Eurolanche

First Christmas without family (2011/12)

The Eurolanche Invasion IV? Thinking back to our fourth trip, I can immediately recall one thing – the endless journey to the airport. I went to Denver with Matej and Norbert. We flew from Budapest for the first time. Matej began his two-day journey on the morning of December 14, 2011. In the evening on the very same day, we took the train from Bratislava to Budapest. There, we went to the local train station from where the train to the airport was supposed to depart.The regional station was gloomy. There wasn’t a single soul. Only us and our big travel bags. The ticket window was closed, so we didn’t buy any. The blinking light resembled a scene from a horror movie. A great starting point on our way to Denver I thought. I didn’t care. Apart from looking forward to our trip, I was proud of myself. On the same day we made our way to the airport, I passed the final exam of the winter term of my second year in college. By some miracle, I managed to pass all my exam before the official exam period in January even began.This signaled the begin of a long period full of free time – first, two weeks in Denver, then a month and a half doing nothing until the start of the summer term.

My good mood vanished the second we entered the departure hall at the airport. There I found out something, which can probably only happen in Hungary (sorry!) – the main airport in Budapest was divided into two terminals for domestic and foreign flights. That wouldn’t be so bad if both buildings weren’t seven kilometers apart from each other! Because we were scheduled to fly in the morning, we decided to go there on foot. It was midnight, we still had enough time and the weather didn’t feel like it was supposed to be winter.

In case you’re interested in the unabridged, colored PDF version of the book, contact us at eurolanche@eurolanche.com. The physical copies are all sold out.

 

As we were walking on the pavement, which led directly along the highway, we realized that our final destination was nowhere to be seen. We couldn’t turn anywhere, we couldn’t take any shortcut. We could only continue walking straight ahead. Only. Straight. Ahead. As we were starting to lose our nerves after about an hour of walking, the pavement suddenly ended. There was no direction we could continue. We could only go back. Luckily, I saw a taxi parking nearby. For a very low price, he finally took us to the airport.

After we finally arrived at the airport, we wanted to get as much sleep as the circumstances permitted. In the morning, we flew to Munich, from where we flew to Washington. Our tickets read that we’ll only have a short technical break in the US capital, but we ultimately had to change flights. After we left the plane, we came across a problem I feared since Invasion I – we didn’t have enough time to board our next flight. Just like three years ago, I tried asking the airport personnel for help, but to no avail. You have to wait in line was the response of everyone. After we lost sight of them, I told myself that enough is enough and we cut in line in front of everyone. Since Washington was our first top in the US, we had to go through the immigration interview, which we passed without any complications and ran for to the plane heading to Denver, which we barely managed to catch.

During Invasion IV, we didn’t miss practices, during which we neatly hanged our three flags. This has become a tradition since the first Invasion – to show the players we are here and where we’re from. They noticed way easier during practices, where there weren’t as many people as during regular games. After one of the practices, we met Jan Hejda, who was a recent acquisition of the team, for the first time. It was the begin of a big friendship between him and the Eurolanche Fan Club, about which we’ll talk more later. During Invasion IV, we went on our first tour of the Broncos stadium, visited the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, but also visited the country surrounding Denver, like several famous mining towns, which offered a picturesque sight of typical Midwestern architecture. We also visited the Czech SoBo 151 restaurant for the first time, which has since become a must during each following Invasion.The visit of a children’s hospital in Denver together with Avalanche players was a truly moving experience. I had the opportunity to see first-hand how charitable work of athletes looks like in North America. As we moved between floors, I found myself in the elevator with a lot of players multiple times. It was a strange feeling – from small Slovakia, I managed to get so close to the players thanks to Eurolanche that it almost felt like something common.

From the perspective of the Fan Club, our flyers were an important part of the fourth Invasion. For the first time, I prepared, printed and even laminated simple, white flyers with a short text and our logo presenting our main ideas and our website, which I later handed out to the players. I gave the flyers to all of them. Up until then, I looked for a way to make them remember the Fan Club as much as possible. Flyers, which couldn’t be easily crumpled, seemed like the best solution. I hope it somehow helped the Fan Club. We continued this tradition during each following Invasion. The quality, content and form-wise, as well as the overall quality of the flyers, improved with each passing year. The results were favorable. The players, who’d already played for Colorado for a longer period of time, began to notice and remember us from previous trips.

An uncommon experience during the Eurolanche Invasion IV were two contests, in which Matej and I took part directly on the ice of the Pepsi Center during one of the breaks. Another surreal moment for me. To stand in front of thousands of fans on the ice of an NHL team. Matej put on goalie equipment and was supposed to save shots. He won, but I don’t remember what exactly. I had to play giant memory and was slipping on the ice while doing it. I also chose the worst tactic I could’ve possibly chosen and managed to get a single pair. One shot even shows that I’m dangerously close to breaking my ankle. Despite this, the organizers gave me a blank Avalanche away jersey, which I later donated to a contest for Eurolanche members. I didn’t care that my performance on the ice was pitiful, embarrassing even. Americans don’t tend to make fun of your failures. At least not out loud. Maybe people back in Slovakia would’ve laughed at me, but no one in Denver cared. At least something was happening on the ice. The US being known as the land of the free has its reasons. It understandably has its limits, and dangers, but the impression of each Invasion participant was positive through and through. On one hand, you have almost nonsensical rules, which you have to follow even at the cost of your own life, but on the other one, you feel an aura of freedom, a free-spirited atmosphere.