2011 0108 Happy New Year!

Playoff Rink in Gothenberg

On the last day of the year Shane's family, my dad, my grandfather, and I travelled to Gothenberg, Sweden to play in the biggest hockey tournament in the world. There were 48 teams with most of them from Sweden. There were also the best teams from Norway, Finland, and Czech Republic. The train only took three hours to travel across Sweden because it went over 200kph or about 130mph. Once we got there we went to eat at a pretty fancy restaurant with some of my teammates. The food was very good but took four hours to eat as planned. That is the way the meal was supposed to go on New Year's Eve. Then we went back to the hotel to see the end of Sweden vs. Canada which Sweden eventually won in a shootout. Ten minutes before the New Year my teammates and I hurried outside to watch the fireworks in downtown Gothenberg. It was a crazy place to be and was dangerous but nobody got hurt in the end. It was fun to celebrate the beginning of 2011 in Gothenberg, Sweden's third largest city, I think. The next day we went skating outside for an hour or so before preparing for the tournament with the Opening Ceremonies. It was very fun to stay in the hotel that housed all 48 teams and their families. However, there were 23 floors with 40 rooms to a floor! The next day we would have our first three games! The first we won very closely 3-2 against a tough team from Finland. This would later prove to be the game that helped us win our group and advance to the playoffs. We won our next two games 3-1 and 5-0 against one of the host teams and a team from southern Stockholm. The next day we won our first out of four games against a team from northern Sweden 8-0 before winning another important game 1-0 against HV-71. This put us in great position to advance. However, we played poorly against a team from Norway and tied 3-3. This brought us to a crazy game against a team from Czech Republic. We dominated from the start and towards the end the game it became very dangerous. They were a very dirty team and by the time the game was over, they had four players out of the game, three in the penalty box, three left on the ice, and none on the bench! The referee had to call off the game in favor of us. This put us in Group 1 for the playoffs. We would play the other five teams who won their group: SDE, Arlanda Wings, Czech Republic, Helsinki, and Nacka. Four of the six teams including us were from the Stockholm area. First we beat SDE, our rival 1-0 in a very close game. Then we blew a 2-0 lead to tie Arlanda in another very close game. The next two games we won 1-0 and 7-4 in pretty close games. However, Arlanda was also winning and they had a bigger goal differential. We lost our last game and were eliminated from the tournament. Arlanda went on to win and we finished in second out of 48 teams. It was a pretty good finish and I am happy with second place even though first place would have been a lot better. I played pretty well in the beginning, more than the end. It was fun to play in such a big tournament and to win a lot of games. It was also fun for me, but not the others to watch USA top Sweden in the broze medal game at the World Juniors. Russia beat Canada suprisingly to win gold. Now it is back to Stockholm and the league games. School is back on Monday and my dad and Hilda who is a good friend and our nanny leave tomorrow. There are more practices now again too.

2011 0107 Merry Christmas!

Washington All-Stars Players

Two weeks ago we, Taby played in a Christmas tournament in Arlanda near the airport in Arlanda. Along with Taby, Jarfalla and Nacka played in this tournament. Gustav Blom, Shane Sellar, and I play for Taby. Anton Schou plays for Jarfalla and Hugo Danielsson plays for Nacka. These were three of the six teams in the warmup tournament before Gothenberg. We won the first game 4-2 against Sodertalje although we did not play that well. The next two we lost in close games to Jarfalla and Nacka 5-3 and 2-1. This put us out of the tournament but it was only training matches. We moved on to the next day and still had two games left and wanted to win. We won the first 9-0 against Sollentuna and lost a very close game to the tournament champions Arlanda Wings 1-0. We hoped to play a lot better in Gothenberg. The next day my dad got to run our practices because the coaches were out of town. It was a different but fun practice. Then we headed to Arlanda to pick up my grandfather who stayed for a week. The next day I had four more games in Eskilstuna which is about an hour away with some 98's and the 2nd team. We won two games, tied one, and lost one to finish 2nd out of five teams in the tournament. I played pretty well even though the game was much slower. The next day we got up early to travel to Gothenberg for the New Year and the biggest tournament of the year and the biggest hockey tournament in the world.

2010 1222 Christmas Vacation

French Alps



Shane and I Skating

Today I am in France! My dad and I travelled here yesterday and will spend a week here including Christmas. My Uncle Mike, Aunt Anna, and 7-month-old cousin Leyla live here in Chamonix near Mont Blanc. My grandfather will come tomorrow before coming back to Sweden with my dad and me for a week or two. I will play three hockey tournaments, one which is the biggest of the year and go to even more practices Right now the weather is very warm in Chamonix as it is 10C or about 50F. The snow on the ground is melting fast but the snow in the huge mountains is still there. The weather here is a relief for now apart from Stockholm where it is -20C and up to about 26 inches now. From all over town there is a great view to see all the wonderful mountains. The last two weeks I have been finishing up school for the holidays, playing more hockey, and preparing for the break. I had another school hockey game the last week too. This time we lost 5-2 to a very good school from south of Stockholm. It was tough for our school as we only had nine skaters including three defense to fill out our squad. Because of this game we missed another day of school. There will be no more school games as we got knocked out of the tournament with this loss. Also this last weekend Shane came over to my temporary home for a day which was fun for Erik, Calle, and I. During the hockey practices we have been skating outside more on a small flooded area. It is fun to play outside in the fresh air. Last, our team has won the last three league games including one huge game against SDE to get into third place, one game from first place. League play will resume again in the new year. 

