Czech Hockey Part II - Street Riots
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No games today or yesterday so slow day, time for a story. So I went to the Czech Republic for a few days as a requirement of my MBA program. (Hire me?) It just happened to be during one of the biggest games in Czech sports history. It was the 2010 World Hockey Championships. They were playing the heavily favored Russia who had players like Ovetchkin and Varlamov and were supposed to beat CZ easy. So this is the part 2 of the recap I wrote a few years ago...i purposely kept in the negative Caps stuff so u can see my transformation
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When the celebration downtown ended, the people took to the streets and marched up to another center square, right next to our hotel. Everyone was screaming, chanting, and flying flags on the 8 block march to the statue at the square.
On the roads people were driving by and honking horns, screaming out windows, riding on car hoods, and going absolutely insane. I quickly got my camera ready and joined in on the celebration.
At first it was somewhat calm. Whenever the light would turn red, everyone would run in the streets and chant and dance. When it turned green, the street cleared and a car or 2 passed by honking. Eventually the people stopped clearing out after the green light, and instead began shaking cars to the point of almost flipping over.
People driving by had their cars dented, roof racks broken, and suspensions most likely destroyed. Many cars wanted to get through and drove faster, which was quite dangerous. People would put their car in neutral and rev the engines with people standing on the roof. One accidental shift and big trouble. However the police didn't even care. They just stood and watched and laughed. (Yes I'm being the Czech Republic's dad)
At one point things got really real. Everyone shook a car back and forth and the driver wanted to get out. A girl next to the car dropped her cell phone, and as she bent to pick it up the car drove into her head. It knocked her to the ground, and when we tried to help her up we realized that she was pinned underneath the car. We banged on the car, but it had the cry wolf effect (kind of?) and she was under there for a good 15 seconds. Finally the car drove on but it had run over her arm. Her arm was surely broken, but the girl was very drunk and just said "it hurts" and walked away crying holding her broken arm.
A few minutes later the riot police showed up marching in like Storm Troopers. However unlike in America or at JMU, they did not immediately start firing tear gas or shooting people with rubber bullets. They simply barricaded the road, and told people not to run in the street. I didn't see one arrest, one tazer, on punch, or anything.
I went back to the hotel and picked up some more people and we celebrated until the sun came up. And that was the end of Day 1 of the trip! Many more to go...
Up Next, the final part of the story, the meeting with Jaromir Jagr
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