Plateau Hockey

I am a Canadian from Edmonton living on the Tibetan Plateau in Western China teaching Tibetans, Inner Mongolians, Han zu, Man zu, and Tu zu Chinese students about the great sport of Hockey.  The easiest/cheapest/most practical way to do this is to play street hockey.


More details here, here, and here.

Here is the latest update


From Last week:

It was a good time this last Tuesday down in the parking lot at Min Da University.  It was a good time and it was also quite different from other times.  Here are the highlights:

-  Last week, one of my dog leash goalie pad straps broke, so this week I decided not to bring them.  No goalie means we can go "full court" with 5 on 5 teams without goalies.  I also wanted to do this to emphasize the importance of team defence.  I wanted to teach them how to keep the ball out of the goal, positioning, and how to clear it out of harm's way.

So, when I showed up and saw about 25 guys there waiting to play, I was glad that we were going to have more room for everyone.  We ran around a lot more, which was nice, and it worked out pretty well.  There are definitely a few guys picking it up quicker than others.  We might be heading towards some sort of mini-tournament one of these days.

- Last week I told the coach that I was going home for my brother's wedding.  He told the guys that they needed to think of good things to give me to take home to my family as gifts from Qing Hai.  The two ideas they came up with were yak jerky and Qing Hai yogurt.

So, this week the coach gave me these:

Yak Jerky

Now, before you get too excited about things I must tell you that I don't even want to start to tell you how not like beef jerky this stuff tastes.  I'll bring some of it back and you can see for yourself, if you dare.

-  I should also mention that the coach was a little under the influence this weekend.  How he does it is beyond me; he must have a good, filling lunch break.  At one point he did some Tibetan dancing with one of the players, at another point he grabbed a stick, rode it like a horse, and displayed his limited Mongolian horse riding dancing skills.  It was fun, though I will also keep a close eye on the situation.

From this week:


We had our first casualties:

RIP

The blue one snapped in a Tibetan guy's hands while he slashed at the ball.  It was one of the older sticks.  It will be missed.

I stepped on the red one while it was in the hands of another player.  I won the puck battle and got a good shot on goal, so it was kind of worth it, in a way.

Down to 8 sticks.  I have a couple more lengths of wood in the apartment, which I can cut into more sticks, but clearly I'll be looking for some real sticks sooner than later.

If you are reading this and you have a keen idea on how to get us some real street hockey equipment out here, then please e-mail me at brettgitzel@yahoo.com.

Regardless, we will keep on keepin' on...

Inside the game

After 3 weeks, the gym class at Qing Hai Minorities University seems to have embraced the Canadian Cultural phenomenon known as Street Hockey.




I played street hockey a lot as a kid.  My brother will tell you that I played a lot of street hockey by myself, but that is only because he was too busy playing Atari to come out and play with me.  You could say that I was a throwback, a boy out in the open air with the wind in my face and piles of hockey dreams in my head.  Bryce was a slave to modern technology.

Winter 2009 - Annual Derman Street Classic

Every Winter when we go back to Canada we play at least 1 game of street hockey.  We'll always have a few guys show up.  We're out there with rickety nets, old half-broken sticks and a tennis ball, but we always  have a lot of fun.  We've had people in their 20's and people in their 50's out there playing.  It's inclusive.  You don't need skates or Rollerblades or anything, just a stick and some heart.

Gym Class

And maybe that's what we've got here on the Plateau.  It's just a bunch of people wanting to try something new, something other than basketball and soccer for a change. 

This past week we had 11 guys show up to give it a try.  The big guy on the left is really good.  He's from Inner Mongolia and has some field hockey experience.  I'm trying to get him to use his size a bit more.

The dude on the far right has shown up every time and he's pretty good.  In fact, it wasn't fair this week to have both of those guys on the blue team.  They did pretty well.

The coach has a blast (as you can tell by the photo, he's the one to my left).  He's a good teacher, always stopping to give a few tips here and there.  They work on passing a lot, which is nice. 

Let me tell you another funny story about the coach:

We are all gathered around and I said, "Okay, I want to invite you all to my apartment to watch a hockey game.  Maybe sometime next week?"

The coach replied, "Wow, thank you, thank you.  Hey, everyone, shake his hand.  Shake his hand."

Everyone proceeded to shake my hand and we worked out a time.  

Funny guy.

Next week we will watch some of 2006 Stanley Cup Final game #5, Oilers vs. Hurricanes.  We all remember that one, don't we?

Regarding the class, I don' t really think this will or needs to go beyond just having a good time once a week.  There really isn't anyone else to play at the moment; though, I did meet a guy last week who plays roller hockey with a bunch of Muslim people in another province.  Maybe we can set up a tournament sometime.

