Hockey Season Under Way!!!

Germany's pro hockey season opened Thursday night with a game between the Cologne Sharks and the Hamburg Freezers

I was doing a story about it for work so I got to go on a press pass... which was great because it was the best seat I've ever had at a hockey game. It was a fun game, I got quite excited at times, which I now realize is not something you're supposed to do when you're sitting in the press section.
They have a really nice arena in Cologne.


German hockey is supposed to be the most physical of the European leagues, and there was certainly digging for the puck, but they're a lot easier on the body checks, I heard really hard checks are sometimes penalized, it was fast though, with lots of passes and shots on net... Cologne won 6-3..... go Cologne.
I bought a Sharks jersey which I can't wait to show off at ball hockey back home.
At the end of a game the Sharks sit in a circle on the ice.. some bring their own kids out with them, while the fans chant something at them, I couldn't understand what it was... and then they're supposed to stand up and dance a little jig on the ice which only a few did, but it was pretty funny to see.
There were 17,000 fans at this game which I thought was pretty amazing since hockey gets very little media coverage here... it's soccer uber alles here as in most of Europe.

There was a press conference with the coaches afterwards which was uneventful, except for some cranky photographer, and aren't they all (except mike thomas), who was pissed at me because I was standing too close to where his cameras were sitting on the floor, and he was pissing everybody else by making loud noises with his laptop... he wouldn't have known I was a foreigner, and he muttered something presumably very nasty in my ear when he left, but it was all German to me.... sticks and stones dude, sticks and stones.