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karey · 12-30-2017, 05:51 AM

The first season away from my family has been tough. Since my grandfathers death a few years ago, I have had to take over much of the family responsibilities. Now that I am here, my mom alone in Latvia, this is a difficult time for me.

Christmas should be spent with the ones you care about, and although I love my team, I can't help but be sad that my mom is home alone this time of year. I was invited to Tatu Makela's house, as he has been looking out for me, also, recently members of the Latvian national team were connecting with me seeing if I wanted to train with them during the break, but as I am still new to Detroit, I thought it be better to get accustomed to the community. Hopefully the distraction of being around other people will make this hard season easier. At least I can facetime my mom anytime I want, so that is nice, but it's not the same for sure.

treant · 12-30-2017, 10:42 AM

"I am quite fortunate that my family home is less than an hours drive away from the Militia's arena and practice facilities, which means he hasn't had to be too far away from his loved ones during his first season in the SMJHL. For the holiday period, the Militia altered their training schedule slightly, hosting a morning skate on Christmas Eve and then giving the team a few days off to enjoy some down time and celebrate the holidays. I left the training session in high spirits, before going to a Christmas party held by the Militia's captain Jack Tanner, and then making the trip back home to spend Christmas Day with my family. It was a really nice couple of days and it meant a lot to be able to see some family members I don't get to see as much as I would like. For New Years Eve, Connor Tanner is hosting a party and I've been warned that there's going to be some pranks played on me, Fredrich and Jim, the Militia's rookies. It's going to be an interesting night!"

to12143 · 12-30-2017, 12:22 PM

Written option: Tell us about your first holiday season away from home (if you're even away from home, idk ur life). Did someone on your team throw a New Year's Eve rager? Did you have a team holiday skate? No word count minimum but don't write one lousy sentence pls.

Yannick isnâ€™t really a party person. Heâ€™s always been a bit reserved, and has never really enjoyed parties. Yannick decided to fly his family to Halifax and have them experience life in Halifax. Yannick took his family on a tour of the city, taking them to see everything the city he plays for has to offer, and showing how he has made this new city his home. After taking them around the city experiencing life in Halifax, they had a nice traditional Christmas, bringing in their Austrian roots and experiencing some new things from the new lifestyle Yannick has embraced.

Nobody · 12-30-2017, 12:26 PM

My first Christmas away from my family, my first Christmas in the US, and my 3rd in north America. Things are definitely different over here compared to back home, but luckily, Iâ€™m not the only brit here in Detroit. With the help of Jake Forke and Samuel McVay we managed to bring a little bit of home to the celebrations, itâ€™s funny to think that most of the team were very confused by the concept of Christmas crackers, we did eventually convince them all to wear their hats though. As the night went on things got more â€œinterestingâ€. Letâ€™s just say Tatu MÃ¤kelÃ¤ is a very happy drunk.

It is hard being away from home for Christmas, especially when â€˜homeâ€™ is over 3000 miles from home. Being part of such a great group of guys makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Dangles13 · 12-30-2017, 05:58 PM

Christmas was never a big deal in the O'Callaghan household. We couldn't afford presents like you always see on the television and that went double for a fancy dinner. One thing we always did was put up our small tree and put on our meager decorations and sing carols. Family would sometimes drop by for a spot of tea and join in on the fun. As we got older it seemed like we spent less time celebrating Christmas and family came by less and less.

Today I rarely get excited when December rolls around. So when we had time off to be with our families I chose to stick around and visit some children's hospitals and sing some carols and spread some cheer. Hopefully this made for a good experience for them even though I cannot sing for shit. Merry Christmas!

Keenan · 12-30-2017, 06:44 PM

My holidays until now have kinda been pretty normal. Small family gathering to catch up and see everyone and that's about it, as unnoteworthy as can be. But this year was different, after all, I'm in a completely different country!

Of course I still had to make my presence known. I gave the family a phone call during their celebration, I couldn't be there but at least I was able to send everyone my love. I was glad to hear everyone is still doing well and that they watch my games whenever they can.