As for me, as I've made pretty clear thus far, I'm just happy to be playing.  The fact that people are actually showing up is a plus.  I'd love to work it up to 2 nets and 2 goalies, playing the whole length of the parking lot.  But as for right now, things are going well.

It's funny, but my love for hockey has grown ever since I left Canada.  I'm glad that it's grown to the level that requires that I start playing street hockey with locals.  Maybe in 10 or 15 years street hockey will be a normal thing for people here.  It's not that I'm trying to impose my culture on anyone.  It's just that hockey is so fun that it needs to be shared with the people around you.  Me and the Mongolian, Me and my brother, and Wayne and Garth.

Other brother Barry and me after a game

A Day on the Plateau

As our Landcruiser roars down the Yu Shu highway I wonder if this winding stretch of road will ever take us anywhere. As mountain ranges rise and fall, and we keep moving west, there is a common theme. A feeling of isolation penetrates the souls of all who pass…

As the day breaks, I wake up to find the fog of my breath engulfing my vision. Shaking it off, I slip out of my sleeping bag, into my boots, and out the door of my tent. The sun greets me with a warm smile and I squint back at her. I hope that she will stay with us, for our plans will take us out into the mountains this crisp, September day.

Back at the tent, I kick at the opposite side, hoping to stir up my guide, Dorje, a local Tibetan.

“Rise and shine, beautiful!”

“Man, it’s too early. You got to let me sleep.”

The son of a Nomad, he had lived in this region his whole life before moving to the city of Xining to further his studies in English and Tibetan Medicine. His knowledge of the culture and nature of this barren place is why I have chosen him to accompany me on my trip.

It takes us just under an hour to pack up our things and gulp back some chunks of Tsamba, the local staple food consisting of a mixture of barley flour and butter tea. It bears some resemblance to little globs of cookie dough, though it’s sometimes hard to swallow down. In any event, we eat, pack up, and head out.

Anticipation speeds up my stride as I swiftly move through the rocky path, forging further into the hills.

“Let’s get going, bud. We only have one day and we have a lot of things to see.” I say, hoping to encourage a speedy pace.

“You foreigners always want to see everything all at once. You need patience, and I need more sleep!”, he jokes.

Dorje fights back thoughts of sleep as he struggles to keep up with my excitement. Today is a day that I have looked forward to for quite some time. After years of dreaming about it, I am finally out on the Plateau. This has been my hope for some time now, to hike through the middle of nowhere.

Being at an altitude well over 3000 meters, there isn’t much plant life. As we walk, marmots scurry back to their holes, burrowing their way through the ground. Their meals are few and far between. Some settle for the bush and brush that rests scattered across the ground, shivering in the wind.

We walk to the beat of two sounds: our footsteps and the swirling wind. There’s not much to see so far, yet I take in this rare silence as a blessing. Finally, in the distance I see a sight to behold: vultures circling the grey mountain tops, swooping in and out of my view as they dash to the ground and then back up into the sky.

“What are those birds doing way up here? Are they vultures? Man, they’re huge!”

“It’s a sky burial. A Tibetan funeral ritual. They carry the body up to a high place, chop it up, and lay it out for the birds. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. Just one of the many ways that the Tibetans connect with the Earth. It’s spiritual.”

“How so?”, I inquire.

“They believe that the birds will help take the deceased’s soul back up to heaven.”

“Wow, that’s really something.”

This is quite a difference from the funeral customs I had grown up with, yet similar in the slightest of ways; ashes to ashes and dust to dust. We give our dead to the ground and the Tibetans give theirs to the sky. I’m beginning to see that there is more to this vast land then just scattered plants and animals. It is also a home for people, and they have adapted to become a part of the scenery, at one with their surroundings.

As we walk further from the path and I look down on the crumbled ground a thought occurs to me; I could be the first person in history to ever take a step on the spot I am now standing. It’s hard to believe that a place like this could even exist. It is a land that seems to stand still in time, stirred up only ever so often by shepherds, yaks, sheep, and curious people like myself. Dorje tells me that when he was young he would come out here with his father’s sheep and just sit back and enjoy the silence. Only a rustling of weeds, or the bleat of a sheep would interrupt his perfectly quiet world.

“The sun will go down over those mountains in about half an hour. we should set up camp”, Dorje says.

While I scan the area for shelter from the wind, Dorje already has his pack off and is pounding tent pegs into the earth.

“We’re in the middle of an open valley, open and exposed to just about everything, and this is where you want to set up?!” I ask, half joking, yet half serious.

Dorje looks up and simply says, “What are you scared of? There’s nothing out here but the wind and the mountains. The best view is right smack dab in the middle of it!”