I noticed that there was recently an event in the Toronto Estonian community that featured a guest speaker who grew up playing hockey in Canada but also played in Estonia. He was a younger version of me and probably twice the player but we did have something in common: we are in a rare group that has had the privilege of playing hockey in a country where our parents, and in this fellow's case, his grandparents were born.
After reading about this I started remembering the excitement of playing in Estonia at the age of 50. I was a goalie and as anyone who has played the game knows, goalies are usually in short supply. When we moved our family, including 3 children to Estonia in October of 2003, I thought it would be neat to bring my goalie equipment with me in the overseas container that included our car and most of our belongings. In my mind I figured if nothing else, I could go to the island province of Saaremaa a few times and play out on the frozen Baltic Sea with my friend Vello and his boys.
We ended up living just outside the capital city of Tallinn. Early in 2004 I ventured to the largest hockey rink in Tallinn and watched a few games. I discovered there were two levels of competitive hockey being played and although I wasn't good enough (or young enough) to play in the top league, I figured I might have a shot at the lower level. I was soon talking to the rink rat (drove the Zamboni/sharpened skates) who had a pretty good handle on the Estonian hockey scene and he pointed out that a third league was being formed the following season and one of the teams was looking for a goalie. In the meantime he suggested that a team we had just watch practice, was looking for a better goalie and suggested that he could introduce me to the coach. I was a bit hesitant because I felt this team played at a level a bit higher than me but I went to introduce myself anyway. The rink rat introduced me in Russian which was the first clue that these were not Estonian players. When I was introduced as being a goalie from Canada I was immediately invited to join the team, no questions asked. I turned down the offer more out of fear than anything else. Seemed a Canadian goalie was the equivalent to being a superstar. Nobody had to tell me that I was not a superstar!
I did however make myself known to this other new team and within a week I was joining them in practices as they prepared for the following season. This time I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. The men ranged in age from about 20 to 35 and although all of them were very good athletes and established professionals, they were not great hockey players except for a handful of them. This team would be known as HC Hansapank and was sponsored by one of the largest banks in Estonia. We had a lawyer, the director for the Baltic region of the largest supermarket chain in the region, a radio station owner, a TV station manager, and a whole slew of businessmen and bankers. It became evident, that most Estonians could not afford to play hockey due to the cost of equipment alone. Our best player, the director, was from Finland and had actually played for many years as a teenager and young adult: just not for the past 5 years.
The following season our first game was on Canadian Halloween evening at Preemia Ice Hall. Our brand new sweaters were waiting for us and they were very appropriate for halloween: they were white with orange and black trim. Our opponent was called AHK which meant nothing to me and I assumed that they would be playing at about the same level as our players. In fact, skating on the ice was the rink rat who had introduced me to the team I now played for. Andres was probably 10 years my senior and from all appearances he was one of the younger guys on the team we now faced in our first game. Aside from being a bit jittery, my thoughts went to my dad and what he would have thought about me playing hockey in Estonia. I came back to reality very quickly. On about the second shift of the game the rink rat came skating down the right wing and from about the face-off dot, let go a quick low wrist shot that flew by me like I was fast asleep. All I heard was the ping of the puck going off the far post. A second later Andres had skated in front of me with a big smile on his face and a tap on my pads. That was my welcome to Estonian hockey. We lost the game 4-1 but in the dressing room I asked the only thing that mattered to me: who were those guys? Turns out, nobody had bothered to tell me that all these "old" men were from an Estonian national team from many years back. Most of them were also Russian!
I should mention that I didn't play badly that first game but we were probably outshot 30-5 or something like that. Maybe 5 is a bit more than we actually had. There were 6 teams in our league and we played each of the teams 3 times. By the time we played AHK the third time, I had figured out their set plays and we only lost 2-1. We still only had about 5 shots ourselves. The long season ended up being a lot of fun and quite competitive. Playing against Russian players motivated me and as a result, by the time we got to the final regular season game, we would finish second to only AHK if we won the game. The team we faced had been in second place all season long and had even tied the AHK team in a game. The team was made up almost totally of Russian players and in our previous games with them there had been some less than friendly interaction. I had even received a penalty in one game when a certain player decided the crease was where he should stand every time the play was in our end. Needless to say, the goalie union would not be amused so I took it upon myself to help this fellow understand where he should not position himself. I "accidentally" got my stick between his legs and when I tried to remove it, the stick "accidentally" caught him in a delicate area. For some reason he got very upset and started slashing my goalie pads for all he was worth. I thought he was thanking me because my teammates did the same thing when I made a good save. Ouch! The Russian ref who could never quite grasp my complaints to him, gave us both penalties.
