The Barnstormer has secured the cooperation of a locked-out NHL player who has agreed to document each day he is kept out of action on the condition that we do not reveal his identity. Ever. Read all the daily diary entries of “Cheap Throat” here.

10:10AM — How to get your ribs punched by a Czech: Step 1) wrap your body in garbage bags before a jog. 2) Jog til you see double 3) Jog til your breathing gets all fucked up and then in your track suit made of garbage bags make a weird breathing sound that’s really just you wheezing as you sweat Lithuanian chorizos.  4) approach a Czech from behind after dark while doing step 3.

10:11AM — Note to self: more Russian jokes at bars because if there’s one thing a Czech hates other than an empty beer glass it’s a Russian. Told this story last night to the rib puncher (took me for beers: cool) and some others of how I tuned [name redacted] in a scrap about four years ago. They were elated. Wanted to know every detail. Did you feel his face swell on your fist? Why didn’t you step on his face with your skate afterwards? Some hostility towards Russians here. I text Sonja: What’s up with hostility to Russians here? Her: Hahaha. 

12:55PM — Lunch on this amazing bridge. Wow. Prague. Sun hits these windows on this castle across the bridge and everything looks gold. Text from Sonja: Oh my god are you serious? I text her photo of this jazz band playing on the bridge.

1:10PM — Text from Sonja: GPS coordinates. I love games. Don’t tell anyone I said that. Go Here she writes. Not even a link. Just GPS coordinates. Wicked. So Bourne Identity. So so Bourne Identity!

2:40PM — Sonja’s coordinates lead to a library. She’s a sassy one. She could have just sent me GPS coordinates to wikipedia. Fuck it. I’ll just ask Jagr or Chara next time I see him on the ice.

3:00PM — How to choke a Czech librarian: when he asks you if he can help you (and he can’t because all the books are in Czech) and takes a sip of his coffee and then right after you  say you’re looking for something on Russians and Czechs and then you follow that up with a ‘what’s up with that anyways?’

4:30PM — Chara! Chara! Chara tell me about Russia! Chara tell me about the Ruskies! Good to practice the heckles. I can already see his face at the draw and wanting to tee off a one timer into my dick or something. Get him off his game a bit.

4:32PM — I wonder if Russians actually do this to Czechoslovaks. Players chirp all the time in their native language. All players do when they talk to each other. The face off circle can sound like an airport terminal sometimes. If my country did horrible shit to some other country – I’d bring it up like it was my job. Getting inside a player’s head is half the job. Remember that rough patch Ovi had last year when he couldn’t score? Girl problems. Fact. Russians are great hockey players but they’re nothin when they’re sad and they’re emotional to begin with. How many Russians have won the Conn Smythe? None. Well one. And it was Malkin. But you put my dick on a piece of toast and put it on a line with a determined Sydney Crosby and that dick on toast will probably win the Conn Smythe too. Come playoff time, Russians are tired. And moody, which is basically the Russian word for sad.

7:10PM — Dinner near this public square by this weird clock and a bunch of churches. Apparently it’s an astrological clock all synced up with moons and whatever which is weird because why would it be on a church? I text dad a photo and tell him to check out how dumb that is.

7:45PM — Dad texts back: Why do you think Easter is on a different day every year, Jackass? And it’s astronomy not astrology!

7:47PM — I miss Sonja. Wish I didn’t. Do kind of. Not a lot. Little.

8:30PM — Three things I would like to know: 1) the photos Garth Snow has on his phone of  Chuck Wang. After all, how did a second string goalie get promoted to GM? Answer – photos on a phone, and maybe lots of coke. People say and do dumb shit on coke. I’ve seen it. I won’t get into it. But it gets ugly. Cocaine is no friend of technology like phones and the internet. Oh well, welcome to Brooklyn, Islanders, where you will continue to suck in a different arena but hipsters will love you because they love shit that sucks and coke I’m told.

• “Cheap Throat: The Diary of a Locked-Out NHLer“. Read all the other entries here.
• “A Fan’s Note: How to Fix the NHL” by Mike Spry 
• “Complicit in the NHL’s Demise: How the NHL & its players hate hockey, and how the fan is at fault” by Mike Spry
• The Barnstormer’s Take Hockey Back fan protest event