Sunday, September 23, 2012

Puck the World



Brazil is a tropical nation with a long, deep-rooted history in athletics.  Home to countless world champions and record-holders in numerous sports from football to sailing to Formula One.  Birthplace of capoeira, footvolley and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.  The most successful country in the history of international volleyball.  A land of legendary names like Gracie, Senna, Ronaldo and Pelé.  Where “The Beautiful Game” is not a game but a way of life.

The subject of sport in Brazil often conjures up images of (barely) bikini-clad beach volleyball players, or the fancy footwork of a man in yellow on a grassy field of green.  Rarely, if ever, do we associate this land that lies south of the Equator with events contested in temperatures that lie south of 0°C.  However, as a cold-blooded, syrup-sucking, hockey-loving Canadian I always look for a way to “keep my head up and my stick on the ice” while travelling abroad.  Although my expectations of finding a place to play some puck were about as high as the record snowfall for Rio de Janeiro, when I moved to Brazil a few weeks ago I brought a hockey stick along, just in case.

Astonishingly, and to my extreme excitement, I learned that ice hockey does exist in Brazil!  A tournament was being held in São Paulo only three days after I touched down at Guarulhos International Airport.  Great Rocket’s ghost!  I had to be involved.  I just had to!  I did some research and located the phone number for the director of the Brazilian Ice Hockey Association, and tournament organizer, Alexandre Capelle.  Not only did Capelle invite me to play in the tournament, but he was so excited at the prospect of having a real Canadian on the ice, he offered to track down some equipment for me to use!

I arrived at the Eldorado shopping mall on a Saturday morning at 7am.  The early morning drive to the rink recalled those days when I was a youngster playing house-league hockey in Ontario, Canada.  Symbolic of the popularity of hockey in Brazil, the São Paulo ice surface was located in the basement of the shopping centre, two-storeys underground, with a lovely view of parking level G2.  It was a modest arena, to say the least.  No bleachers for the fans, no concession stand selling hot dogs and hot chocolate, no change-rooms for the competitors!  Behind a makeshift partition, I noticed a few players strapping on their gear in a narrow hallway.  Some of the gents had a full set of equipment while others protected themselves with just a few random pieces.  Dedicated as this group may be, the reality in Brazil is that you cannot simply go down to the local sporting goods store and pick up a new pair of hip/thigh pads, so the rule seemed to be, “use what you’ve got.”  No truer was this sentiment than when I noticed players taping on their socks with book-binding tape in the absence of actual clear hockey tape.


Checking out the Brazilian "rink."


Capelle, who also runs his own hockey school in São Paulo, managed to find a spare helmet, shin pads, and gloves for me to use.  As for skates?  My only option was a pair of plastic-shell skates that the rink rents out to the public.  Two sizes too small, two fastening clips instead of laces, and the skate-blades were about as sharp as a Kardashian-- but I couldn’t have been happier!  After I suited up, Coach Capelle tossed me a turquoise jersey that determined who my teammates would be.

The ice surface, designed for a small group to skate in circles recreationally, measured only 26x12 metres, or roughly one-fifth the size of a North American rink.  End-to-end required only three or four strides.  Due to the decreased size of the playing surface, as well as the number of available participants, the games consisted of two fifteen-minute halves (rather than three twenty-minute periods) and were contested 3-on-3 with a man in net.  The goaltenders, fortunately for them, were all fully-equipped, which, unfortunately for everyone else, made the half-sized nets behind them virtually disappear.

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect from this ragtag group.  A bunch of benders and pylons for all I knew.  Surprisingly, I was impressed with the skill level right from the opening puck-drop.  These guys could play!  Sure, there were a few fellas who tipped the scales further towards enthusiasm than skating ability, and at least one that was playing hockey on ice for the first time in his life, but the top players would not have looked out of place in most rec leagues back home.  In fact, many of them had spent time in Canada or the USA developing their skills. When you consider the (often, very) late start that these boys get, it’s all the more impressive.  One of my teammates, Rodolfo Leão, 30, only began skating on ice about a year ago.  “I played in-line for the first time at age twenty-eight,” says Leão, “shortly after that I took my first in-line skating lessons.  When I was twenty-nine I skated on ice for the first time, and soon after I started to train and play ice hockey.”

So, how does a Brazilian man, nearing thirty, become involved in a traditionally arctic sport to begin with?  For Leão, video games opened the door.  “For a long time, I just played hockey games on the computer.  Later, I started watching games online.”

After a while, simulated games and passive spectatorship just weren’t enough.

“The speed and skill of the games always greatly impressed me.  Tired of only imagining what it would be like to play, I decided to try it myself.” 

Since that revelation, Rodolfo has spent time training with an in-line hockey team in San Bernardo, just outside of São Paulo, but he’s always on the lookout for opportunities to test his growing abilities on ice, such as the small tournament at Eldorado.

Including Leão and myself, there were five skaters on my team, so we played on-the-fly.  With such a small ice-surface, and perhaps due in part to the young “hockey-sense” of the Brazilians, there wasn’t a lot of positional play.  It was a pretty wild affair.  When I jumped off the ice after my first shift, to my surprise, I was already sucking a little wind-- but boy did it feel good!  In the first game I earned four assists, including a highlight-reel pass:  I was taken down and sliding into the corner head first, but somehow managed to swipe the puck in front of the net, while rolling, with my stick over my head.  It was somewhat reminiscent of Alexander Ovechkin’s most famous goal versus the Phoenix Coyotes, and met with strong helmet slaps from my teammates.  We won the match and shook hands with the opposing team at centre-ice, just like we do back home.

In total, my team went 3-0 over two days and I recorded one goal and nine assists (I was always more of a set-up man).  I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to play “Canada’s Game” here, where “The Beautiful Game” reigns supreme.  And despite less-than-perfect conditions concerning the equipment and facility it was a thrilling experience to be on the ice in Brazil, playing a competitive game of hockey.  Leão, like everyone else who came out to play that weekend, hopes that hockey will continue to grow in popularity so that more opportunities to play will arise.  “I hope that the games continue and are more frequent, and larger rinks are available for at least a few months of the year.”

A modest dream.  

A full-sized hockey rink is a major goal for Coach Capelle and his association, and would go a long way in building the game’s popularity on a national level.  I truly hope that dream is realized, and I’d love to be there for the opening face-off when it is.


Ice hockey in Brazil.  September 1st, 2012







Back row: Rodolfo Leão, Alexandre Capelle, Jozef "Mojo" Kuracina, Bruno Branco, João Vasconcellos.
Front row: Bruno Dondi
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2 comments:

  1. Nice looking place. I thought it would be a little more open concept, with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, but I like it. A proper place to collect your thoughts and share them with the world. Looking forward to more good writing, Jozef!

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  2. Wow!!!! It was so nice hear about this game in Brazil!!!! I never had heard about this before...
    Congratulations Mojo!!!! You are a lucky guy!!!!

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