I mean so much ice, they yell "Skate Wayne"

Holy smokes it's been a week!
Sorry to keep y'all on the edge of your seats as I took my time getting this post up...the week contained a lot of 'mundane' activity for work and lots of exciting training. For the work part, I'll spare boring you with the details, so if you were looking for a long novel, my apologies...it's not that exciting to read about the woes of work when I want to focus on the positive changes I'm making in life! (This coming week - I will be taking the Thanksgiving Holiday time off --- I think I deserve it by now!)

Last Sunday we had our first game --- that's where I left off.

Monday - more of the same routine with work - get up, log in, work work work. Then it was off to practice on the ice, and I didn't know this, but Mondays are "Skating days" --- where we do LOTS of skating. Any drill we did consisted of lots of skating either end to end, or lots of dips and doodles, loops and curls. Awesome! My legs felt like Jell-O after that skate, and I was exhausted; 90 minutes of pure skating bliss. Tuesday, again - work work work, then take to the ice for another 90 minute session. We did some drills that I completely sucked at (in comparison to these gals). Oh well...lots to improve upon, right? I try to keep myself positive and tell myself "This is why I'm here!" Wednesday, I had high hopes of getting a small run in, but I got a call from the work facility in Brussels first thing in the morning, screaming "CRISIS!" So, I dealt with that for work for the first 6 hours of the day, then it was a typical 10 hour day for the US side of things --- dang it - no luck getting out of the apartment that day as I was tied to the phone or computer all day long - that was a drag, and I longed for the Monday skating session, even if it WAS painful; nothing can top the internal pain of having to work for 16 hours! I was anxious for Thursday to get here so that the work fire could be put behind me and I could get on with 'normal' life. I decided to go for a walk around Solna on Thursday morning BEFORE logging into the system to do some work - that was a smart idea! I got a good 2 hour walk in, learned a bit more of the layout of Solna, and then did some work, followed by another great training session on the ice. THIS one ROCKED! I totally wiped the mistakes I did on Tuesdays drills out by learning from them, and NOT repeating them. My chips were on target, my ball handling was solid, I even had some great shots. Weee! I am getting it! I felt so great from that skate, I couldn't wait for Saturday's game. Friday I headed into the office here to join the team meeting with the SJM folks, answer a few questions, get a few more tasks assigned to me, etc.. I left work at 3:30 to get to the rink for a "Shooting Session". Just me, the ball, the net and a stick to wack the ball into said net! There were 3 other gals that showed up to this session we had set up, and it was a beautiful night for shooting the ball around. 90 minutes later, I take the skates off again and head to the grocery store to get some grub, head home to get some rest, and relax before the game on Saturday (today!)

Unfortunately, someone else in the apartment complex didn't seem to think that Kristy needed the rest, therefore, they were doing BAD Karoke until about 2:00 in the morning and my alarm was set to ring at 5:30. UGH! Crappy night's sleep....don't dwell on it, move on...think about the positive Thursday session and repeat the execution of that 90 minutes on the ice.

We were heading to "Nässjö" (sounds like "Nehk - whua") to take on the 2nd place team from last year; this is the team that AIK faced in the finals and defeated to be the champions of 2007/2008. Apparently, last year when the 2 teams met for the first time, AIK was not the winner, and therefore it was to be a great match this year with both teams trying to prove something, and it was an awesome match! Nässjö is about 4 hours south of our home ice in Solna. We had a very nice coach bus to ride on so it wasn't a bad journey and I got to see quite a few sites, including the FIRST Ikea store as we made the venture. Nässjö is where 3 of our players on the team this year come from. They have a "bandy school" here where students can train 2 times a day for bandy amongst their studies. No wonder they have such great bandy - I would have LOVED to have trained 2 times a day growing up! We arrived and took a walk to get rid of the stiff legs from the bus trip and get ready for warm ups on the ice. I absolutely love the way AIK is a "TEAM". We warm up together and we have this great 'circle' we do at the end of warm ups that gets us pumped up and going....I am now to the point that I understand most of the words that the girls will shout out in this circle (things like 'strength', 'patience', 'goal', 'win', etc) and it gives me the goose bumps and butterflies before a game; what a feeling. Game time - I'm in the STARTING line up. WOW! I'm even more nervous, and therefore over thinking everything. I just need to calm down, and I realize this....I get out there and within the first shift I had a real eye opening experience - P-H-Y-S-I-C-A-L bandy. Normally, I'd consider this a "gentleman's game" where the physical contact isn't much more than a little rubbin' and bumpin'. Not today. All out aggressive play - with or without the ball. Including the time where I was NO where near the play, just minding my own business, watching play on the opposite side of the field and one of their girls came by and used 2 hands on her stick to chop my arms! I couldn't believe it. Not even in the play, no where near the ball, didn't do anything to her, and "WHACK!" owie - that hurt....I got her number. Let's just say by the end of the game, she had pissed enough of our team off that she was stood up; she did not like that and therefore tried to "shove" the girl who stood her ground (the initial play was not a cheap play as our team member was going for the ball and stood her spot on the ice). The refs didn't take control of the game from the beginning, so I think that it got a little out of hand (from both sides - not claiming innocence here) and left me not as happy with my play as I wanted, but still a bit happy with some of the carries I made, passes I gave, and plays I set up - one almost resulted in a goal. The first half was against the wind, and was NOT our best 45 minutes of bandy that our team has played. Tied 1-1 at the end of the first half, the determination from the team emanated from each person, and we came out at the end of the match with a 2-1 win! We will face this team again on January 31 on our ice and I hope that it will be less "hockey/bandy" and more "bandy/bandy" that we play.

Next game is a week from today - home game against Edsbyn; Edsbyn is where we played the first tournament of the year where they have the indoor rink. This again will be a great match and most likely, less physical. I'm already looking forward to it!

This week was a tiring but fun one with how much training I got to do on the ice. 6 of 7 days; 9 hours of ice time in one week. I think I've only had 5 or 6 hours of ice time in a week before back home, and that was during the World Championship Tournament! I can imagine that training week after week like this, getting less than 7 hours will seem like I've done very little. I am considering hitting the ice tomorrow for 30 -45 minutes just to work on "quick starts" and skating, maybe a little ball handling. Then Monday --- well, as previously stated "Monday Night Skate Night" ;). Tuesday more ice --- that would mean 9 of 10 days with ice time....that would be WAY more than I've ever had before...bring it! I can see the improvements in my bandy abilities, but I'm no where near where I want to be. One day at a time, but at this rate, every day is a bandy day!