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Prospal Diary: Bolts Looking Forward To Game Vs. HC Slovan

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 30, 2008

Tampa Bay Lightning forward Vinny Prospal will share a daily diary while the team is in Europe, including his native Czech Republic. The team will play a season-opening series in Prague against the New York Rangers on Saturday and Sunday.

After a long day Sunday, it was nice to stay in one place for the day. We practiced at the Samsung Arena in Bratislava Slovakia and then came back to the hotel, where we had a big gala dinner with some heads of state, ambassadors and the players from HC Slovan, tomorrow's opponent. The promoter of this game and his staff are working really hard to make sure we have a good time while we are here, and bring a great game to his fans.

The promoter is also the owner of the team we are playing tomorrow, HC Slovan, and he wants to make a good impression on the NHL. The building we are playing in was built in the days of communism and it still maintains lots of cement and steel, not a very warm place, but I admit, it has character. I think it will be fun to play there - once.

I am sure the crowd will be very loud and passionate. We had a lunch and a dinner with the Slovan team today and they seem excited to play us. I know they have won their league title several times so they will be a good opponent. Their coach is former Lightning player and Slovak native, Zdeno Ciger, so that will make things interesting.

We had a team meeting today before going to the arena, where we had a long practice and some more teaching. As I mentioned, it is important for us this week to get everyone on the same page before we open with the Rangers. At the end of practice we held a short open scrimmage and shootout for about 2,000 fans that came to see us practice.

Tomorrow evening, we play HC Slovan and then head back to Prague for the rest of the week

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