There was a barrage of constant interruptions throughout the
night and on the day of the game as cautioned earlier. Mekkar was mindful of
the intentional nature of these actions due to the forewarning before ever
leaving home on this whirlwind tour. Despite this being aware of this
environment Mekkar still became irritated. Mekkar considered this as a problem
and was cherishing the chance to exercise his wrath. He would get his
opportunity to dole out payback that night as a result. Mekkar’s disposition is
to get ticked off and get even by reacting in a specific manner while knocking
some heads in.
Mekkar started the game and got his revenge in a physical
manner and hit everything in sight on the ice. He judged most of the Selects
squad and said they had too much respect for the Soviet champions. The Arctic
Warrior was like a man possessed and showed no fear while carrying out his own
sense of ice frontier justice of punishment. It got to a point where even the
opposition players did not want to provoke him anymore with nasty stickwork.
Mekkar spent a lot of time to think and ponder the ongoing match from the
penalty box. Alf’s older brother had seen quite a few tapes, etc. and knew what
to expect in the game itself from the Red Army club.
The young man from the arctic had the best statistical night
of all the Selects defensemen despite spending so much time in the sin bin. He
was only a minus one which means that the other squad only scored one more goal
than his team while he was on the ice. Lasse said the stats were misleading
because it might have looked better if Mekkar had not made his team
short-handed so often by taking frequent aggressive penalties. Still, the
Russian club possessed quite a bit of speed and talent. Kharlamov himself
undressed Mekkar on the ice with an incredible move and then immediately scored
a goal.
Right before the match Mekkar had implored his Selects
teammates to adopt a successful strategy that worked against the Soviets in Quebec City . He had Alf
translate a newspaper article for him that revealed a tactic to interrupt the
commonly used flow and weave game. Mekkar was willing to combat and overcome
the well schooled style of smart, elegant, and officially clean hockey. A
method with a penchant for connecting on longer breakout passes to create
odd-man breakaways to rack up the goals. [1972summitseries.com; chidlovski.com]
However, Mekkar’s teammates did not heed his advice and it
was to their demise. Also, later on in the game several members of the Selects
just ignored anything the Native from the North said and counted him
responsible for the Selects handicapped situation. The Selects were effectively
crushed eleven to two. They failed all over the ice that night even while
Mekkar dished out some devastating hits. One of the few positives was that none
of their players were seriously injured in this debacle. None of them wanted to
visit any hospital facility there as a patient. The players had been previously
told stories about the doctors performing operations without anesthesia while
the subject is fully awake during the procedure. Mekkar’s response was, “No way!
I will wait until I get back home for anything like that. No surgery here for
me.”
After the drubbing and post-game formalities such as both
squads exchanging of gifts, the fun part was about to begin thought Mekkar.
Some of the Soviet players had invited a few of the Selects athletes over for a
get together, that is - a party. The Russians had heard that their young
opponents could consume considerable quantities of drink. So, they had to test
Mekkar and a number of his teammates to see if the alcohol intake rumors were
correct.
Mekkar got into one of the host’s vehicles along with Alf,
Lasse, Johan, and another to journey to unknown location. He didn’t know where he
was being taken to but felt, for some unexplained reason, secure in the fact he
had some quality booze with him. As the crew started to roll along the streets
further away from the city center some nagging thoughts crept into Mekkar’s
mind. Were the agents still watching them? He supposed, that finally, officers
and the like would leave him alone and not hassle him or any of the other
visiting hockey players. Mekkar’s reasoning was where would they go when they
didn’t quite know where they were. Plus, they were with some of the most famous
athletes in the country and were visible in that sense.
They finally reached the outskirts of the capital and
arrived at one of the home side player’s little home. Right then a numbers of
cars rolled up onto the scene and Mekkar quipped, “Now! We have a party.” Many
of the cluster went inside and participated in activities like card games while
ingesting copious amounts of drink. While the music was in the blaring in the
background, Mekkar noticed that the host individual’s family was absent from
the premises. He then downed more booze and didn’t concern himself with anymore
trivial matters like that.
Both Mekkar and Lasse esteemed themselves lucky that Alf was
there because he was the go between to break any language barriers. The young
Alf was a valuable asset as to the interaction between the two team’s players
at the party. There were not a whole lot of people there including a lack of
females. The goal was to get totally blasted and Mekkar was fine with that. In
time, most of the group were so wasted that many had landed on the floor,
sprawled across coaches, and a couple ended up under a table passed out drunk.
There were only a small number that were even remotely conscious, as most were
in a stupor.
When the phone rang there was a collective groan in the room
and everyone just neglected to answer it including the property owner. He was
sort of hanging halfway out one of the windows basically toasted. One person
asked if anyone was going to pickup the phone. Another responded, “Who cares,
leave it alone. Anyway, I am too drunk to get up off of the floor.” Mekkar
wouldn’t answer it because he didn’t speak the local language. Plus, it wasn’t
his residence. Plus, he was still in a semi-aware catatonic hammered state and
fairly unmoved, along with others, on the floor also.
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