American hockey fans in London

(Originally published May 25, 2008)

Greetings from London!

I’ve begun my two-week odyssey across Europe. Amy and I are in London for a week to watch the US National Team play England on Wednesday at Wembley.

Then Amy heads home, while I fly over to Germany to visit my friend Chuck, who is teaching in Leipzig. Also, during that second week, I’m going to take a quick trip over to Spain to catch the US play a soccer game in Santander.

Yesterday was the world’s longest day. Took the overnight flight from Detroit to Gatwick. Caught the train out to the small, but cute flat we are renting in West London. Amy — as some of you may know — is a crazed Red Wings fan. The Wings, of course, are in the Stanley Cup finals this week. That game began at 8 p.m. Detroit time — that’s 1 a.m. here in London. Amy was desperate to find a place to watch it.

So, after getting to our flat, we took a three-hour nap, then headed downtown to see if we could find a spot to watch the finals.

Our first stop was the Maple Leaf, a Canadian pub that has Labatts on tap! A big sign outfront proclaimed that they served CANADIAN food. What exactly is that, eh?

Unfortunately, the Maple Leaf staff said the pub didn’t get permission for the liquor authorities to stay open late enough for the game.

So, we headed over the Sports Cafe, an incredibly loud establishment that’s a bizarre combination of dance club and American sports bar. It’s just down the road from Trafalger Square and I’d been there before during some earlier stops in London to catch NFL games.

We got to the bar just after they stop serving food, so dinner consistent of a healthy diet of vodka and Red Bull.

Fortunatley, the head bouncer was married to a Canadian and is apparently a big hockey fan — albiet a Penguins supporter. So, he set up the few hockey fans up in one of the sidebars and turned up the sound for us. Amy put on her Zetterberg jersey and we had a blast watching the Wings win 4-0.

The game got over around 4 a.m. — and I hadn’t realized that the tube actually shut down that late. The rain had begun to come down and we were forced to catch a $40 cab ride back to our place — a small price in Amy’s mind for watching her hockey victory.