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Rediscovering the game through a winding detour

By Scott Burnside
Special to ESPN.com

Wednesday, December 1, 2004

Swiss Alps, well past midnight, team bus lurching around hairpin curves miles above solid ground, Hollywood movies blare out hard-to-decipher German. Suddenly it's clear: This isn't the NHL anymore. Later, when the two most famous players on HC Davos uncoil themselves from their seats on the team bus, pull their hockey bags from the luggage compartment beneath the vehicle and hang their still-sweaty equipment in their own dressing room stalls, that notion of being a stranger in a strange land ...

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