2010 1021 Two More Weeks

Another Picture From Karlstad

The last two weeks I have been busy with hockey as usual and have had extra studing to do for Swedish. School is going well and I am learning a lot of Swedish at school and home. I am improving as a hockey player due to the higher number of practices and the physical training is also helping. We have had four training matches and one tournament the last two weeks as well. There was one training match with the 2nd team that we won easily, 6-0. It was my turn to be captain for this game. I played pretty well and had one or two assists. The same weekend we played a tough team called Nacka that we lost previously to in the Djurgarden tournament and tied in August. This time we were better prepared and won 3-0. Our goalie played well and I did too. However, Erik and I were a little tired for this game because we went to a play/musical the night before. The play was a good experience even though it went pretty late. After another week of hard practices we had a tournament with the 2nd team. Our first game was Friday night against the same Nacka team that we had just beat. However, we did not have the same team as the time we beat them and we lost 5-0. This was frustrating but we came back the next day and tied another team 3-3. We could have won the game but they fought back late in the game to earn the tie. This put us in a bad situation. Going into the lat game we had to make up a twelve goal differential against the team we had just tied to qualify for the semifianls. We came out weak but played the rest of the game very well to win 6-1. I played well and had a few assists. This meant that the powerful Nacka team would have to win by seven goals for us to move on to the semifinals. If Nacka did win in the blowout, we were the next game so we had to be dressed and ready. When we went into the locker room to get dressed just in case, the score was 5-0 Nacka. They needed to score two goals in ten minutes. The other team held them off for what seemed like forever before Nacka scored the 6th goal. However, there was only one minute left and they needed to score again. Our team was in the locker room getting ready for the next game. The coaches did not want us to think about the game going on, just the possible game that we might play. It was hard not to listen what was going on outside the room. All of a sudden we hear the puck hit the post a second before the buzzer sounds. That meant that we had to get undressed and play the 5th/6th place game in three hours. We won the game 4-3 and I had many oppurtunities to score, including a breakaway with most of the net open. Nacka eventually won the tournament, giving up one goal in the whole tournament. The next day we played Huddinge who was supposed to be the best team in Sweden. We played very well defensively and escaped with a 2-1 victory. We might be the best team in Sweden now that we beat Huddinge. Yesterday we had pictures which were cool before travelling to play the Arlanda Wings. We beat them 4-0 in Karlstad but it was different this time. They had some older players and won 5-1. We played flat and had a bad first period in this game. We have our first league game Saturday against Djurgarden before Shane comes from the USA on Sunday. Shane was on my team last year and this summer. He is staying with Niklas Odell who is a goalie on Taby HC.