Sixth, expect your hotel rooms, cars, busses, etc. to be
bugged so be careful as to what you say all times. Their goal is to make you
paranoid and distracted in a manner as to negatively affect your performance
during a match. Seventh, bring multiple sets of top notch ear plugs to help
block out all noise and interruptions. The phone will certainly ring during
your afternoon nap; late night phones calls to wake you up, and flicking hotel
room lights. Plus, fire alarms will go off in the middle of the night to also disturb
your sleep. Not to forget, bugging the phones of all of the visiting player’s
quarters. Many other out of the ordinary events will occur to throw you off of
your routine.
Use these occasions as a trigger to foster more team
building among yourselves. Increase the cohesiveness of this squad in a manner
with a focus of it is us against the whole world and use it as motivation.
Eighth, bring your own preferred alcohol and possess it on you. Otherwise it is
assured to be stolen and you will be stuck having to borrow some from one of
your teammates. Barring that, reduced to drinking nasty tasting homemade vodka
most likely made from your own hand. There was a lot of additional advice and
tips stressed to the players.
Anyway, Mekkar was still upset at the ever changing schedule
and itinerary of this tour. He, along with his team, was informed in the air to
be prepared to play three different clubs located in the Moscow area. This had been expanded from just
one as originally planned. The Selects players were told that it was to make up
for previously cancelled games and also for the long break they had in Africa .
When the Selects had touched down in Moscow and got off of the aircraft events
happened almost exactly as they were described beforehand and warned about. It
was fortunate that Mekkar heeded the pre-trip advice and purchased some less
expensive goods during the North American part of the journey. Those items were
originally intended to be taken back home. He now decided to sell those items
behind the Iron Curtain for a tidy sum profit. Mekkar was not the only team
member to do this, even a couple of the coaches got into the act by bringing
alcohol that couldn’t be found here. The players just expected those coaches to
drink it in style instead. Boy, they were wrong!
The KGB agents and a few of the military personnel they
encountered since disembarking their flight and on the way to the hotel
appeared to Mekkar to be very smug toward them. It seemed that way throughout
their whole stay there. Mekkar distinguished the steely eyed looks and cold
stares as a type of borderline arrogance. Takes one to recognize another
haughty person. Unknown to the hosts, Alf was a secret weapon in the Selects
arsenal since he was fluent in the Russian language. Mekkar and other teammates
were always pestering Alf to translate for them. They were continually asking
Alf, “What did they say?” over and over again. Alf knew his older sibling was a
pain in the butt and now he felt the rest of the squad was acquiring this
defective trait from Mekkar. Well, Sirga’s expansive language plan was at least
being put to good use after all and outside the scope of the family business.
After checking in at their temporary quarters them boys
ventured out around the capital city. They soon broke off into smaller groups
and pairs to track down the locations to unload their goods. Mekkar was eager
to make some exchangeable cash and wanted to get rid of the smuggled articles
on his person. He had a sense that the government security people were
following him, Lasse, Alf, & others were sort of letting them slide. Mekkar
felt those authorities were overlooking minor breeches of the law and protocol
with regard to bringing items from outside the country. He thought that they
might pounce on the recipients after they leave. Mekkar was of the opinion that
the agents were looking for a handout or a bribe to look the other way. He knew
this is a normal practice with police and state figures all over the world.
Yet, Mekkar did not dare to do this because he did not know who he could trust
there.
It dawned on Mekkar when he looked around the place as to
why the locals consumed a lot of alcohol, just like back home. He determined
that many people there drank like a fish. He described the scene as kind of
depressing and thus maybe the reason for these societal habits. To him people
were not upbeat and didn’t appear to be happy as a whole, at least not in
public or in front of the visitors and most didn’t try to hide it either. Most
of the individual dour citizens also seemed to Mekkar as being cut from the
same cloth with little variety in dress or mannerisms. Mekkar attributed it to
being under the thumb of powerful communist rulers for so long in the vein of
Joseph Stalin, etc. It was as though Mekkar had stepped back in time into the
1950’s similar to an old black and white movie on television. Mekkar has never
been a fan of tv shows and films that are from the pre-color period.
Could it be the host city residents and government employees
knew something that he didn’t? Thus the reason for displaying their
overconfident attitude thought Mekkar. He let out a sigh of relief when the
small contingent had gotten back to their hotel for the evening. Especially after
trading their goods for money that could be switched for a real internationally
valued currency before leaving the country. Mekkar definitely didn’t want to
get stuck with rubles afterward since they weren’t accepted as payment back
home.
In the Arctic Warrior’s opinion, the Soviet players appeared
to already believe they had victory over their opponents. Especially of
opposition squads as inexperienced as Mekkar’s team. Like a boxing match, a
team can be scared and defeated before the game itself. The Selects players
were already warned about these dubious tactics would increase when the home
squad’s own confidence waivered. Even more so, if there was a thought of
potential defeat. Mekkar & his brother Alf both suspected the KGB’s role
behind various actions that might be taken against them. The intensity of the
nefarious activities almost always increased the day before a game itself. The
fatigue factor was the goal through paranoia and suspicion. That is, to have
you wiped out by game time and to force mistakes on the ice.
Preparations during the next day for the Selects’ focused on
the matchup against the mighty Russian Red Army team, otherwise known as CSKA
Moscow. The Red Army squad usually supplied most of the personnel to the
powerhouse Soviet National team. Yes, Mekkar knew some the history and it was
well known the USSR
team had dominated the international hockey landscape since the nineteen sixties.
The Selects’ opponents also regularly defeated top-level pro clubs from North
America and National teams on both sides of the Atlantic
Ocean . The Red Army club (CSKA) was able to attract the best
players because of the required military commitments of most males in the USSR .
{Wikipedia]
The CSKA roster was filled with names acknowledged throughout
the hockey world. Players such as Valeri Kharlamov who was as talented as
Gretzky or Lemieux, one of the best goalies ever Vladislav Tretiak, Vladimir
Petrov, the tenacious Boris Mikhailov, Alexander Gusev, Vladimir Lutchenko,
Yuri Liapkin, a young budding superstar defenseman Vyacheslav Fetisov, and
more. Many of those players had gained experience on the international stage
and now were squaring off against kids. [Wikipedia; hockeydb.com;
1972summitseries.com; chidlovski.com; russkiyhockey.wordpress.com]
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