forwarded from Stephen Leroy ...
 
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>        Concerning the current world championships currently
>taking place in Dortmund and Munich, I have a story.  Last
>October, I attended a research conference in Munich (and NO! It
>was the week AFTER Oktoberfest) and took in a hockey game at the
>end of the week.  It was pretty entertaining.  There is a
>professional hockey league in Germany, and Munich has one of the
>better teams, primarily because of their superstar, Dieter Hegen
>(nicknamed "Dede").  Munich was playing a more mediocre team,
>perhaps Frankfurt-am-Main, and won, with Dede getting two goals
>and an assist, I believe.  It was quite an experience.
>
>        The hockey rink is not in downtown Munich, but is in the
>Olympic complex built for the '72 *summer* Olympics some couple
>kilometers outside the scenic downtown.  The rink is like no
>other I've seen:  there were about 200 seats, at most, and the
>rest was standing room.  There were several railings which
>encircled the entire rink on which you had to lean for the entire
>game.  The "seating" was general, so the basic idea was to pack
>as many people as possible, kinda like sardines in a can, and
>create the biggest fire hazard I've seen in a while.  Even though
>bags and such were searched for bottles upon entering the rink,
>there was plenty of beer (German premium is wonderful stuff!)
>being bought and consumed inside.  (What did I expect in Germany,
>where you can even get a double-bok in a Pizza Hut?!)  So there I
>was, jockeying for position at a railing with a couple dozen
>tanked Bavarians, all of whom were in about the same mood as a
>sober English football/soccer crowd.
>
>        And that wasn't all.  Quite regularly during the game,
>the digital scoreboard-vision-thing would flash up a message
>which said "Bitte nicht rauchen zie, --die Spieler" (which means
>"Please don't smoke, --the Players").  I didn't quite understand
>initially, because nobody was smoking at the beginning.  But
>between periods, half the crowd lit up, and before long there was
>a thick cloud of cigarette smoke hovering about ten feet (OK, 3
>meters) above the ice.  This was fortunate, because if it were
>any lower, the players probably could not have seen anything
>during the second and third periods.  As it was, I was rather
>surprised to see that the players did not cough and wheeze at the
>beginning of those periods.  I myself was suffocating.  The
>smoking was hardly discouraged at all, because there were plenty
>of folks vending cigarettes in the rink during the game.
>
>        I couldn't tell you whether or not the same is true at
>the same rink for the current Championships, but if it is, it is
>definitely a home-rink advantage for the non-North Americans.
>About the level of play, my best guess is that it was at about
>the level of the CCHA (high quality college hockey), but not much
>more.  I was rather surprised to see that America got trounced by
>Germany in the early rounds.  This must have been a fluke, or a
>sure sign that the American team is flat for reasons of lack of
>team practice or whatever.  Yes, the rink was wider than the
>American rinks I have seen, but I should think that the American
>pros are talented enough to adapt (the Canadians certainly have).
>
>        Each time during the game Dieter Hegen scored a point,
>the announcer would announce it by yelling "Dede!" and the crowd
>would respond by yelling "Hegen!" (pronounced HAY-GUN) and soon
>thereafter we would hear the Can-can on the sound system.  The
>place was packed (see above), but that is understandable because
>the tickets were something like 7-8 DMs (about $5).  Anyway,
>last I saw was that "Dede" Hegen was among the scoring leaders in
>the Championships.  I don't remember much about him, except that
>he never got hit, was fast and mid-sized with excellent
>stick-handling skills.  I could not tell you how he compares to
>NHL players, but I remember Joe Nieuwendyk being more impressive
>to me when I was at Cornell.  Let's see how he does from here on
>out.
>
>- Stephen Leroy
>  Cornell '88
>  Caltech '90 and perhaps '93 (probably not)