Hockey in the Desert: "Bahrain Bill" Strikes Again, Part II

Continued from Part I, when Bill VanderClock is getting the run-around.

Each time I’ve gone to the Middle East, I’ve taken new hockey sticks with me (provided by Tricon Sports—great shop, great people, great service—in Lexington as donations to the youth hockey program in Bahrain).

I walk out of my room, and the security guard in the seat in the hallway says, “Ah sir, what’s in the bag?”

I think he was concerned about the big gear bag but no, he wants to know what was in the stick bag. He is now up on his feet, and his hand moves under his jacket toward what I can only guess is a sidearm of some sort. He recognizes my fearful expression.

“This bag?” I say, pointing to the big Easton bag at my feet.

“No, that bag,” he says with a heavy accent and pointing at the stick bag.

“Sure” I say, relieved that the contents are much easier to inspect than that all the stuff in the Easton bag. So I unzip the bag (very carefully) and remove the sticks.

He removes his hand from his jacket. No gun.

He inspects the sticks and says, “You use those with horses?”

I’m too scared to find this funny. (Looking back on it, he may have thought I was going to play polo).

“No” I reply, “these are for ice hockey. We play on the ice.”

“Like ice in a glass?” he asks, motioning as if he had a highball in his hand.

“No, sheets of ice. We play on sheets of ice,” I say as I imagine skating down an ice cube.

“You play with sheets?”

“No, no. This is hockey, Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux…”

“Are those people you play with?”

Without explaining that those legends wouldn’t be caught dead on the ice with me, I figure out how to satisfy the still-confused sentry. I hastily open the big Easton bag to retrieve a skate. I remove the skate guard as the man stuffs his hand inside his jacket.

Then, as he glimpses the skate, his eyes flash; his hand lowers. I know he finally understands.

We both laugh. He holds the skate with one hand and, with the other, feels the edge of the blade.

“OK,” he says.

I feel like a ton had been lifted off of my shoulders. I tell him that I’m playing hockey every Tuesday and Saturday night for the next couple of weeks.

He instructs me to carry the sticks without the stick bag, and there should be no problem.

I offer him a Coke, which as always he refuses, and I then leave for my game at FunLand. Later that night (with the stick bag tucked away), I return.. He waves as I enter my room.

To this day I can’t see a glass of Scotch on the rocks without imagining little skaters—wearing white sheets—racing down the sides of the ice cubes and yelling, “Bobby…Mario…Wayne” as they go.

Hockey in the Desert: "Bahrain Bill" Strikes Again, Part I

Guest blogger “Bahrain Bill” VanderClock (pictured), who filed his first report from the desert in 2006 , shares another story (with minor edits).

Bahrain
November 2008

The outside temperature is only in the 80s, so skating in the desert isn’t as cooling an experience as in September, when the outside temperature hovers around 110. The rink, which is attached to a bowling alley (with windows in between), is about half the size of a regulation rink. Half the players are local guys and can they skate! And because the ice does not evenly butt up against the boards—the corners are like ditches—stickhandling skills are a must.

One of the goalies is a high school aged kid who pays about $20.00 each way for a taxi to get to the rink. He really wants to learn and play. The other goalie is an American woman from the U.S. Navy base. This mix of people, the unique location, and the rink size: they make the game even more interesting. Then a Saudi, who has never seen an ice rink before, enters the building. He insists on having his picture taken with me and has to try on a helmet. He looks comical in his thobe (a white shirt-dress worn by most of the men in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain) and helmet.

After hockey and then the photo shoot, we all go to an Irish bar.

Everything is great until the hotels in (Mumbai) India are attacked. I’m living in a five-star hotel and although there isn’t a problem in the Middle East, India is close enough that I keep my head down for a few days.

Three days later, as the Indian situation is calming down, security suddenly shows up at my hotel. I notice that there are guards at every vehicle entrance to my hotel. They use mirrors on sticks to examine the underside of every vehicle driving up to my hotel. And they open every trunk. I wonder what’s going on, so I ask personnel at the front desk.

“Nothing.”

Clearly something is happening, and they’ve been told not to talk about it. When I get up to my floor, six security guards—three from the hotel and three that I had never seen before—are discussing, loudly, something. I ask what’s going on.

“Nothing.”

I point out that I’ve not seen a single security person on my floor prior to this and now there are six, so something is the matter. Well, fortunately I have always made a habit of spending some time with the maids, janitors and other workers who generally get ignored by the folks who stay in five-star hotels. I’ve found that these folks are great sources of information and a little time spent really talking to them can go a long, long way. In this case I get the inside scoop that all of the hotel employees have been warned not to talk.

But it turns out that a dignitary is moving in three doors down from me and will be here for a few days. There has been no threat against the hotel or anything. But the poor security guy sitting on a chair doesn’t appear to be enthused about the situation. Every time I walk by, someone is in the chair. I start saying hello and offer the sentries a Coke or whatever. All I get is a polite “no thanks” but they get to know me, which helps out on Hockey Night in Bahrain.

Stay tuned for Part II.

AMHL Special Report: Hockey in the Desert

Time is running out on AMHL veteran Bill “Ticktock” Vanderclock’s stay in the Kingdom of Bahrain, so Bill—who’s teaching computer information systems for Bentley College—is enjoying one last hurrah. He’s staying in a five-star hotel where the staff clamors to carry his hockey sticks for him.

While Tuesday AMHLers have completed their games and have been at work for a good six hours, Bill is preparing to take the ice at Funland Centre for the last time on this trip to Bahrain.

Bill has filed the report below for AMHL fans far and wide...

Hockey in the Desert... An AMHL report from Bahrain

OK, here we are in the Middle East. Daily average temperature-100 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s an island nation, so the humidity sits at about 80% to 90% outside you sweat just thinking about moving. But there is an ice rink. It's so small, we play 3 on 3. Even the nets are small. Notice in the pictures that helmets are optional. Also notice the big sign on the wall prohibiting the taking of pictures.

Most of these guys are Canadians working as pilots for Gulf Air, the local airline. They are really, really good hockey players. A little out of shape, but they are amazingly good on the ice and can make the puck do things I never saw before. Most have relatives on the NHL or other forms of professional hockey. The all get together and play in other Middle East countries in tournaments. They were all excited about a big tournament they are playing in the end of October in Thailand.

They were extremely accommodating of me and my three week stint here. I'll be back playing on Wed morning Oct. 11 in Concord after three Tuesday nights of playing ice hockey in the desert.