2024 Summary

What? Another year is behind us? That is not possible! 🙂 We just blinked and 9 tournaments (ice hockey, football and bowling) went by so quickly…how it was and how you liked it?

For us 2024 was the year of hope that we might finally reach « pre-covid » and we were looking forward to seeing more teams from overseas and from the countries where covid hit the hardest and chaps were still a bit reluctant to travel.

Since our crew was blessed with a few pleasant private events in 2023, we got a bit understaffed and let some fresh youth join us! 🙂

We hired a core member – Míša! Somebody might already know her as our English and French speaking hostess, from now on she’s engaged in a new role of the organiser.
Pepa “the little boss :)”  another youngster of ours, was around for a while already but this year he was getting a serious apprenticeship throughout all the organising layers of the tournament. From the pure “bus guy” he became a pretty versatile member of the team.

Hopefully their liver will allow them to stick with us! 🙂

Spring at the ice rink

As usual we had three spring ice hockey tournaments, one in March and two in April. March is still a bit of a cold month but during April we were almost able to sunbathe in front of the ice rink. 🙂

In the March tournament we saw our dream come true and we had both European (also unusual countries like Belgium or Luxembourg) and transatlantic participations. 🙂 The very first tournament in 2024 was won by the team La Meute from Canada, who came to Prague through our friends from Destination hockey. The celebration was huge, not only did they transform the locker room into a pool of champagne but their live concert in the restaurant even made people dance outside the ice rink. 🙂

The trophy from the second tournament in the beginning of April traveled back home with the team Goal Diggers, a very cheerful bunch of Swedes! If there is something that I love to recall are their “dance for a shot” creations on the boat. 🙂 They were very skilled on both ice and the dance floor! 🙂 What was unusual at this tournament was a strong Swiss representation.

The third tournament in April was won by Slovakian team Draci Dolný Kubín. This was their third victory at our tournament and I’m still trying to understand how they can skate so fast in the morning, knowing how hard they party in the evening. 🙂

10 years anniversary

We were celebrating 10 years with the bowling tournament this year. In 2014 right after we successfully held European Company Sport Games in 2013, we decided to host the first ever Prague’s Barrel bowling tournament and it was great. Slowly we formed a unique and beautiful bowling community and we are very happy that our friends are inviting their friends and that we grow keeping that welcoming and family vibe. So here we are 10 years later with a record breaking tournament with 42 teams! That was an amazing start of June.

The first place earned a new team from Sweden – Swedish Strikemachine. We hope they will become part of the tournament and we’d be very happy to see them again to defend their title. 🙂

Summer heat

This year, the weather in the Czech Republic was crazy, we had high temperatures almost the whole summer starting in June. For the first time after a decade we held only one football tournament in June and even limited to only 30 teams. This decision was made in order to maintain quality on the level we are used to – our youngsters were still gaining spurs and two big tournaments in one month would be probably too big to chew.

It was also for the first time in 3 decades that Leoš wasn’t present at the tournament – we missed him very much. <3 Hopefully next year he’ll be right where he belongs – at the tap, pouring your beer, smiling and joking in several languages. 🙂

Last week in June we hosted 30 teams from all over Europe and beyond (Turkey, Israel, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Nigeria). They all played in very difficult conditions with temperatures over 30° C. Fortunately, keeping them hydrated not only with beer but also with lots of water, everything went well. Not even one heatstroke! The champions from Italy – Pizzeria al Parco  – didn’t lose a match the whole weekend and could celebrate gold medals and gain beer kegs during the final ceremony. To shorten long moments on the pitch we have played beer pong or beer puppeteer, very funny moments came with that. In the big “Swedish” tent also DJ from team Copsperr took care of the entertainment. They celebrated an incredible 12 years anniversary at our tournament.

The second football tournament took place at the end of August which was still very hot. This time we met 10 teams from 9 different countries, including Mexico or Algeria. Gold medals went to Lithuania to a new team in our tournament FC Fanai. And we were just heating up for the upcoming ice hockey autumn season.

Ice everywhere

Just one week after sweating on the football field we were chilling up at the ice arena. But it was quite funny because we came to the rink with our shorts on and we had to change clothes with two more layers to not freeze up there. That is a dedication!

The September edition with 12 teams from 10 countries (including Lithuania, Belgium or the first ever team from Denmark) dominated the home team from Czech Republic – HC Kocouři Hrusice. Funny story, their name and also logo comes from a very famous Czech fairytale about Puss in the boots Mikeš. 🙂

After that we had a little break before the storm came, two big ice hockey tournaments during one month in November. During the first one we welcomed many returning teams as the champions from Slovakia – Steelers (eight times with us this year), Qatar Qanucks (sixth year), Mighty Dronts (third year) etc. We are always happy when the teams are coming back, you are in our hearts! We also witnessed the first snow in Prague just before the tournament started. As we are saying st. Martin is coming on a white horse that is usually on the 11th of November, so our sports manager Martin came with the snow.

The second November tournament welcomed many overseas teams but also our long time friends from the United Arabic Emirates (eight participations), Surrey Lions from the UK (seven) or Žolne from Slovenia (five). Also this time, the winning trophy remained in the Czech Republic with the team HC Rebel Sázava. But overall we think we have wrapped up the year pretty well this time. It is always great to see all the teams partying in the PM Club at the final ceremony, a beautiful ending to every tournament.

We are so happy for all your feedback to our tournaments, which you can read on our websites – football, ice hockey and bowling.

11 tournaments in 2025 :O

We hope to see you all next year!

You asked for more ice hockey so we added a May edition. We go back to 2 football tournaments in June. Hopefully one of the dates suits you!

We still have open spots for your team during tournaments in 2025: