Last weekend on Sunday I was at home just relaxing without anything to do. While watching some posts at Facebook, I’ve just realised that the ice-hockey team from Brno (HC Kometa), was going to take place in a few hours.
Since I’m from Portugal, I’ve never had the opportunity to watch a live ice-hockey match. So I decided that was a chance I must take and left home in a hurry and a bit excited for the great experience that I was hoping to witness.
I took the tram 8 to the city centre, and when I left it in the stop called Křídlovická, I could already feel the great atmosphere that the city of Brno has when there’s an ice-hockey match. The city was full of fans, all of them dressed up with shirts and ice-hockey props. I didn’t know the tram for the Hala Rondo (home arena of HC KOMETA), but it wasn’t hard to find it: I just followed the supporters!
After arriving to Hala Rondo, I spent some time looking for the box office to buy the ticket for the match. The price of the ticket was around 170 CZK. Before entering the home arena through the tourniquet, I went to the HC Kometa pub to drink a beer. It was full of supporters waiting impatiently for the start of the match.
When I entered the home arena, the first thing that I remember, was feeling the cold from the ice-hockey rink (first time at an ice-hockey match, don’t forget), but I quickly got warmer not only because of the beer that I’ve drunk, but mainly because there was a lot of people in the stands making the home arena already full.
This night HC Kometa was going to play against HC Skoda Plzen. Everyone was cheering and shouting for the local team players and finally they entered the rink. From the presentation of the players to the beginning of the match it was only a few minutes that went by very quickly for me, since my expectation to watch the match was huge.
So the match started. The players were ice skating and moving so fast, that I couldn’t even follow them up and understand what they were doing. The ice-hockey disc, called puck, was sliding through the ice in an incredible speed, that I could barely see it. Because I didn’t know much about the rules of ice-hockey, it wasn’t easy for me to understand everything that was happening. But I was trying to learn about all the aspects of the match. What I found the most interesting was the physical contact between players. They sure have to be in a great condition to endure such tackles during the matches.
After 3 periods of 20 min each, the match ended with a victory of HC Kometa 4:2 HC Skoda Plzen. Everyone was happy and celebrated with intensity. Nevertheless, remember, that even when HC Kometa was losing, the supporters were always trying to motivate their players to do an overturn.
Thankfully, they could do it. If you have the opportunity, don’t miss this great sport event, for all the reasons, the atmosphere, the novelty, the beer, etc. It is worth it 😉
