OT: Arizona Coyotes Lounge XIII -- Summertime Blues

[Bondurant]

They did! 2-1 in overtime, sick game at the Hovet Arena in South Stockholm.

#27 for HV71 David Gustafsson didn't light the game on fire but was noticable. 17 year old center held his own physically and made some ambitious (if ultimately fruitless) plays with the puck. Watch for him in the draft this year.

Really impressed with Swedish hockey in general. The entire town of Leksand seemed to be at the arena, and businesses all over town had "game day" banners hanging outside, very cool. English was a bit sparser up there though and a few conversations got stalled while the local worked out what I meant by "talar du Engelska?" and looked for someone who actually did. The train announcements were Swedish-only up there too, so important to keep the cell phone GPS active as to not miss my train change.

A couple of teams in Stockholm and I gather they share arenas quite a bit. Djurgardens play some of their games at Hovet, on the south side in a big entertainment complex with a mall and a concert hall. Not sure if it's an aesthetic thing or a practical thing in the cold, but both Leksands and Djurgardens had a lot of exposed wood in the arena. Frost-proof in winter? Lots of beer being consumed as well, standard, $7 US prices for arena beer, and there are walled off portions of the concourse where you can drink. It's like Black Friday at Walmart trying to get to the front of the beer line, get your elbows ready.

Lots of fans wearing NHL hats at the game; more NHL stuff in Sweden than I've seen in Germany or Korea or Finland or England. Tons of Leksands jerseys at them game, very few at the Djurgardens game ... I wonder if there's a provincial / capital city thing in play there. Lots of Red Wings fans (Zetterberg, Lidstrom), and of course everyone knew OEL. Everyone in Stockholm spoke English.

The Stockholm-Gothenberg line divides the dense south from the sparse north, and I plan to go back a few times to see Frolunda (Gothenberg), HV71 (Jonkoping), Linkoping, Vaxjo and Orebro. They're all within a few hours of Stockholm/Gothenberg on the train. Modo (Peter Forsberg and the Sedins) is way the hell up north in Ornskoldsvik. British-Swedish buddy advises that they don't speak just a whole lot of English up there, so I'm trying to talk him into taking me. To be continued ...

tl;dr Hockey in Sweden is dope as hell and I recommend it.

Nice recap. A bit surprised you encountered a language barrier as Scandinavians tend to speak fluent English. I spent a week in Iceland and only encountered on person, an elderly gentleman at the Bobby Fischer Museum, that I was not able to communicate with.

Was it easy to get game tickets?

 

[ck26]

Team websites only seemed to sell them in Swedish, so I just paid cash at the ticket office 2-3 hours before puck drop. Both games looked pretty close to full (maybe 7500 at Leksands and 8000 at Djurgardens) so if it was a local derby game or a playoff game I might try to buy them online. The entire trip was thrown together last minute but I didn't get burned except by accommodations in Leksand.

I gather that Leksand is a nice little summer resort town that nobody visits between October and March. I stayed in "Leksands Folkhogskola" ... a "folk high school." I walked 20 mins through the snow from arena (bought my ticket first) to the place, got there about 530pm to find reception closed. There were a handful of cars parked on the property not covered with snow (they'd been driven recently) but didn't see any lights or hear any sound ... odd place. I dig in the mailbox and see my name on an envelope -- writing all in Swedish -- but eventually find my cabin / room thing. I'm the only one in it and, of course, no towel, no toilet paper, no sheet, just a blanket on each of the twin beds. I dug around the cabin (8 individual guest rooms with a common kitchen) and found paper towels and hand soap and turned my radiator on high and just sorta laid there at midnight and air dried while listening to my ipod. Woke up around 7 to catch my train and went to turn the key in, reception still closed, just threw the key in the mailbox (the other envelopes were all gone, good sign) and walked away. I'll be double-checking my credit card statement on this one because god knows what rules I broke or what I may have done wrong hahaha.

sthlmyote ... if you can explain what the hell kind of hotel this is, I'd appreciate it:
http: // www . leksand . fhsk . se

 

[Prarievarg]

Tons of Leksands jerseys at them game, very few at the Djurgardens game ... I wonder if there's a provincial / capital city thing in play there. Lots of Red Wings fans (Zetterberg, Lidstrom), and of course everyone knew OEL. Everyone in Stockholm spoke English.

The northern swedish teams tend to have more hardcore fans while the teams in Stockholm and southern sweden draw more casual fans.

you seem to know a bit about Sweden ... if you can explain what the hell kind of hotel this is, I'd appreciate it:
http: // www . leksand . fhsk . se

It’s a hostel in some way connected to the school. The only info I can find on their website is that the reception is open 8am to 4pm and only on week days.

 

[Prarievarg]

The Stockholm-Gothenberg line divides the dense south from the sparse north, and I plan to go back a few times to see Frolunda (Gothenberg), HV71 (Jonkoping), Linkoping, Vaxjo and Orebro.