2010 1208 School Hockey!

 



My House






Me in my Room



Last week we had a school game. The game is part of a tournament that some schools in the Stockholm area participate in. However, you are only permitted to play if you are on a hockey team. Most of our team plays at a very high level for Taby and some from SDE and elsewhere so we were pretty good. We only had 13 players so that made up for the short thirty minute game. We played another hockey school but they were mostly one year younger and we won 8-1. I played pretty well and scored. Next game will be a lot tougher in the quarterfinals. That game is sometime next week. Meanwhile this weekend we as in Taby play SDE who is our rival. Even though they are undefeated in league play and we have two losses we still have a pretty good chance to win. We hope to follow up on a good 6-3 win from last weekend. It keeps snowing here averaging about half an inch per day. It keeps accumulating and also is getting darker. Above are a couple of pictures of the snow, the house, and I. I have gotten used to and like the house, especially my room. My dad also stopped in for a one day visit to see how I am doing and help me out. He will be back some time next week and stay until after New Year's. Also something different that the Swedes do is celebrate Christmas on December 24.



2010 1128 A Long Way

Me about 8 years ago

I have come a very long way from that picture. I also feel like I a have improved in many ways since I have come here three and a half months ago. This is probably due to the huge increase in the number of practices. We have only had two games the last two weeks. We tied a pretty good team which was a little dissapointing. We also beat a team that was not very good 7-1. However, the team is turning around and is out of a mini-slump that it has been in for about two weeks. We also have had many practices the last two weeks too. In the off-ice training we have been doing a workout called "Ultimate Performance." I think this is helping everybody become stronger and more flexible. I have skated just about every day the last month due to training almost every day and addition of "Allmis" or stick&puck. This is really fun because there are not too many people on the ice, it is free, and we only wear half of our pads. Today was a very busy and fun day. First, I had off-ice training for one hour before one hour of normal training with the '97's. Then I stayed after with the '96's for one hour and an half partly because they were short on players due to another game. We also have had a significant amount of snow the last week in November! We got five inches of snow a few days ago along with a ton of wind. Today we got two more throughout the day. We maybe have had 14 inches in the season already. Today the sunset also took place before 3:00p.m. Then it got dark around 3:15 or 3:30! However, everybody loves the snow here because the light shines off and makes it brighter for a longer time. Also school never gets cancelled no matter how much snow unlike the United States. My dad and I went into the Vasa Museum the other day too. This is a museum showing a huge, old, sunk boat from 400 years ago. The Swedish made it and it sank in the harbour right when it was put into the water. They brought it back up about 50 years ago and are preserving it. The boat was gigantic and had so many canons. There is too much information to cover in one day as there are seven different levels to tour around. This was fun and I got to miss school. Now I will go to bed as I have more practices this week and school.

2010 1121 A Picture Entry



One of the Boat's Many Canons



Some of my Friends



Me Outside the Vasa Museum



One of my Recent Games



The Hallway in my School





One of the Gathhering Rooms

  

 

A Picture of Me at the Vasa Museum

The Ship's Bell

2010 1112 Fall Break

Me in Last Game

The last two weeks I have been doing more cool things. I went to the Taby hockey camp right here in Taby due to Fall Break. They have Fall Break here on week 44 and there is no school. The camp was fun but challenging. Some of the activities that we did in the camp were play football (soccer), complete physical training off of the ice, have technique practice on the ice, and we also played games or scrimmages three times during the week. The camp was with the '96 team and the '97's. We also ate luch and snacks that were provided by the rink. Another thing that was a cool to see were some of the kids my age were refereeing the youinger games before us. On Thursday night, we went to Erik's grandparents' house and ate moose! This tasted very good and much like turkey while looking a similar color as beef. My dad also came last friday and will stay until Monday morning. Besides the camp, we had practices on some of the nights as well. On Saturday, we went to an Ultimate Performance training which helps kids our age train with weights better and become more flexible. After this practice, we went to eat dinner out with Erik's cousins from his dad's side this time. I got to meet more people and it was pretty fun to be at their house. The next few days we had some more training before Tuesday. Tuesday we recieved about three inches of snow in the afternoon. This was a shock to my dad and I as it is only the beginning of November. We went out in the snow and had dinner at a pizza restaurant after an open skating time with only about five people there. Here they call that Almis where in the United States it is called stick&puck. Late Tuesday night I recieved news that I would be playing on Wednesday with the 2nd team. I was excited to hear this and played okay in a 5-3 victory. However, there was no time to celebrate anything as the next day we would play a big league game against one of the other best teams in the league. A teammate from the Washington All-Stars plays on this team. He is the captain and Shane and I wanted to beat him. However, they were a very defensive team and our team did not play well offensively so we lost a dissapointing 2-0 game. Now we are in scond place of ten teams in our division and need to win our next few games to stay in the race for first place. We have a game tomorrow night. Today, at school it was a holiday like Halloween where everyone dressed up in scary costumes. Because of this, I took the day off school to go to downtown Stockholm for the day with my dad. We slept in before taking the train and the bus to two different museums. The first was more about the history of Scandinavia and was not as exciting as the second museum which was all about a ship that sank over 300 years ago. People brought the ship up above water about 30 years ago. They are still preserving it and brought the whole boat up to make up the museum. There are seven levels to view this huge boat. This was a fun day to spend with my dad and maybe we can go to the Vasa Museum again. Now I am off to hockey training.