Sunday

We went to our first ever ice hockey game tonight - Medvescak Zagreb vs Linz.  The atmosphere was excellent even though we had no idea about the rules.  It seemed to us that the teams were huge (about 27 on each side), and that the various team members would literally just jump on and off the rink (pitch? field? arena?) whenever they felt like it.

I have to admit the Zagreb boys also played a bit rough and at one point there was a full scale fisty fight between two of the players.  Bizarrely, the referees didn't seem too fussed.  Zagreb was ahead until the end of the game when Linz equalised and then went on to win in extra time.

None of the shots were particularly good, as I was on small camera (big cameras not being allowed).  You probably can't see from this that one of the players for Zagreb was called 'Macauley' - we were surprised at how many non-Croatians were on the team, bearing names like 'Buck', 'Greentree', 'Fraser' etc.  The Austrian team had a Murphy.....

We were saying tonight how much fun it is doing things for the first time.  Croatians are sports-mad, but in sports that are not so big in the UK, ice hockey being one.  Next, we think we might try basketball and handball.  Water polo is also huge here.....