Back to the game...let's just say that I had somehow managed to get in the heads of these Russian players. Perhaps it was because I was big and had good reflexes or maybe because they knew I was Canadian. We won 2-0 but the way we won was interesting. The first half of the game saw this team have a 2 on nothing breakaway on me. For non-hockey fans, that should mean a sure goal. Instead these two skated right by the net without taking a shot. We finished second which almost felt like finishing first.
Our season ended when we lost to a team from the level above us. The winning goal in a 2-1 game was a bizarre one. We played the game in an old reconditioned communist era warehouse that looked like something from a James Bond movie. The ice was bad and the lighting was even worse. Imagine house lights being used to light the ice surface and you get the idea. I saw the puck being shot from just about the top of the face-off circle but it deflected off my defenceman's stick. It went up but that was all I knew. My team was yelling something to me but I couldn't make it out. I backed into the goal crease and suddenly felt something (the puck) hit my back. I turned around in time to see the puck dropping into the net. Losing to a higher calibre team by a 2-1 score wasn't bad though and in the end we were all happy with the season we had. At 50 years of age I won my first ever sports award when I was voted the best goalie in the league.
That was my Estonian hockey experience. Subsequent to that, I was able to schmooze with the US ambassador and arrange for hockey equipment to be donated for youth hockey in Estonia. Unfortunately we moved back to Canada before the equipment was distributed but my son Steven, who stayed on in Estonia for two years and worked for a newspaper, got a picture of the presentation of the US ambassador handing over the first hockey stick. I did hear rumours however that a certain businessman may have confiscated the equipment and sold it to make a profit. Old communist habits never die easy!
As a side note, one of those young children eventually came to Canada for a week at Roger Neilson's hockey school. Ken Kuusk (#14) ended up playing for the Estonian National under-20 team. He gifted one of his sweaters to me.
I had a few other hockey-related experiences like after an exhibition game against a Russian speaking team, I introduced myself after the game in the parking lot by speaking Estonian to them. They ignored me so I tried something different. I asked in English if they could speak English and they immediately responded yes. I told them I was from Canada and their only response was: ahhh, Glen Hall!
After reading about this I started remembering the excitement of playing in Estonia at the age of 50. I was a goalie and as anyone who has played the game knows, goalies are usually in short supply. When we moved our family, including 3 children to Estonia in October of 2003, I thought it would be neat to bring my goalie equipment with me in the overseas container that included our car and most of our belongings. In my mind I figured if nothing else, I could go to the island province of Saaremaa a few times and play out on the frozen Baltic Sea with my friend Vello and his boys.
We ended up living just outside the capital city of Tallinn. Early in 2004 I ventured to the largest hockey rink in Tallinn and watched a few games. I discovered there were two levels of competitive hockey being played and although I wasn't good enough (or young enough) to play in the top league, I figured I might have a shot at the lower level. I was soon talking to the rink rat (drove the Zamboni/sharpened skates) who had a pretty good handle on the Estonian hockey scene and he pointed out that a third league was being formed the following season and one of the teams was looking for a goalie. In the meantime he suggested that a team we had just watch practice, was looking for a better goalie and suggested that he could introduce me to the coach. I was a bit hesitant because I felt this team played at a level a bit higher than me but I went to introduce myself anyway. The rink rat introduced me in Russian which was the first clue that these were not Estonian players. When I was introduced as being a goalie from Canada I was immediately invited to join the team, no questions asked. I turned down the offer more out of fear than anything else. Seemed a Canadian goalie was the equivalent to being a superstar. Nobody had to tell me that I was not a superstar!
I did however make myself known to this other new team and within a week I was joining them in practices as they prepared for the following season. This time I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. The men ranged in age from about 20 to 35 and although all of them were very good athletes and established professionals, they were not great hockey players except for a handful of them. This team would be known as HC Hansapank and was sponsored by one of the largest banks in Estonia. We had a lawyer, the director for the Baltic region of the largest supermarket chain in the region, a radio station owner, a TV station manager, and a whole slew of businessmen and bankers. It became evident, that most Estonians could not afford to play hockey due to the cost of equipment alone. Our best player, the director, was from Finland and had actually played for many years as a teenager and young adult: just not for the past 5 years.
