Wizards Jan Vesely Takes In A Caps Game

If you follow us on Twitter, and or have ever spoken to me in real life, you probably know that my favorite player on the Washington Wizards is Jan Vesely.  We turned him into the cartoon Jem (below), I screamed at him in Atlanta, we had him captured by an eagle, we turned him into Rick Rolling, and we raised money for charity in his honor.

On Sunday afternoon the Czech Cager went to Verizon Center to watch the Caps play the Buffalo Sabres and tweeted the above picture.  Maybe Jan is good luck because the Caps picked up their first win of the season while fellow Czech Michal Neuvirth picked up the W.

Jan gave a shout out to Czech compatriots Neuvy, Roman Hamrlick, and Tomas Kundratek on Twitter:

And here is Jan rolling some sushi in his Caps shirt because:

Let's get Jan at more games and pick up some more wins!

Czech Hockey Part III - Jagr

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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 3 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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The painful sound of my alarm woke me up and I realized that the first day of business stuff was about to begin. There were two business meetings on the agenda for the day, but that's not what you want to hear about right? Well here is a recap.

Visit 1: Some company: "blah blah blah"
Visit 2: Some other company: "blah blah blah"

Somewhere in between the blahs was a cool Czech lunch at an awesome looking restaurant. And of course beer! The beer loosened everyone up a bit, and one guy asked the tour guide if she "comes here often" about the restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nice work!

We got back to the hotel and everyone went to another Czech restaurant by the hotel. Our party of 20 took up the entire bottom level except for a walled off section which had security outside. That is when Jaromir Jagr walked by...

Being from DC some of us recognized him and we asked the waitress. She pointed beyond the blocked off area where then entire Czech Hockey team from the night before including Jagr & Vokoun were celebrating with the world championship trophy! (Also some famous Czech tennis chick that I never heard of but was hoooooot...I don't think you heard me. I think you think I said she was hot. I did not say that. I said she was Hoooooot. I think this pic is her...$$$)

One obsessed fan from our group kept trying to sneak past the barrier, and just waited staring at Jagr. Jagr told the waitress he would come out to meet us soon, and when obsessed fan went to the bathroom, we took a picture of Jagr from the placemat at the restaurant, and told him that he missed him. (tricking a guy fail!)

Side note on Jagr: This guy played on the Washington Capitals, was paid millions of dollars and sucked. If he was on the streets at home, nobody would recognize him and they would boo him... (Is this true, I wrote this 2 years ago)

Eventually Jagr comes out limping and probably on beer 10. He talks a bit, takes some photos, and goes back to his private area. Wow exciting!

Soon the bill came and it was $10,000. Holy F! What the H! MFER! Oh wait it wasn't dollars, it was crowns. But still, that is $500! After a 20 minute money collecting banking operation, and several people chipping in way too much, we finally had enough money to pay and we all headed out to the street.

Outside Jagr was talking on his cell phone, and where only 1 night before the entire city of Prague was marching in his honor just 30 feet away, nobody walking by even recognized him.

The rest of the evening I wandered the streets avoiding drug dealers, and ended up trying to get a good night of sleep...

Yes there is no climax or twist, the story is over...

The End...Hope you enjoyed...Feel free to read more non hockey at the Trip Blog...

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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Click on the play button to see these low quality, terrible videos...Seriously they suck...

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

Czech Hockey Part 1 - Party In Prague

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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 1 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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Still on the first night of our trip and the excitement was far from over. Tonight the Czech hockey team would be playing the hated arch rival Russians for the championship. Hoards and hoards of crazy fans headed towards the city center where bands played and giant low definition televisions were set up. Thousands of people packed into the square in Czech colors.

The beer was flowing and a woman with a mustache was singing American songs on stage, and soon the hockey game had begun. Before we even knew what was happening the crowd went insane. Fireballs burst into the air, giant smoke rings billowed out of the center of the crowd. Something was on fire. Everyone jumped up and down and cheered. Apparently the Czech team had scored a goal within 10 seconds of the start. It was something I will never experience or ever see in American sports.

During the game I constantly went up to purchase beers. 5 22oz Beers for 200 Crowns. ($10) While they did not card or ID anyone, at one point some 10 year olds were trying to get me to buy them some beers. I guess maybe they were just a bit too young, but I was sure they could have just ordered their own. (I did not buy them by the way).
The Czech team was led by Czech hero and God Jaromir Jagr. Hundreds of people with Jagr jerseys everywhere. On the Russian team was Ovetchkin and Varlamov from the local Washington Chokitals (Capitals). It was very interesting to watch people boo Ovetchkin with a hatred in their eyes, much stronger than Penguins fans. The chants were not nice either and made "you suck" look not so classless. Interestingly enough we were watching with a Russian, who watched his team losing while fans chanted "Russian Pigs!" for 3 hours.

Malkin sucked as usual for Russia and as Ovie normally does, he did nothing to help the favored Russians win, and with a little help from Vokoun in net the Czech Republic was now world champions. Flags flew, fires were lit, kisses & hugs all around..But again, things were not over yet...

This was apparently one of the biggest games in the history of hockey, and you can read about the upset in the news report from AOL News which has the following quote. "From start to finish, the goalie of the NHL's Florida Panthers [Vokoun] stood alone as the most valuable player on the ice. Time and time again, he turned the Russians away."

Part II Up Next...