Practice with the national women's team

CLARIFICATION: I was trying to go for a punchy title and just ended up being confusing. The women's team I'm on has ~5 members of Hungary's national team on it - so that's who I'm playing with. Don't expect to see me in Vancouver in 2010, unless it's to sell pins. ;)

Just got back from my first hockey practice with the women's team tonight. They're currently having a pre-season training camp in Székesfehérvár, a town about 60km/40mi southwest of Budapest. (I have been saying the name of the town over and over and over to myself to memorize it - it's a big hockey town - but I have utterly no ability to repeat it.) I said I'd be happy to go to the night practices at the camp (9-11pm), so some nice girls on the team gave me a ride this evening.

Now, one thing to note is that you can tell which members of our team play for the NATIONAL WOMEN'S TEAM by who wears green hockey pants. (Hungary's flag is red, white and green.) There was a great crowd - about 25 women. I hadn't been to a practice quite like this since I played travel hockey with with the Little Capitals women's team in high school - then, we'd often practice with a guy's travel team, so we'd have a lot of bodies on the ice which enabled really fast-paced drills.

So, we did a pre-practice run and hit the ice. The coach told me after the first drill that "I had a place on the team" and told me after the second drill that it was clear I'd been playing for 10 years. Phew. The last 30-45 minutes were a 5v5 scrimmage on the Olympic Ice - two lines of better players against each other followed by two lines of other players. I got put on the pair of lines with the green pants players, so that was sweet. They play well, and practicing is going to be great for me. (I haven't been to a hockey practice since college.)

All of the instructions were in Hungarian, naturally, but several players and the coach took turns giving me quick translations. I learned the colloquial version of "excuse me" quickly - everyone said it whenever they knocked into each other. :) There are also some things in hockey that you don't need to speak the same language for - when 3 players on the other team jabbed at a puck my goalie just covered, I made a joke about fighting them off.

So, this is going to be fun. I'm going to get back in great hockey form, meet some fun Hungarian women and keep working on the language. I'll keep you all posted as interesting things occur.