Rounding up the first week in January 2009 in Sweden

Friday afternoon, we were out and about to do some shopping at the outlets and when we arrived back home, there was a note through our mail slot --- our neighbor had written that our dog had been "screaming" a lot. DOH! Reese!!!! We went next door to talk to her about it and see what we might want to do, so after taking a look at the arrangement of her apartment, we decided we'd take the door off of the bedroom and move it to the hinges that are on the entry way to the Kitchen and see if we could put Reese's cage in the kitchen when we were gone. We did a series of different "doors" from blankets to towels to...you name it, we tried it. The move of the door was by far the best, and so far, we haven't had any more notes.....poor Reese, getting accustomed to her new surroundings!

We tested her sound proofness out when we went to practice on Friday night....whew! Saturday morning, I was back at it again on the ice, and I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday morning - it's better than watching cartoons as a kid I think :) After practice, I ventured with Reese to the Vet to get her pet passport (and yes, it looks like a true passport), then decided to take her to the "goodis" shop for pets --- the pet store! (You see, tradition here is that children often visit the Goodis section of a grocery store on Saturdays...if Reese is my kid, why not take her there too???) Thom was a sweet heart and cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, including laundry!! Back home to prep some grub for the bus ride on Sunday to the Sandviken game, and then to the grocery store. The game in Sandviken (2 hrs north of Stockholm) was a good match - they are a good team and have a few girls from the Swedish National team on their team. It was a clean, hard fought match where we came out on the top, 6-3. I was not happy with my total performance. I made some stupid mistakes and I hate when I do that! I was charged with a penalty against me for using my hand (like soccer, you can't use your hands). What sucked is that it was SOOO cold (-17 celcius) my hands and toes were freezing, so if it HAD hit my hand as the referee said it did, I would have been curled up on the ice because of the pain of it hitting my hands. I tried to show him (since I didn't know the Swedish words to explain to him) with the motion of my stick that I hit the ball out of the air. No luck - into the box for 10 minutes. At least it was heated :) Out of the box and I felt like horse poo for putting my team in that situation (they got a chance at a penalty shot - and our awesome goalie stopped it!! as well as 10 minutes short handed), I did think "long and hard about what I had done" when I sat in the box. I was determined to have a better second half. After the team meeting, I came out determined to play better. I had one bad pass that I will continue to have nightmares about, but....I also have a video trapped in my head of when I batted the ball out of the air and into the net! "Brus" (my fellow midfielder) had carried the ball to the right side of their net and took a nice hard 'pass/shot' towards the net. I was cruising in to grab whatever ball I could from in front when I saw that big juicy softball waiting to be hit! I stuck my stick up in the air (sure to not go above my shoulders) and used my left handed softball batting techninque to re-direct the ball into the far left side of the net. JUST barely inside of the post, and past their keeper! That was the game winner!!! (see the celebration in the picture) sweet! I now have 3 goals on my record and one penalty (not proud about the penalty). Next up - training on Monday and game on Tuesday against Jonkoping.

The game against Jonkoping was going to be a 'good match' for us. Jonkoping is new to the league and is a combination of 2 other teams. Their record for the season is not that good, but it doesn't mean that any team can take to the ice without preparing and thinking of them putting up a fight. We prepared for the game just as if it was the second best team in the league we were about to face, and it paid off in the end. The bus ride was about 3 hours to Jonkoping (SW of Stockholm) and led us to a rink that leaves much to be desired. The "score clock" was nothing more than a piece of metal with 2 hands on it, and no score to be kept on it. The ice....wow....um...let's just say that I've seen lakes with better ice on them. It was bumpy, rough, and like the other team had 5 other defenders extra against us. You couldn't carry the ball without it being stripped from you - not by the other team, but by the ice! I actually had some things that I was working on, but the bumpy ice didn't allow for much "working" on anything except different plays that we hadn't prepared for. A Time Out within the first half changed our strategy on how to play the attack and deal with the wind we also had to face. By the end of the first half, we were up 9-0. At the end of the game, we were up 20-0. This was one of those games where as a mid-fielder, you get frustrated because you don't touch the ball much and you feel like you don't contribute. Because you can't carry the ball (due to the ice conditions), most of the game is played in the air....between the back line and front line. So...where does that leave the midfielders? Playing the middle of the ice just "in case the ball doesn't go all of the way". At least I did have a job to do and I got to play....I can't complain. I learned something in that game...even if I didn't score one of the 20 goals, I learned more than could be put on a score sheet, and that is why I'm here anyway! One of the things that I did learn from Jonkoping is to never give up - they were a team that didn't give up from the time the first ball was played until the last whistle blew. That is admirable.

Next up - one day off, a day of training on Thursday, then 2 games this weekend - one against Kareby where we tied 2-2 last time, and another against Jonkoping...this time, on our home ice. Here's hoping I can work on some things these next 2 games.

I'll post more after those games....for now....have a great rest of the week and enjoy the weekend!
/KP