I'd say Frölunda is a safer bet for a great arena experience. The atmosphere in Scandinavium is often considered the best in Sweden. At those other southern teams, the fans that show up will vary greatly depending on the teams success. I am originally from Linköping and the hockey team there seems to be struggling to attract people to the arena.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

I wouldn't dig deep to "invest," but if you have profits (from the stock market) to play with, go for it, just don't expect a return and if it skyrockets, woo hoo!

21st century Tulips. Look up Tulips as an investment.

 

[TheLegend]

 

[cobra427]

21st century Tulips. Look up Tulips as an investment.

Tulips=Bitcoin

 

[MIGs Dog]

Only invest in assets with INTRINSIC value!

Bitconnect Abruptly Shuts Down, Crypto Currency Collapses; BCC Holders On Suicide Watch

Bitconnect Abruptly Shuts Down, Crypto Currency Collapses; BCC Holders On Suicide Watch - Trading with The Fly

 

[XX]

Only invest in assets with INTRINSIC value!

Bitconnect Abruptly Shuts Down, Crypto Currency Collapses; BCC Holders On Suicide Watch - Trading with The Fly

Like anything, people got greedy real fast with cryptos. They dumped every last dollar they could make into them rather than being smart about it. They sat there and calculated what their historical gains would have been if they had only invested at X time, convinced that they were missing the money train if they didn't do anything now. BTC has lost roughly half of its value in ten days. It's almost like imaginary assets with zero value or regulation that are powered by memes aren't a good idea. There's hundreds of coins now, most without any sort of purpose or upside.

As soon as you start seeing flyers on the corner at lights that say "learn crypto, call..." and whatnot, it's over. I read some Canadian couple dumped their entire retirement fund into building a mining operation. That ship sailed a long, long time ago. If there's no mechanism (intrinsic value or regulation) to stop something from plummeting to damn near zero overnight, don't invest anything into it you wouldn't mind losing instantly. People just can't have any restraint.

 

[ClassLessCoyote]

I can only hope those 13 kids that have been freed from their horrible parents will be able to live a normal life.

 

[SniperHF]

on the corner at lights that say "learn crypto, call..." and whatnot, it's over.

"Crypto trader seeks trainee" . Those real estate trainee signs crack me up.

I just want video cards to cost less than a low end used car. Don't think that's too much to ask

 

[MIGs Dog]

Speaking of used cars, did you see that Hitler's car was up for auction in Scottsdale? $7 million bid was rejected; seller was expecting to haul in $10 mil.

 

[XX]

Am I crazy or did HF switch fonts?

 

[SniperHF]

Am I crazy or did HF switch fonts?

Looks the same to me. If you run script blocking you'll end up with your browser's default font (I usually do this intentionally because I think it looks better).

 

[XX]

Looks the same to me. If you run script blocking you'll end up with your browser's default font (I usually do this intentionally because I think it looks better).

Could be it. Ghostery did something and then the font looks slightly different. And yes, much better than default.

 

[Matias Maccete]

Has anyone tried out vr gaming yet? I got an oculus rift shortly after Christmas and it's been pretty mind blowing.

 

[TheLegend]

Has anyone tried out vr gaming yet? I got an oculus rift shortly after Christmas and it's been pretty mind blowing.

A co-worker of mine got a VR headset. Says it really blew his mind.

 

[doaner]

My buddy has a ps4 pro with VR. He loves it.

 

[Matias Maccete]

The main thing holding it back I think is that some people get motion sick. Even with some of the crazy fast movements I haven't had any problems, but I if I did I probably would've returned it or not use it much. The of ones also take some serious hardware.

 

[Summer Rose]

Finally got our first snow of the winter (last winter it was snowing on Thanksgiving). Better late than never. The town of Payson only got about two inches, but it was more like six at my house outside of town.

Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. I'm at a loss for words to describe how absolutely beautiful it is. I love snow.

 

[Ebb]

Finally got our first snow of the winter (last winter it was snowing on Thanksgiving). Better late than never. The town of Payson only got about two inches, but it was more like six at my house outside of town.

Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. I'm at a loss for words to describe how absolutely beautiful it is. I love snow.

Care to switch residences? We get lots of snow here in PA

 

[ClassLessCoyote]

I was checking out hockey teams from around the globe and I see they have a team in Dubai called the Mighty Camels from the Emirates Ice Hockey League.

dubaiicehockey

I laughed more at this than I should have. Anyone else find this funny at all? I know camels are apart of the culture in the Middle East but I can also see where others can find this funny.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

It didn't take all that much research I suppose, but I just discovered that one "make some noise" type video we have during stoppages is Howler superimposed over a "screaming cowboy" meme ("Big Enough"). Brilliant.

 

[Muppet]

That Screaming Cowboy is Jimmy Barnes himself. He'll do anything for a couple bucks these days.

 

[RABBIT]

It didn't take all that much research I suppose, but I just discovered that one "make some noise" type video we have during stoppages is Howler superimposed over a "screaming cowboy" meme ("Big Enough"). Brilliant.

That Screaming Cowboy is Jimmy Barnes himself. He'll do anything for a couple bucks these days.

i love how it looks like he's screaming so hard that his hats about to fly off so he's gotta restrain it