2011 0825 Karlstad

Championship Arena

This is the rink where the championship was played in the tournament last week. The tournament took place throught Central Sweden in six different places. This was a big preseason tournament with 36 teams including two from Taby. Along with Josh and Ture, I played on the second team. We were okay and competed in ten out of our eleven games. We played five games in the first round which took two days. Unfortunately, we ended up fifth out of six teams and went into the C-playoffs. In this round we stepped up our play to go 4-1. At the conclusion of the tournament we ended up .500. However, the other Taby team played very well, qualifying for the A-playoffs where they would stay undefeated to go to the championship. After a close game with Brynas in the big arena the game would go to overtime tied 1-1. On a Taby powerplay Gustav Skyttvall blasted a slapper past the goalie to give Taby the win in dramatic fashion! It was a fun tournament for us Americans and playing in Sweden is always special. It was great to see Taby win another event. The bus rides to and from Karlstad were a blast as well. The drive was about four hours plus the time that it took us to stop and eat. The vehicle was pretty packed with around forty people filling up the fifty seats or so. After another day in Stockholm we flew home on Tuesday morning. First though, I went to school for a quick hello and said good-bye to the Svensson's and my teammates. After a long day on Tuesday with a shocking earthquake in the Washington D.C. area we arrived home. While the earthquake did not cause any injuries or much damage, it was the biggest on the east coast for 70 years. In two days we will prepare for a pretty strong hurricane that is coming up the East Coast already. I will try to keep blogging about the school year here and anything more I hear from Sweden.



2011 0816 Training Camp

Rimbo

This last week we had some really tough practices back in Rimbo. We did a lot of running in the off-ice to get us back in shape for the upcoming season. It was a lot of fun to be back in Sweden practicing with Taby again. Besides a couple players that left the team and some new faces that arrived it is still the same team at the same level. Josh was there for the whole week and Ture arrived on the weekend. Throughout the week we had some practice games that were part of the Stockholm Bauer Invite. The team won some including a win against the U.S. Selects but also lost some. In the end Taby finished third out of six teams. Today we will take the bus to Karlstad where there is a big tournament. Taby has two teams in this tournament. My dad also arrived this morning and will stay until we will both leave on next Tuesday. It was fun to play in Rimbo as this was where my first game in Sweden took place. This will be my last week in Sweden for some time, but I will be back in the future for sure.



2011 0808 Camp

Logo

This past week I went to Michael Nylander's camp along with a few other players from Taby. There were many good players there. Althouh we only skated twice a day it felt great to be back on the ice on a regular basis. We played a lot of soccer and did much running here on the off-ice as well. Yesterday was a calm day just relaxing and today we will go into the city to tour around a bit. Soon coming up is Taby's camp with the Bauer Invite thrown in among the practices. This will be coached by Fredrik again and will be fun to be back with the team. Josh, my teammate from the United States arrived yesterday and another player, Ture will arrive next week, about the same time as my dad. then everybody will take the bus to central Sweden in Karlstad. Here is a pretty big preseason tournament. After this we will fly out of Stockholm back home to the United States. I will have two weeks vacation before school starts up in the United States this time though!