Eastern Euro Ballin

"I don't believe..." he said, shaking his head.

Another call had gone against Nymburk, the professional basketball squad and hometown team of my student and bud Aleš. We sat in the stadium in Liberec, in the Czech Republic, and watched his boys take on the Polish team Turów Zgorzelec in the ULEB Cup. Though we didn't have to leave the country, ironically the game was played on Turów's home court. Liberec is about an hour north of Prague, putting it about fifteen minutes from the Czech/Polish border, and since they apparently have no place to play in Zgorzelec (pronounced "Zuh-hor-zhe-letz"), they head south and ball in our fair country.

Earlier that day after work, Aleš ("Alesh") and I were picked up by his brother-in-law Honza and we headed north. Prague is a mess at rush hour, due to the influx of cars that came when the country went capitalist 20 years ago. The city wasn't built to handle so many, and the city planners are playing catch up now. While sitting in traffic, the two Czechs bickered over the music selection, and Aleš occasionally tossed a translation over his shoulder at me sitting in the back seat so that I wouldn't feel left out.

"Honza likes metal," he told me. "I don't like."

The hard core stuff blared out the speakers for awhile, with Honza bobbing his head and Aleš shaking his. Sensing the mood of the car, the driver gave in and switched off the CD, instead finding a Czech country music radio station. He cranked it, and the twangy song blasted out at us. Aleš groaned.

"Are you happy Aleš?!" Honza asked with a big smile.

They finally settled on a disc of rock 'n roll standards such as Norwegian Wood and Jumpin' Jack Flash. Unfortunately this particular album was a Czech "reinterpretation." Ugh.

Traffic thinned as we got away from the city, and I was able to relax and shut my eyes a bit in the back seat. Honza drove aggressively, attacking the "passing" lane and slowing only when it was necessary to slip into the right lane to get around someone puttering along in his path. Eventually I was jarred awake from my light sleep by one of these exchanges, and it took me a few moments to gather my bearings. Once my vision slid back into focus, I looked outside to see the Czech landscape flying by, and together with the shaking body of the car, I realized we were moving quite fast. I stole a glance at the speedometer over Honza's shoulder, and saw he had the car at 180 (km/h). I never bothered to switch my brain to the metric, so I pulled out my busted up cell phone and used the converter. It told me were going 111.87 mph. Holy shit. He slowed down a bit, and by continually shifting my eyes to check our speed, I noticed an average speed of 160 km/h. I made sure my seatbelt was fastened tightly, and started thinking of where in the back seat I'd be safest in case of a crash. At that speed, it's not gonna matter much. I nervously glanced at the speedometer again. I looked at Aleš for sympathy, but he only tapped his fingers against the arm rest on the door, restless to get to the game.

The stadium was unremarkable, like any medium-sized venue back home. But the fans were out in full force. The majority were sporting Turow yellow, but when the Nymburk players came running out, I was pleased to find that my Sconnie t-shirt and red Pumas matched their jerseys. This game was a part of the ULEB Cup, a tournament for professional teams all over Europe, which made it a big deal. People were blowing their horns throughout the whole damn thing, and protesting every call, whether it was fair or not. The Nymburk fans got to their feet after one of their boys ran into a vicious pick set by the big man on Turow. It was a legal play. Sit down, morons!

But while the atmosphere was great, the level of play was not. There were moments of greatness, but an amazing sloppiness with the ball, and overall laziness on defense were more noticeable. At first, I chalked this up to a Euro-attitude in a second tier game, but then the Americans (the only black guys on the floor) started making amazingly careless passes in the last few minutes with the game on the line.

At breaks in the action, some cute chicks in short shorts and sports bras would come out and do a little loosely choreographed bit. I guessed they were from Nymburk, Aleš's hometown, so I turned to him.

"You go to high school with any of them?" I said over the blasting voice of the Polish announcer, and gesturing with my chicken nuggets.

He looked back at me blankly.

"Nevermind."

For most of the second half, a kid wearing a headband and baggy jeans came out and fronted the dance team. He not only knew the routines better than the girls, but that little bastard had a bit of funk in his Polish hips. It was pretty cool.

The game ended in a flurry. Nymburk was down about 10 with just a few minutes remaining, but thanks to the jaw-dropping apathy of their guards, they gave away possesion enough for Nymburk to nearly come all the way back, then rim out a winning shot at the buzzer. Aleš and Honza stormed out of the stadium and drove even faster on the way home, but I was content with my night of Euroball.