The following season our first game was on Canadian Halloween evening at Preemia Ice Hall. Our brand new sweaters were waiting for us and they were very appropriate for halloween: they were white with orange and black trim. Our opponent was called AHK which meant nothing to me and I assumed that they would be playing at about the same level as our players. In fact, skating on the ice was the rink rat who had introduced me to the team I now played for. Andres was probably 10 years my senior and from all appearances he was one of the younger guys on the team we now faced in our first game. Aside from being a bit jittery, my thoughts went to my dad and what he would have thought about me playing hockey in Estonia. I came back to reality very quickly. On about the second shift of the game the rink rat came skating down the right wing and from about the face-off dot, let go a quick low wrist shot that flew by me like I was fast asleep. All I heard was the ping of the puck going off the far post. A second later Andres had skated in front of me with a big smile on his face and a tap on my pads. That was my welcome to Estonian hockey. We lost the game 4-1 but in the dressing room I asked the only thing that mattered to me: who were those guys? Turns out, nobody had bothered to tell me that all these "old" men were from an Estonian national team from many years back. Most of them were also Russian!
I should mention that I didn't play badly that first game but we were probably outshot 30-5 or something like that. Maybe 5 is a bit more than we actually had. There were 6 teams in our league and we played each of the teams 3 times. By the time we played AHK the third time, I had figured out their set plays and we only lost 2-1. We still only had about 5 shots ourselves. The long season ended up being a lot of fun and quite competitive. Playing against Russian players motivated me and as a result, by the time we got to the final regular season game, we would finish second to only AHK if we won the game. The team we faced had been in second place all season long and had even tied the AHK team in a game. The team was made up almost totally of Russian players and in our previous games with them there had been some less than friendly interaction. I had even received a penalty in one game when a certain player decided the crease was where he should stand every time the play was in our end. Needless to say, the goalie union would not be amused so I took it upon myself to help this fellow understand where he should not position himself. I "accidentally" got my stick between his legs and when I tried to remove it, the stick "accidentally" caught him in a delicate area. For some reason he got very upset and started slashing my goalie pads for all he was worth. I thought he was thanking me because my teammates did the same thing when I made a good save. Ouch! The Russian ref who could never quite grasp my complaints to him, gave us both penalties.
Back to the game...let's just say that I had somehow managed to get in the heads of these Russian players. Perhaps it was because I was big and had good reflexes or maybe because they knew I was Canadian. We won 2-0 but the way we won was interesting. The first half of the game saw this team have a 2 on nothing breakaway on me. For non-hockey fans, that should mean a sure goal. Instead these two skated right by the net without taking a shot. We finished second which almost felt like finishing first.
Our season ended when we lost to a team from the level above us. The winning goal in a 2-1 game was a bizarre one. We played the game in an old reconditioned communist era warehouse that looked like something from a James Bond movie. The ice was bad and the lighting was even worse. Imagine house lights being used to light the ice surface and you get the idea. I saw the puck being shot from just about the top of the face-off circle but it deflected off my defenceman's stick. It went up but that was all I knew. My team was yelling something to me but I couldn't make it out. I backed into the goal crease and suddenly felt something (the puck) hit my back. I turned around in time to see the puck dropping into the net. Losing to a higher calibre team by a 2-1 score wasn't bad though and in the end we were all happy with the season we had. At 50 years of age I won my first ever sports award when I was voted the best goalie in the league.
That was my Estonian hockey experience. Subsequent to that, I was able to schmooze with the US ambassador and arrange for hockey equipment to be donated for youth hockey in Estonia. Unfortunately we moved back to Canada before the equipment was distributed but my son Steven, who stayed on in Estonia for two years and worked for a newspaper, got a picture of the presentation of the US ambassador handing over the first hockey stick. I did hear rumours however that a certain businessman may have confiscated the equipment and sold it to make a profit. Old communist habits never die easy!As a side note, one of those young children eventually came to Canada for a week at Roger Neilson's hockey school. Ken Kuusk (#14) ended up playing for the Estonian National under-20 team. He gifted one of his sweaters to me.
I had a few other hockey-related experiences like after an exhibition game against a Russian speaking team, I introduced myself after the game in the parking lot by speaking Estonian to them. They ignored me so I tried something different. I asked in English if they could speak English and they immediately responded yes. I told them I was from Canada and their only response was: ahhh, Glen Hall!
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