The first winter in Prague, I didn't know anyone. I told myself that was freedom.

Back in England, I had people. Old friends. Colleagues who knew my name before I had a title. The kind of mates you don't arrange to see, they're just there. At the school gate. At the pub. On the other end of the phone, when something goes sideways.

In Prague, I had my wife and my children. And that was it.

I told myself this was what I wanted. No distractions. No obligations. No small talk with people I didn't choose. I called it focus. I called it simplicity. I called it freedom.

The Rat is very good at renaming loneliness.

That first winter was dark in ways I didn't expect. Not dramatic. Not depressive. Just quiet. The kind of quiet that sits in the flat at 3pm when the kids are at school and your wife is out and the next meeting isn't until tomorrow and you realise no one in this city knows you.

Not the professional you. Not the LinkedIn version. Not the man who coached Google and Pfizer. No one here had any idea about any of that. And without the context of a career to stand behind, I didn't know who I was either.

Then I found hockey.

A fellow expat called Frank connected me with a local team. I turned up to my first session not knowing what to expect. I couldn't understand a word anyone said in the dressing room. Didn't matter. I knew the vibe. The tape ripping. The sticks being taped. The smell of the gear. The way men talk before a game — half focused, half taking the piss, all of it familiar in a language I've spoken since I was nine years old.

For ninety minutes on the ice, I wasn't an expat trying to find his place. I wasn't performing. I was just playing. And something in my chest loosened every single time.

Hockey saved me that winter. I need to be honest about that.

But I also need to be honest about something else. Hockey has always been my bandaid. Every time something was falling apart — my dad dying, my marriage struggling, the business not working, the loneliness of a new country — I went to the rink. Laced up. Lost myself in the game. Came home feeling better. And told myself the problem was solved.

It wasn't solved. It was frozen. Sitting underneath the adrenaline, waiting for the drive home when the quiet came back.

I love hockey. I will always love hockey. It gave me identity, brotherhood, purpose — since I was a kid on roller skates in Tunbridge Wells. But I used it the way a lot of men use the thing they love most: as a reason not to look at the thing they're avoiding.

The dressing room was real connection. But it wasn't honest conversation. We talked about the game, about work, about weekend plans. We didn't talk about the stuff underneath. And neither did I.

That's the expat agreement. We perform fine in a foreign language and call it integration.

What I needed wasn't more hockey. It wasn't a coworking space or a Facebook group or a Friday drinks meetup. What I needed was one honest conversation with someone who didn't need me to be impressive.

It took me a long time to find that.

Not because Prague doesn't have good people. It does. But because the Rat wouldn't let me be seen without the armour. Every conversation was managed. Every interaction was curated. I was performing connection the same way I'd been performing leadership — competently, convincingly, and completely alone inside it.

The river was the first thing in Prague that didn't ask me to be anything.

It didn't care about my credentials. It didn't need the polished version. It didn't even need me to lace up. It just flowed. And walking beside it, morning after morning, something in me began to stop performing too.

Hockey gave me a dressing room. The river gave me silence. I needed both. But only one of them made me honest.

I didn't find community in Prague by networking harder or playing harder. I found it by letting one person see me without the armour on. Then another. Then slowly, carefully, a handful of people who knew the real version — not the one I'd been managing.

If you're an expat in Prague and you've found your thing — the sport, the hobby, the routine that makes it bearable — ask yourself whether it's helping you feel, or helping you avoid feeling. Both look the same from the outside.

You don't need more connections. You need one honest conversation.

I'm Andrew Sillitoe. I help leaders have better conversations. If this resonated, you can find more at andrewsillitoe.com.