Dater’s Daily, Munich Edition; Avalanche Hockey On Sunday

MUNICH – Hello from Deutschland. It’s eight hours ahead here from Denver time, so I need to actually keep this brief because I’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn for another excursion here, that my wife planned weeks ago and I’m a dead man if I don’t rise and shine with full enthusiasm for the day ahead. But, I did want to chime in here and say that it’s also going to be an exciting day for Avalanche fans back home and that there will be TWO hockey games to see.

I’m easily confused, so at one point I thought there was just one Avalanche preseason game Sunday, against Minnesota. Nein! There are two. One in Minnesota at 2 pm., and another back at Ball Arena against the Vegas Golden Knights. It’s an honest-to-goodness split-squad game, played in two different cities.

So, Avalanche hockey at Ball Arena tomorrow night at 7. How weird is that? But, also, Avalanche hockey in Minnesota earlier in the day. That’s weird too, right?

Anyway, it should be a good day for hardcore fans. We’ll wait to see what the lineups for both games are.

I’ll be back later next week from Munich. Having a great time here. Oktoberfest was unbelievable today. They say about 700,000 people were here today. I believe it. It was crazy. This is the first Oktoberfest after two years of cancellations, so people were ready to party. Me, I wore lederhosen and a green hat with feathers, looking the proper part. But we don’t have tickets to any of the festivities until Monday, so today was mostly just looking around and observing.

I took a very educational four-hour tour yesterday, focusing on the history of how the Third Reich came about in this city. It was eye-opening and emotional at times. Our tour guide, Josh, was fantastic in telling the full, deeper story of it all, with stops at the sites where things really happened.

Germany is a beautiful landscape, and the people are reseved, yet polite. I’ve definitely had the best bratwurst and other fine sausages I’ll ever eat. I don’t drink much anymore, but, come on, I had to try some good German lager here at Oktoberfest. It was quite cold and quite good.

Thanks for giving young Brennan Vogt a read in my stead, and I’ll be back at the rink soon.

Until then, au widersehen.