However, I now have a second family too: my teammates on the Montreal Militia. We didn't do anything too special for the holidays. We just had a nice dinner and hung out together a bit. At the end of the day I was glad to have so many people that I care about in my life and it definitely made my first holiday season away from home much more bearable.

austin6 · 12-30-2017, 06:49 PM

While Christmas away from home may be difficult for others, it is actually much better for Ryan Gardiner. He has avoided his family ever since moving to Colorado because back home before the draft, he smashed a hole in the wall of his parent's house while he was sliding on the floor with his socks on.
Normally he would be having some nice ham and a cold sody pop at this time of the year with his family. Instead, he opted to stay in and order take out while watching Pitch Perfect with his good friend Grease La Roach. Unfortunately Ryan is still waiting on his nice little gift of "Escape from Tarkov" from La Roach.

Blastmeaway · 12-30-2017, 08:28 PM

In Czech Republic we celebrate Christmas like we celebrate all holiday. I got my bottle of Becherovka and started wandering down the streets. I ended up drunkenly stumbling my way into some back alley semantics. Let me tell you. Best. Christmas. Ever. In this back alley I made friends with couple homeless named jim and tim, or something like that. They answer to any name. Jim, Tim and I shared my bottle of Becherovka. When we finish it, they took me across town to friend. They friend lived in the hedges along the highway. I think they friend was doped up on dopey stuff and what not, but I no indulge. A stray kitty came and became our friends. I left Jim and Tim and other friend not too long after and began my stumbling again. I found my way in to chinese gambling den. It was very smokey but man there was a lot of yelling, i think they were just talking. but then there were some things that i saw the woke me up. I may actually be broke, not like out of money, cause i got this pay check, but man did they do some things. I gambled the night away and when i woke up the next morning I was sleeping next to Jim and Tim with a Christmas Hat on and a reindeer tattoo on my back. I believe they call them a tramp stamp in America.

Shout out to ml002, schultzy, slashacm, tedward!
[Image: blastmeaway.gif]

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09-05-2018, 10:04 PMBeaver Wrote: Wow look what the PT affiliation has done to our pristine league.

12-19-2018, 12:31 AMBeaver Wrote: I personally blame the PT affiliation for handing out massive amounts of free TPE to all these players, inflating the TPE they're at when they get called up.

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Pwnpiie · 12-31-2017, 12:02 AM

This is my first time away from home officially. Whenever hockey had me move the entire family moved with me. This is my first year with Kelowna and it has been a blast. Using that juicy $3 million dollar contract I can buy tickets to get my family out here in Kelowna and see some games.

The team has been a blast and even the GM's get in on the fun. Samee is a tad odd but Nour balances it out by being pretty cool. The team has been extremely warm welcoming to the rookies and myself this season. Some trying to pie people in the face, others trying to encourage the rookies and myself to get a little tipsy for the parties. In the end we have been all very family like these holidays and I am loving the company of this beautiful team.

I look forward to many seasons ahead with this group.

jdinino · 12-31-2017, 12:38 AM

This holiday season was a little greasier than any other I've had in my life. All three of the grease boys, Gary Grease, Grease La Roche, and myself, all live in the same apartment in Denver and we decided to get a huge Christmas tree that we later learned didn't fit in our apartment. Since we are all still on our rookie deals we decided to just cut the three into thirds and giving each of us a section to decorate. We later went to our team holiday party at our practice rink where the team threw a 3v3 hockey tournament where the winners got a gallon of eggnog each. The greasy boys obviously were the best in the tournament but since I am not old enough to drink in the United States I had to forfeit my winnings to Gary and Grease. Overall it was a pretty good time and I got a 10 pound bag of pasta from my secret santa and I still haven't figured out if it's an Italian joke or a put more weight on joke.

*NorwegianDemon* · 12-31-2017, 01:10 AM

Celebrating holiday away from home is something that happened quite early in my life and regularly in my teenage years. With competitive hockey between behind hard to find at a young age in Norway, I used to play a bunch of tournaments every year in Sweden to face more competitive team to play against and some of those tournaments where during Christmas and new year's time.

My first Christmas away from home was when I was 11 years old. We had a tournament in Stockholm that started on December 22 and last for a whole week. All the players and the coaches made the trip together earlier and there werenâ€™t any parents of players to watch our first game in the tournament. But most players parents join the team in Sweden on the 23 and the 24 because they use some vacations to get time-off from work to make it all the way to Stockholm. On the 25, the coaches organized a big dinner in one of the hotel ballroom where the players and all the parents were staying. They order typical Swedish Christmas dishes from a restaurant down the street. Everyone came to the dinner, which was fantastic for the kids who parents couldnâ€™t make it like mine. Even if my family wasnâ€™t here to celebrate with me, this is still one the most memorable Christmas that I had.

