Let the games begin!

Today the games finally started!  So much has happened for me in the past few weeks leading up to this point.  It felt good to finally do the thing that brought me here - officiate some hockey games!  This morning we had our first group skate at the arena.  The ice was really good but the rink was hot!  I haven't sweat that much during one of these morning skates in awhile.  We did some different relays and drills then we played iceball!  Iceball is a version of handball that is played at all the referee development camps.  Stacey, one of the supervisors who also happens to be an American (and taught at several of my camps coming up through the system), has helped introduce many of the Europeans to this awesome game.  Since our IIHF gear is stuck in customs we split up into teams based on what people were wearing.  I was on the blue track suit team and I'm happy to say we came away with the victory.

The IIHF has clamped down a bit on its social media policy so I can't comment too much about what actually happened during the games but I can give you some bits and pieces.  Today I worked and early game and was the standby for the second game on my rink.  Here is a link that tells you exactly what game I worked:  http://stats.iihf.com/Hydra/365/IHW365000_58_3_0.pdf

My game was a ton of fun and the crowd was great.  The teams battled hard and I think the game was closer than the final score would lead you to think.  It was really cute, before the game they had little girl hockey players lead the teams on to the ice.  Some of them couldn't have been more than 4 or 5.  You could tell they were so excited about it, very fun to see.  The other thing I learned today - when Hungry loses, the crowd throws candy on the ice at the end of the game to pick them up and give them energy for their next game.  Interesting theory, and given that they play the US tomorrow I think they are going to need every ounce of energy they can get.

After the games ended we all headed back to the hotel for some dinner.  Tomorrow we have a meeting in the morning then another set of games.  You can see what game I'm working tomorrow on the link above.  It should be a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to it!  Goodnight from Budapest!