Themistocles Lambridis was born in the U.S. but raised in Athens, and played ice hockey from an early age. He was part of the Greek National team for 7 years, which won a silver medal in the 2010 World Championships in Luxembourg.
More recently the ice rinks have shut down and the only teams left practice on small temporary rinks.
As a filmmaker (www.jaggedmelon.com) and mountaineer Themistocles always wanted to combine his passions and make my childhood dream come true… play pond hockey in Greece.
So for the last 3 years he’s been monitoring different regions in the country to try and make this happen.
This past December he got a tip from the owners of the Munti Smolikas guesthouse in the village of Pades, deep in the Pindos National Park in Epirus that the Dragon Lake was frozen solid, and hadn’t had a heavy snow dump yet.
So he grabbed three of his teammates and headed to the mountains where mythical battles between dragons were said to have taken place thousands of years ago.
“We couldn’t have asked for better conditions to do this in. It was sunny but chilly, without a cloud in the sky. More importantly the ice was solid and thick. So we started shoveling ourselves an ice rink,” Themistocles described in an email to The Pappas Post.
Once the players were done with the boundaries, the artists on the crew took over and carved the Smolikas Dragon into the snow. Dragon Hockey was born.
The highest game of hockey ever played in Greece, at 2150m, and the first ever game of pond hockey… But hopefully not the last!
Film credits:
Directed by: Constantine Papanicolaou
Produced by: Themistocles Lambridis
Skaters: Iason Pachos, Themistocles Lambridis, Alex Rallis and Marcus Filipsson
Artists: Daphne Iliaki and Eleni Hadjisavva
Thanks to: Dimitris Pavlidis and Xenonas Munti Smolikas
Note: This video is part of a SONY Europe 1-min documentary competition that is based on YouTube likes, which ends on March 12th. Vote for this Greek entry by clicking “like” on the actual YouTube video. Watch and “like” on YouTube!