WC: IIHF 2019 Bratislava

[Faterson]

The New York Times has just listed Košice & The High Tatras among the world's top 52 travel destinations to visit in 2019, at number 19:

52 Places to Go in 2019

And no, they never mention the hockey World Championships – probably have no clue they take place this year.

So, yes, the country is a post-Communist gubernia ruled by the mafia, but well worth a visit also (and perhaps especially) beyond Bratislava.

 

[Atas2000]

So, yes, the country is a post-Communist gubernia ruled by the mafia, but well worth a visit also (and perhaps especially) beyond Bratislava.

And the US is a capitalist cannibalist jungle



If people would travel more and well beyond your typical tourist siggtseeing aroynd the hotel maybe, just maybe those stereotypes would die.

 

[Faterson]

No stereotype here, unfortunately, it's the truth. You probably haven't heard of last year's contract killing of an investigative journalist and all the dirt from the highest echelons connected to it. Doesn't belong on a hockey board, though. If you leave the mafia alone, they will also leave you alone (hopefully), so tourists and hockey fans should be perfectly safe in this country.

 

[member 305909]

I can't be bothered to check the previous posts so this could have been mentioned earlier but how come Slovakia themselves play their group-games in Kosice instead of Bratislava?

 

[Faterson]

Compensation for 2011 when Slovakia played all their games in Bratislava. (And the result was a disaster, although Bratislava is hardly to blame for that.) There's an intense "west versus east" rivalry within Slovakia (yes, within such a tiny country), with Košice being the bastion of "the east".

There's also something like a "Bratislava versus rest-of-Slovakia" rivalry, with a perception of "Bratislava-centrism", which in Slovakia's case is pretty bizarre, given that Bratislava is located in the extreme south-western edge of the country (lying on the border with both Austria and Hungary). Bratislava's position within Slovak hockey resembles that of Toronto within Canadian hockey. You hear complaints about "Toronto-centrism" from Canadian hockey fans all the time.

Bratislava sports teams are usually despised and reviled in the rest of Slovakia. Slovan Bratislava plays in the KHL as the only Slovak team, but it's almost impossible to read the comment sections below articles dealing with Slovan's KHL games in Slovak media, because most comments by Slovak readers from outside Bratislava are just spewing hate on Slovan, regardless of whether the team is successful or not.

 

[Outofbodyinhungary]

No stereotype here, unfortunately, it's the truth. You probably haven't heard of last year's contract killing of an investigative journalist and all the dirt from the highest echelons connected to it. Doesn't belong on a hockey board, though. If you leave the mafia alone, they will also leave you alone (hopefully), so tourists and hockey fans should be perfectly safe in this country.

And our government wonders why all the young kids want to go to school elsewhere (UK) .