Dawegg · 12-31-2017, 02:56 AM

I haven't been able to celebrate the holidays like many of my teammates have, or others around the league. The sustained call up of my good friend Johnny Yuma has given me the starting job, whether or not I'm prepared for it. Most of my time is spent in the rink, hoping to become the player that I, and my teammates want me to be. The playoffs are right around the corner and I cannot disappoint those who count on me to do my job. Some may say that this kind of dedication is excessive, although in my opinion no amount of hard work is excessive when you're striving for greatness. St. Louis has been a great city, and certainly different from Wien but I've never been the kind of guy to party and raise hell on the town. It's definitely difficult to be away from my family when we should be together. I don't like to make excuses, but if I had the opportunity, I would likely be in Austria right now with my family. Thankfully, my father could convince my mother that I did indeed have an obligation to my team and could instead be out here grinding as much as I can to better myself. There's certainly room to improve as my game appearances have shown.

AssPancakes · 12-31-2017, 05:03 PM

So I spent my Christmas eating cake with my family but unfortunently we had a game soon after so I was still working out and doing my individual practice. My skating and puck handling has come a long way. The local rink had a lot of kids around who wanted autographs so admittedly my on ice practice this break was somewhat limited because I couldnâ€™t go all out or else I would hurt a future Darwin award. I did gain a little bit of weight because of the cake and eggnog, but I am sure the team practice on boxing day will get me back in shape. Both of my GMâ€™s gave me a special gift, Samee gave me some of his cocaine and Nour gave me a full automatic assault rifle to deal with stray Vancouver players. I really appreciate how both of the gifts I have received are practical and I will most likely use before the new year! Brock threw a new years party and I had a great time at it. Clint Eastwood tried to come but we locked him in a closet. He is still there I assume. Its fine, he is a bruins fan.

exactly 200 words lol (ik there isnt one for this one but still)

J4ke · 01-01-2018, 01:14 PM

Now then, I know it's the season to be jolly, but I'm not sure why it's the season to discard your clothes and dance around the table bellowing Nordic drinking songs. Looking at you, Tatu MÃ¤kelÃ¤. We all saw you do it. We all saw... too... much...

Bob Bergan sourced Christmas crackers from somewhere, and we let those go and wore silly little paper hats on our heads. Except for Tatu, who wore his... well, you can guess.

I'm not sure who's idea it was to mix vodka with eggnog, but someone, who shall remain nameless, concocted just such an abomination. And so it was that the halls rang out with the drunken chants of "VOG-NOG! VOG-NOG! VOG-NOG!"

And that was the last thing that many people remembered of the night.

Allegiant · 01-01-2018, 02:48 PM

Kadinger's Sober Holidays

Karsten Kadinger's first Christmas away from home was a sober one. In every sense of the word. Aside from being too young to legally drink in the United States, and being legally-conscious enough to care, he didn't spend much time out with his team. He certainly attended the team party and tried to be friendly, buying a few gifts the team at large -- food and party games mostly, with a couple individual gifts for his line-mates. But when things started to get a little more lively, Kadinger slipped out to return to his home to video call with his family back home in Germany.

Anyone that's spent the holidays in Germany knows that it's just a very different feeling than holidays in the United States. It's as commercial as any, but there are more Christmas markets, more wood-crafted decorations and community festivals. Amidst a backdrop of violent shopping is a surprisingly inviting holiday season -- one that, for a young player still adjusting to life overseas, really can't be replicated in Denver. After speaking to his family, Kadinger spent the rest of the night opening up the gifts that were sent from home, before putting on a couple classic Christmas movies.

It may sound depressing, but for Kadinger, the night alone was far more inviting than spending the next morning hideously hungover after a night of heavy drinking. The day after, he was back on the ice, practicing and running drills in an effort to improve his game further. With the Draft rapidly approaching, not even the holidays can be seen as an invitation to take too much time off. Kadinger did take the time to meet up with Fredrich Koenig, his former team-mate from the DNL, to give him a present of his own. He again attended the team's New Years Eve party, but after that -- it was back to business again.

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