UBC January 2024 - Shootout

Last night's game was eventful. At some point our guys were trailing 3 : 1, and the opponent kept pushing. Colin's team, however, didn't give up and kept fighting. 

Playing against this particular opponent is always, let's call it emotional. Since they live at the Italian border, their temper is hotter than ours. They will become physical and resort to unfair means, will trip you up, deliver cross-checks, tear you down and hope the refs don't see it / won't whistle. Unfortunately the refs are usually more gracious when it comes to the home team, while they will quickly send one of our guys to the penalty box. 

The last time the two teams met, several fist fights broke out. I even incorporated boxing gloves in the video ;-)

Yesterday the Hockey Dad who took care of the players during the game, and mind you, he's a former hockey player himself, dared to tell the ref that an opposing player should be substituted because he had incorrect equipment. He had lost his neck guard. 

If you're into hockey, you may have heard of Adam Johnson's tragic freak accident, as it was called. He got killed by a throat cut caused by the sharp blade of an opponent's skate. 

On a positive note player safety discussions for grown-ups are finally being held. 

As for junior players, they have to play with neck guard and helmet with cage. Full stop. So if somebody's neck guard is loose and falls off, he needs to go to the players' bench immediately, and if he doesn't, he gets a penalty. The refs didn't do anything, and our Hockey Dad told them nicely. 

They weren't impressed and gave the Hockey Dad a penalty!!! What for? Unsportsmanlike conduct. They felt attacked and insulted. 

Imagine the opponent's power play opportunity (meaning for two minutes they are allowed to play with one guy more than us, because one of ours had to sit in timeout for the Dad's offence) had resulted in a goal! 

After the game the refs went to talk to the Dad, and he googled the rule and showed them. They were genuinely surprised and claimed they thought this rule only applied if someone lost their helmet on the ice.

Ten minutes before the end of the third period Colin's team managed to tie. 

Now, hockey games will never end tied. Somebody's gotta win. In the Swiss National League during regular season (there's different rules for the play-offs), a five minutes' overtime is being played that ends prematurely as soon as one team scores. This occurrence has a dark name, it's called sudden death. Of course every team wants to avoid being on the receiving end.

I don't know what's worse though. If there's no winner after overtime, a shootout follows. 

In the first round, five predefined players each shoot at the opposing goalie. In our case, this didn't produce a winner either, with one of us and one of our opponents scoring.

This was followed by a 1:1 scenario. One player from each team got to shoot. This meant that if the opponent scored, we had to score too, otherwise we had lost. 

I'll spare you the details and won't tell you who won, just check it out for yourself

I will stop the hockey talk though and take you on our stroll along the lake. We stopped a half hour before getting to the final destination and soaked up the sun, the blue sky and the good life: 

It was almost 20°C (=68°F). Wonderful! Boat rentals may open momentarily! One of the ice cream booths was already in business, and people were waiting in line.

This bridal couple cracked me up. They kept photographing each other and making selfies. We were speculating whether they were even bride and groom, or if they just felt like dressing up and messing with tourists? There were no guests. No bridesmaids, and - obviously - no photographer. 

With its 63k square meters (75k square yards), the Parco Ciani on the shores of Lake Lugano is the green lung of the city.

The sculpture "Big Data" by Albanian artist Helidon Xhixha appears to be a remnant of an exhibition by the artist entitled "Reflections of light", which was spread across the city of Lugano in 2019. Now I don't know about you, but I believe the sculptor was inspired by the olden days' video game called Pac-Man ;-)

I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the trip. Don't get me wrong, I love attending Colin's hockey games, but if they come with sightseeing like this, I'll take the added bonus!

Hope you were able to benefit from this mini-vacation from afar as well!