Prague Easter Festival 2005

What a great time, thank's to all who attended:

Barnes Hockey Club
Burnt Ash / Bexley Badgers
Dun Cow Vagrants
Funky Monkeys
Harrogate Ladies
Trent University Ladies

Prague - Tour Report - Easter 2005

Easter 2005 saw Prague being hit by, amongst other UK touring teams, the Barnes Mixed Hockey Squad. Arriving late at night in a foreign country where no one speaks the language is never fun, especially after having worked all day. However, our carriage awaited…..okay I lied, it wasn't a carriage …we were whisked away from the airport in a coach that I think was left over from the 1920's, with matching curtains and a distinct lack of suspension, bumpy as it was and despite a gaping language barrier with the driver (did anyone ever ask if it was the right coach) we managed to get to the hotel in one piece (and no thanks to Paddy's Kalashnikov jokes).

We were greeted at the hotel by some very friendly girls from Nottingham and Harrogate……I think they may have had a couple of shandies before we arrived as 'pylon' and 'touch master' amongst other games were already in full swing - et voilà, the tone was set for the weekend……drink, drink, hockey, more drink, bit more hockey and more drink!

The main tournament comprised of 3 sections, Ladies, Men's and Mixed. There were 3 games played per team in each section, the hardest of which was for everyone was against a Czech team (who I think cheated by not only having national standard players in their squad but they hadn't done any kind of drinking forfeits on the day and had all, without a doubt, got to bed before the average of 4am the night before).

The hockey suffered somewhat, not that I am complaining, by the free bar in the new club house (I still don't think the bartender had forgiven the clothes swapping, furniture removal and table dancing antics of the night before) and 7 hours of freely flowing beer later, the latter stages of the tournament passed by in hazy bursts of "Hey, hey we're the monkey's", "Is this the road to Amarillo", and a series of drinking games and tree climbing.

All in all we had a fantastic time, there was a good mix of age groups and good ration of men to women, and whilst the hotel wasn't 5 star, all the teams were together, the bar stayed open relatively late, the local pizza delivery was yummy and cheap and I'm not sure there was much sleeping going on anyway!

A big personal thank you to everyone at Prague Hockey Tours and especially to Milan for his organisational skills. Also thank you to all the teams who took part and who made it a most enjoyable and memorable trip (Legs, do you still have that Superman cape?!)

Daisy