Tues., April 27 - minus two (days) to Blastoff Opening of Championships
Monday, it rained all the day, but that didn’t prevent me from going to the Ondrej Nepala Ice Stadium, which has been renamed the Orange Arena for the duration of the tournament. ORANGE is one of the corporate sponsors of the tournament; the company is the largest telecommunications outfit (cellphones, internet, etc) in the Slovak Republic. It has erected interesting billboards and posters all over the city, painted bus shelters, and done other neat stuff which constantly catches one’s eye as one moves across the city in streetcar or bus. GOOLY, the wolf, mascot of the 2011 Tournament is everywhere.
I received my Media Pass – I am sure I was among the first – the volunteers there weren’t sure of the procedure yet, but eventually they succeeded in processing me like good Slovak cheese. It was important for me to hang the pass around my wrinkled neck ASAP because with it I can ride the city transport (buses, streetcars) for free and save me some EUROS (with what the Canadian Slovak is paying me, $ 0000.00 to be exact, I cannot afford extravagance of any kind).
As I was crossing the main square in front of the National Theatre (Narodne Divadlo – scene of the protests in ’88 - ’90 that led to the fall of totalitarianism), I noticed city workers pulling carts with slightly larger-than-life statues of hockey players on them. It looked as if each player represented one of the countries at the tournament. I made a mental note to come back when it was a little less wet and photograph them. As it turns out, ORANGE is responsible for these statues, which have been distributed and planted throughout the old section of Bratislava or close to it. They remind me of the cows I saw in New York City in 2001, which were then followed by the moose manniquins in Toronto a year or two later. I ponder the fate of these pieces after the tournament – they will probably become collectors’ items and embassies or businesses will be willing to pay for them. I think they should mount them on the roof of the Ondrej Nepala Winter Stadium, sort of like the statutes around St. Peter’s Square (which is round) in Rome.
Near the soon-to-be- called ORANGE ARENA (not ‘til April 29th, when tourney starts), is a large busy intersection (Trnavska and Baikalska). Cavernous underground walkways with a few shops provide safe passage for pedestrians. This will be one of the main transit stops for all the fans coming to the arena and ORANGE hired some graffiti artists to spray paint the underground walls accordingly. An artist was working on one of the pieces as I happened through, and even though I was awed by what I saw, I couldn’t stop to talk to him because the fumes from the spray cans were too much for my old lungs. I made another mental note to re-visit as soon as possible.
Tuesday was warm and sunny. I packed my camera, a bottle of water, hung the pass around my neck and set out.
First stop – the Winter Stadium of Ondrej Nepela (Ondrej Nepela was an Olympic gold medalist and three-time World champion Slovak figure skater who competed for Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I took some shots of the arena and got inside to the practise rink just as the Slovak team was finishing its practise. After the players had all left the ice, Miroslav Satan stayed on and practiced penalty shots with one of the goalies. (are they expecting the Slovaks to be involved in a lot of shootouts?) I could not recognize the goalie because of the mask – it may have been Jaroslav Halak from St. Louis. If Halak can duplicate last year’s performance with Montreal, the Slovaks may have a chance of finishing at least 8th.
The building right beside the arena depicts a hockey player executing a slap shot and it is made to appear like the shot has shot through the building. Neat.
Many posters/ads have taken on a hockey theme. One that kills me is for an online betting service www.bet-at-home.com . The eye-catching word is BODYCEK (pronounced body check – the “c” with a little v on top makes our “ch” sound in quite a few Slav languages). I believe there is a pun here: “body” in Slovak means “points”, and in Slovak slang the cek part can mean to check, check off who is going to win, etc. There is betting on the World Championships. The woman in the ad is wielding a hockey stick while the guy is sporting a helmet - oh, the games we play. Sort of reminds me of Tom Lehrer’s “Masochism Tango”. I doubt this ad would be allowed on bus shelters around our good city, and not even in Toronto, which is depraved, debauchded, and degenerate. (why do we love those words?)
After the Arena visit, I walked through the underground passage mentioned earlier and shot some of the graffiti and talked to the owner of one of the newsstands which has expanded into selling World Champ paraphernalia – she draped herself in the Slovak flag and posed advertising her wares.
I then proceeded into the old city and started shooting statues of hockey players before the pigeons got to them. I tried to shoot them in such a way that it would give the viewers some idea of the old city – I tried to capture the surroundings as well as the statue. I think I got them all. There were also two statues of individual players – Peter Bondra and my one of my all time heros, the one and only Peter Stastny, athlete, linguist, diplomat, coach, manager, and over-all shit disturber.
I bought lunch (a salami, cheese and cucumber panino + a can of beer = 1 EURO and 20 cents) and sat down across the street from a capuchin church to eat it. While I was eating I spotted a capuchin monk exit the building and I managed to shoot a picture of him. There is a species of monkeys called Capuchins – they were named after the monks, not the other way around – similarly, the Italian Capuccino coffee is also named after the monks – I believe it has to do with the colour of the sackcloth they wear.
While I was shooting the statue of the Swiss hockey player, I was stunned when a nun walked right into my field of view without so much as a holy “Howdy Doo just as I pressed the shutter. With monks and nuns appearing among the hockey players, I felt I was watching a Fellini film.
Tomorrow I’ll check out the arena again and try to shoot a few bridges like I promised.
steve
