Tampa Bay Lightning forward Vinny Prospal will share a daily diary while the team is in Europe, including his native Czech Republic. The team finishes a two-game regular-season series today in Prague against the New York Rangers.
Tonight was, at the same time, a great night for me but difficult for me and our team also. We fully expect to be a good team this year, hopefully a division champion and a playoff team. So it was difficult to lose our first game to the Rangers. We had lots of opportunities and scoring chances (Saturday night), but just couldn't put the puck past (Rangers' goaltender Henrik) Lundqvist. If we keep getting those chances, I know we will score our share of goals and win plenty of games. I think my line with Vinny (Lecavalier) and Marty (St. Louis) will be very hard for other teams to contend with. Marty drives so hard every game and Vinny is so talented. I think we will be just fine.
Tonight was really important to me not only because we started our season but because I was able to hear my own national anthem before the game. Maybe we players take these things too much for granted; the North Americans hear their anthems all the time and we Europeans never get to hear ours.
For some reason I can't fully explain, I felt immense pride tonight before the game when the Czech national anthem was played. I know I will be thinking about it before the game tomorrow night.
We all feel it at some point, that pride, those goose bumps that come out during an emotional moment when the anthem is played. Like at the Olympics or something. It will be great on Sunday night to hear that one more time.
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