Saturday, February 24, 2007

Unexpected meeting in New York

After the experience in Denver hockey game we were prepared to repeat it again. The chance to meet some famous Czechs in the US appeared in our New York trip before the Christmas... Honza went to hockey game of Rangers and me and Monica decided that we are gonna come there after the game to meet Jaromir Jagr, Petr Prucha and other Czech players.

We met Honza after the game in front of the back entrance to the Madison Square Garden, home stadium of Rangers...


We knew from some fans that if the players will appear they will go through this entrance. However, Rangers lost for the fourth time in a row so we weren't sure if they appear at all. We waited there for a long time, fortunately there wasn't very cold. But from the door just crew members were coming... Shoot, are we waiting there in vain? Then something strange happened. From the door there was coming short man who didn't look like a hockey player at all. In the middle of huge bodyguards... I stared at him and just said with surprise to Monica - "Ty vole, to je Havel" - "Waw, that's Havel". And Monica just said "Who, Havel? What the hell are talking about?". But it was him, Vaclav Havel, former Czech and Czechoslovakian president, dissident and dramatic.

He stopped by for a while with us having a talk and giving us signatures and taking the picture with us.

After the meeting with this huge man, the meeting with Jagr, Prucha and other famous hockey players wasn't so excited. Otherwise they lost and they weren't very talkative, especially Jagr. So this day for me was primarily about meeting Vaclav Havel. That is another benefit being in the US. You can meet a lot of people from your home country you admire and talk to them, that probably wouldn't happen back home...



2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow!

no super:-)
I especially like your translation of "Ty vole!":-)

excuse my ignorance but who is the guy in the pic at the very bottom?

Pavel said...

yep, the translation of nasty words is little bit harder ;)

You don't know it? Such a shame!!! Actually I didn't know him, so don't worry:) He is Brendan Shanahan, left wing of New York Rangers and one of the biggest stars of the team - right after Jagr and Prucha of course :-D