up and when they did do the Israelis had no answer, the Arroyo-Gomez-Smithers line was causing problems in every shift and in Roberto Chabat they had some timely secondary scoring. Alfonso De Alba got a deserved shut out too, as he was solid in dealing with anything Israel sent in his direction. I wonder if Israel approached Max Birbraer to play in this? Because he would have given them some much needed punch up top if he'd played that's for sure.
Having relaxed afterwards and grabbing more words with Deano, how he laughed when I said to him that this place - the Todinraba Jäähall to give it its official name - is a much better place than the Big Blue Tent: I headed back upstairs from the reception area for Game 2 of the night (4th game in 2 days). This game was how can it be said, a one sided mauling from start to finish. As soon as Alexander Kuznetsov opened the scoring at 1:16, the question was how many would Estonia actually score. By the end of the first, they already had 10 on the board and Rooba (who is obviously the golden boy of Estonian hockey) had scored a brace.
Goals continued to flow a regular intervals in the remaining two periods, Estonia scoring eight in each period to make a final score of 26-0 which equalled their record victory margin set in March 1994 when they beat South Africa 27-1. It was a tough night for Bulgaria who clearly looked a team short on some key players and confidence as a whole, they even changed their netminder at 14-0 but that didn't stop the bleeding of the goals. Rooba finished with an astonishing 5+6 from this game, and Kuznetsov scored the last goal just as he had started the rout.
I got back to the hotel at just before 10pm, and immediately went to sleep (in my bed clothing of course) as I was being picked up at 4:35am Estonian time (2:45am in the UK) to go back to the airport. This time the alarms wasn't with the late check-in, I checked in well in advance this time, the problems arose when 6:05am came around and we had still not started boarding despite this being the time showing on our tickets. When we attempted to do so at 6:15am, we were about to get on board but then got turned back as there was a "technical problem" with our plane. So we were turned back whilst they got us a new aircraft which put back the departure time until at least 7:10am.
We eventually set off from Tallinn at 7:30am local time, and considering my connection flight was set to leave Copenhagen in Denmark at 8:30am Danish time (one hour ahead of us): I thought I was set to miss this and be stranded in the land of Carlsberg and Nicki Pedersen (famous national speedway rider) for a bit. Remarkably we managed to land at Kastrup at 8:10am, and I had to sprint from one end of the airport to another to catch the flight out which they had kindly held back for myself and a few others who were also affected by the delays in Tallinn.
So at 1:00pm Saturday afternoon, I finally got home from an enjoyable few days away which included a hockey fix. I'm sure to return to Estonia another time, but where to go next for my next trip abroad? I hope you enjoyed these "postcards" as much as I have enjoyed "writing" them. Now it's back to normal starting next weekend watching Steelers (I was so tired after the travelling yesterday that I missed the 4-2 win at Ice Sheffield against Dundee) at home and on the road when I can make those away games. First stop, Braehead on Saturday night.
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