College Hockey:

Wesleyan Invades Europe

Dec. 25

The presents have been opened. The holiday foods consumed. The bags packed. The trip, its dates circled since summer, is about to become reality.

The shuttle service picks up the five of us — my son Ryan, my daughter Nicole, her fiance Greg, my wife Brenda and I — at 1:45. For some families, a trip scheduled on Christmas Day might be considered a hardship, but we’re looking forward to it. My daughter Nicole has recently been to Croatia, but it’ll be the first time in Europe for the rest of us except for a golfing boondoggle to Scotland for Ryan and me.

It’s going to be a long flight to Munich, Germany. Even though it’s not going to feel like a red-eye, the six hours’ time difference means that we’ll be taking off at 15 minutes to midnight, Munich time, and arriving in Paris at 6:20 a.m.. The plan is to sleep during the flight and make some use of the six-hour layover in Paris, catching a taxi to the Eiffel Tower, which is only a half-hour away. For many of us, however, the body doesn’t do what the mind commands and the flight is spent reading or watching DVDs.

Dec. 26

By the time we land in Paris, our six-hour layover has been shortened to four and a half. Now the idea of seeing the Eiffel Tower has become a dicey one. It’s a half-hour taxi ride each way, but what if we run into traffic? And what if we then have problems with customs or security?

Four and a half hours falls just under the threshold of what we’re willing to risk. So we wander the airport for a while and then grab seats near the gate. Many fall asleep. I’m trying to read, but I’m nodding off, too.

The flight to Munich is short and uneventful. We get our bags and board a double-decker bus which will become our home of sorts over the next week. In the process we meet Max and Jack, our tour guide and driver, respectively. We will hear little more than a peep out of Jack while Max will spew out facts nonstop, barely coming up for air.

We arrive at our hotel in the outskirts, check in and unwind, some of us doing better than others at staying awake to change over to local time. By the time we settle in for the welcoming team dinner, one group has yet to arrive and we hear that Air France has apparently lost our top two goaltenders’ equipment.

Dec. 27

The goalie bags are safe and secure after all. We’ll be fine for tonight’s game at Passau, although it wouldn’t be surprising to see some sloppy hockey due to the relative inactivity during exams and the holidays.

Sightseeing in Munich, Germany, not far from the first game of Wesleyan’s European tour (photos: Nicole Hendrickson).

The game isn’t until the evening, however, so we tour downtown Munich, mostly aboard the bus. Since Max is Italian, we have a Munich specialist guiding us through the city. She provides an inadvertent insight into Bavarian attitudes by explaining how monks were allowed to consume beer during Lent since it is “a kind of food” and even though it is “sort of alcohol.” She adds that a popular Bavarian saying is, “A mug a day keeps the doctor away.”

Munich is a charming city. I’m most fascinated by the beautiful cathedrals, especially in light of how they have been restored after massive destruction by World War II bombing. The half-day downtown only whets our appetites for more as we return to the hotel for lunch prior to a two-hour drive to Passau.

The game that evening becomes the hockey highlight of the trip. Passau is a relatively new team, but it has been climbing divisions in German hockey and has an ardent group of fans.

The introductions top anything my son’s teams have ever experienced. The only thing is … we almost missed them. The Passau rink is covered, but only enclosed on three sides. It’s cold outside and the bus is warm. Max announces that the parents are welcome to ride the bus to the high point of the city and be able to see the three rivers that converge along with some interesting sights. I actually want to stay at the rink just to watch the warm-ups — I’ll readily confess to being a Get-A-Lifer — and my instincts tell me to get off the bus and take no chances. But my toes begin to freeze just thinking about what looks to be a very cold rink and I wimp out.

So I stay aboard the bus as it takes the winding roads up to the heights above Passau and the view is quite nice even if the rivers can’t really be made out in the dark. However, I look at my watch and don’t need to be a math major to determine that we aren’t going to make it back to the rink in time for the 6:30 faceoff. Not unless the trip down the winding roads is astonishingly faster than the trip up. And although our bus driver, Jack, seems quite competent, the prospect of us hurtling down the mountain in our double-decker bus is not a pleasant option.

Even so, when one woman aboard the bus says, “It’s not that important,” I find myself muttering, “It isn’t?”

Max, however, has been on his cell phone and apparently has convinced the Passau Black Hawks to delay the game for our arrival. Even though we arrive somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes late, the Zamboni is still surfacing the ice.

And what a good thing that is.

To have missed these introductions would have been a crime. The arena becomes dark and then a light show begins. Each player steps onto the ice and as he skates through a gauntlet of cheerleaders dressed in black the public address announcer booms out the player’s name in German and the Passau fans chant something in response. The volume only gets louder when the introductions begin for Passau players.

“I thought I was in Hell,” goaltender Mike Palladino says after the game.

It was an opening not to be missed, no matter how pretty the sights high above the city might have been.

As is my wont, I’m not watching the hockey game on an empty stomach. I watched enough Hogan’s Heroes in my younger years to try one of Sergeant Schultz’s favorites, schnitzel, and a recommendation from Max, gluevein, a hot and spicy wine. As it turns out, I think old Schultzie should have stuck to strudel, at least based on this rink’s version of schnitzel, and the gluevein is too sweet for my tastes, but the experimentation is fun.

Wesleyan scores two early goals to take the starch out of the local fans. They get their cheers going when they eventually get on the scoreboard, but by then the Black Hawks’ goaltender has allowed a couple soft goals and the result is never in doubt. We win, 5-1, despite the sluggishness of not having been on the ice during exam break and while at home for Christmas.

Throughout the game, a few Passau fans strike up friendly conversations. In English, of course. My German vocabulary consists of little more than danke, frulein, and Beck’s. They ask questions about the full face masks — their players wear half shields — and wonder how old these players are and how their team is measuring up. Explaining the NCAA and then trying to make sense of there being Division I and III hockey — but not Division II — is a struggle, but they appear to understand.

One fan drops the F-bomb into his conversation and then stops and looks at me quizzically. I nod that, yes, I’ve heard the word before and he explains that he has hosted five U.S. exchange students and although he learned the word from them, they were all 17 years old. (As opposed, of course, to a cadaverous buzzard like me.)

It did make we wonder about the cultural exchange between Germany and the United States. They gave us the Killer Bs — Bach, Beethoven and Brahms — while we give them the Killer F.

At the end of the game, I begin to compliment their German hospitality, but quickly correct myself and refer to their Bavarian hospitality. This receives knowing nods. Bavaria, th