Türkiye Buz Hokeyi Federasyonu DİDİ Süper Lig – Turkey Ice Hockey Federation Didi Super League
So I’m sitting on the bench at my beer league hockey game, looking at out the ice, and I’ve got the biggest, dumbest grin plastered on my face.
My line mate leans over and he starts talking to me about passing more or whatever, and I’m almost giggling with delight. I’m so, so, so happy.
“Man…what the fahhk is wrong with you?”
All I can say is, “… Turkish Professional Ice Hockey.”
In 2008, my college hockey career was done. I had been fortunate enough to win an ACHA Division 1 National Championship with University of Rhode Island in 2006 before finishing out my last year of eligibility in graduate school at Michigan Technological University. But I was still only 35. Even though I couldn’t skate well enough to play pretty much anywhere anymore, I still loved the game and thought I had a chance in Europe during my first overseas posting to Ankara, Turkey.
So I hit up Google and started daydreaming about all the sweet teams I could play for.
Then one day, after asking around a bit in town, I got a call from a guy introducing himself in broken English as “Kaan”.
“We have offer here for you at Capital Stars (Başkent Yıldızları).”
(long pause)
“Offer?”
“Yes, we give two Bauer sticks if you play us”
“Haha…Ok…Are you guys any good?”
(long pause) I hear Turkish whispering as Khan discusses with someone something.
“No. They no good. Last season win 4 games.”
“Awesome, where do I sign up!”
So let me preface the rest of this story by saying that I’m a kid from Vermont about to be thrown into a very strange experience on the other side of the world.
I pull into the parking lot at 11:45PM. I’m a bit delirious after trying to take a pre-practice nap after work. This guy takes the gear out of my trunk, just like the “Show” I suppose. Nobody speaks English.
Look, I’m not naive. I’ve traveled abroad quite a bit before. But my first thought at the rink was, Holy shit, this isn’t some tourist destination where I’m gonna fumble around until someone speaks English? Everything’s in Turkish. Like, everything.
So after a while, I start seeing some twenty something’s stroll in. They just stare at me. A slightly older guy walks in. He points. “OK. USA,” smiling as he head bangs the air.
I just sit on the bench, staring at my hands as they lace up my skates, repeating, What the hell did you do? What the hell did you do?
Sure enough, 12:15 a.m. the Zamboni horn goes off, and I head out for the ice. The fresh cool air helps calm my nerves. I’m telling myself, You’re good. This will be fun. It’s a new experience. Just roll with it. You’ll find some friends on the team.
The five other imports are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench: One Canadian defenseman, an American center, and three Russians going bananas listening to some Barbra Streisand techno remix on their cell phone.
I’m like, Oh my God. Yes. I’m back, baby!
We get out onto the ice, and it’s a shitshow. For any US guys reading this right now, let me tell you something: You don’t know how good you have it. A normal practice in Turkey was more frustrating than any day I had ever had on the ice.
I’d mess up a drill and coach would start screaming, “What dee fahhk you doing, Trump?”
Half the time, I had no idea what we were supposed to be doing in the drills. I just rolled with it.
Despite the language barrier, I figure it out. We do the standard stuff. Loop and shoot. Half-moon. Sprints. Whatever.
After practice, I’m heading for my car, and look up …
Half the team is smoking cigarettes.
No words…straight face after two hours of practice. Looking at me right in the eyes… smoking darts.
This was my first experience with a very strong smoking culture. In Turkey, the smoking era is still in full effect. On the team bus, sixty percent of our players and every single one of our coaches were chain smoking through the duration of the trip.
At this point, you’re probably thinking I’m culturally insensitive or I don’t like Turkey. Just stick with me for a bit.
See, what you have to understand is, living and playing sports in the USA is a fantasy world. It’s a dream come true, but unfortunately you get comfortable, and take it for granted. In Turkey, the kids make due with whatever they can scrounge up. Packing tape for stick tape, skate steel welded back together, a visor so scratched you couldn’t recognize your mother. I’ll always regret taking what we had growing up for granted.
That’s why I wouldn’t trade my experience in Turkey for anything in the world. Because when I finally get out onto the ice for our first game, here’s what I experience:
They skate the imports. Then they skate us some more. You’re dying. You just got punched in the face or steam rolled after a buddy pass. Your coach is still screaming get out there. You look at your Turkish teammate and ask, “What did coach say?”
And he says, “This Powerplay you skate.”
Are you feeling a little off? Is your hammy tight? Forget it. You better have your foot hanging off your body if you want more than a 15 second rest.
I also quickly learned that you don’t ask, “Why?” in Turkey about a certain call. Any word in the English language spoken at or near a referee is an automatic ten minute major. Even the Turkish guys who speak English, you’d ask them, “Why are they doing that? It makes no sense.”
The response was always the same. A little shoulder shrug, then, “its Turkey.”
The language barrier made everything unintentionally hilarious. In a normal locker room, everybody’s yelling back and forth, messing around with one another. In Turkey, the language barrier makes it really hard, but you still do your best. Before a game, all you can do is say, “Gel! Gel” which is like, “Pass! Pass!” in Turkey.
Ahmet was my translator for when the coach would talk to the team. So many times, the head coach would be going nuts, screaming in Turkish for a solid 10 minutes in between periods.
Every 30 seconds, Ahmet would turn to me and just say, “Wake dee fahhk up, you guys terrible.”
I bit my tongue trying to not laugh all year. There were so many times when I said to myself, “Man, I wish my friends back home could see this, because they’re not going to believe the stories when I tell them about the Türkiye Buz Hokeyi Federasyonu DİDİ Süper Lig.”
It was such a raw, real experience. You don’t necessarily realize that US hockey is such a bubble until you travel to a very, very different culture. It puts not just your career, but your life into perspective.
It’s a funny cycle because you make it to a fairly nice program and you get some perks like plane rides, but it’s not real life. It’s almost like I went back to the start — the way it was when you were coming up in high school or juniors on the long bus rides and the stinky hotel rooms with your buddies.
After a while, a few of the guys became my great friends. You’re all thrown together in the foxhole and are forced to figure each other out. They took me to the grocery store and ordered food for me: This is pretty good. Don’t eat this. This is sheep intestine. It’s kind of weird, but it grows on you.
It’s almost like a throwback to the college dorm. We’d all be sitting on the floor of some awful hotel room eating 10 bags of chips and watching youtube, talking about how miserable the bus ride was going to be after the game.
It sounds insane, but it actually reminds you of why you fell in love with the game of hockey in the first place.
So let me say this to any hockey players reading this who are considering playing in Turkey: If nothing else, it’s worth it purely for the happiness you will feel for the first 10 days you get back home.
My season ended this year in mid-January. I landed back in Vermont at the absolute apex of the dark winter hell. All these folks are walking around all mopey and depressed and I’m skipping around like a school boy.
That was my face for 10 straight days. I was talking to everyone I passed on the street like a maniac. “Hello! Hi! What a day, huh? What a day!”
People were looking at me like, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
I mean, the things you take for granted are unbelievable. Pulled Pork. Oh my god. Sour cream. Tacos. Bacon. Warm, delicious breakfast sandwiches.
But the first thing I did was grab my gear and hit the rink playing for our local town team against Burlington.
I sit on the bench. Smiling like a lunatic at my little brother Jon.
He looks at me.
“What the fahhk is wrong with you, man?”
“Turkey.”
“Turkey?.”
“Turkey.”
“How was it?”
“It was hell. I loved it.”
