Home Opener

Hello everybody. Thanks for checking in. Last week was our home opener. We played Lyngby that moved up from the first division last year. To say they were bad is an understatement. I can't imagine playing them two more times, once was too many. At least we only have to go there once. We won 25-14, 25-14, 25-16. Since that match not much has been happening on the volleyball front. We played on a Thursday so we had the weekend off.

This week practice resumed as usual. Our practice schedule has been a little brutal this year though. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are all 8-10 pm. I'm not home until 10:30 most nights. If I didn't make an early dinner before practice I am not eating until 11 or later which isn't good. We also lost sauna Tuesdays. Last year practice on Tuesday was at 4 so after we would have a nice long recuperating sauna/cold pool. The only good thing about practicing so late is that I can get a nice hard lift in at CCS and still be ready to go later. I have been hitting the pool hard to on any day off that we have had. I have been to the pool 5 times so far. Been doing pretty well. Today I did a quick 50 lengths in a 25m pool in just a little over a half hour.

My shoulder felt pretty good at practice yesterday, almost no tightness or pain in the initial hitting warm ups. I hope by next week I'll be back to 100% so I don't have to be tentative every time I hit a ball not in perfect stride. Wondering if this all out swing on an out of system set is going to hurt or not. Hopefully my next post will be the last time I have to mention it, and it will only be mentioned to say it's over.

This weekend we travel to Copenhagen to play Hvidovre, a team that was in the bottom of the elite division last year in Denmark. Should be better than Lyngby but not by much. Wish we could just play double headers with some of these weaker teams in Copenhagen so we wouldn't have to drive 4 hours round trip to play less than 60 minutes.

Molly has been doing really well. She is now 10.5 weeks old. Getting big! Well bigger. We live half a mile from a walking path through the woods down near the Odense harbor. Molly really likes to get down there and get all the different smells and do a bit of hunting. She walks pretty well most of the time. We also live about 2 blocks from a huge soccer field that is actually two soccer fields adjacent to each other so she can be unleashed and run free a bit. She can't run very fast but she has a pretty legit first step burst. She also has started to recognize her name so she listens more and stops doing bad things when she hears "Nej!"

All for now. Talk soon.

Pre-Season Comes to an End

Last Wednesday pre-season came to an end, kind of, when we had our first LandsPokal match of the season. The LandsPokal is the Danish Cup. A single elimination tournament consisting of any team that choses to enter from the first division and elite division. This side tournament is actually a pretty big deal in Denmark. The finals is played in Odense at the end of January in front of 2,000+ spectators by far the most at any one match all season. Our first opponent was Lyseng from Århus. They were from the 1st division so we were not expecting a tough match. It was really just a nice warm-up match to work out some "real game" kinks, play a few different line-ups, and most importantly put on the new jerseys. We won 3-0 pretty handily and yes we looked good doing it!

The next day we scrimmaged a team from the second league in Germany. A team from Kiel which isn't too far from Hamburg. We agreed to play 4 sets no matter what. We played a different lineup every game while they kept their same team on the court for all 4 games. We split the games 2-2. They were ok, they would probably finish 4th in Denmark's elite division if I had to take a guess.

We had Friday off so I headed to Middelfart a day before the weekend tournament there and stayed with Christa's family. We brought little Molly (9 week old brown Dachshund) along and she had a blast playing with Christa's family dog Ceta ( 2.5 year old Springer Spaniel). Christa's little sister Line especially loved taking care of Molly as much as possible and just wanted to hold her every second. Christa and I stayed the whole weekend and Christa's parents were great as usual. We had great meals, great wine, and had a lot of laughs. It was a nice weekend.

Since Wednesday's Pokal game was the first official game that counted in the win/loss column, pre-season should have technically ended, but anyway this weekend we had the Middelfart International Pre-Season Tournament. I think the international part should have been dropped because there was only 5 teams all from DENMARK! Which was a bummer because we play all of these teams 3 times in the regular season, maybe once in the Pokal, and maybe a few more times in the Nordic Cup. It's always nice to play some unfamiliar teams if only for bragging rights in the end. For the first two matches of the tournament a lot of different lineups were used again. Different personnel on the court for every game. Good to see everyone get out there but not the best for game chemistry. Lots of cold bodies coming in, or lots of once warm bodies but now cold coming back in for the third set, fourth set, or even fifth set. I'm not saying we shouldn't have done it this way. What I'm trying to say is that it's really hard to make substitutions in volleyball. It's not like basketball where people need occasional rest to stay at the top of their game. Volleyball players typically play a whole set/match, then players are switched if necessary. But that 1 set takes every bit of 30 minutes. I might have been able to sit 30 minutes and come into a game in high school or college but I just can't do it anymore. My knees and back would be so cold they would shatter after one jump. It's a tough job coming off the bench in volleyball and I respect that a lot if someone can do it and do it well. Ok, so anyway, we won both of our Saturday matches and everyone got a good amount of time out on the court, so that was good.

Day two, we had an early start. A 9am game to be exact. The day before it was decided that we would play all of the young guys in the early match to see if that would make them more comfortable as a unit. They came out pretty flat lost the first two sets. We changed some guys around and ended up taking the match in 5. Middelfart was 3-0 and we were 3-0 so the last game of the round robin was for the title. Middelfart has a lot of new faces this year. We alternated sets. They won the first in a very close back and forth set. We won the second pretty easily after they made a lineup error swapping the opposite and outside spots by mistake. Set three back to them in another very close game. Set 4 we won comfortably. Going into the fifth set I thought there was no way we were going to lose. 8-4 switch was looking good. 10-6 sideout ok nice. 12-9 well on our way. But then we never scored again. They ran 6 straight on us and just like that we lost the match. It was pretty disappointing to lose in such a fashion after playing hard for an hour and a half. But hopefully all this loss does is give us some more motivation when we face off again.

My shoulder held up pretty good in the match against Middelfart which was good. I had a good amount of power with little or no pain until the 5th set. Some 60+ swings later, so I hope the worst is behind me with this darn thing. I have been back to swimming at the pool, twice since Friday, and I really think that has helped a lot in turning my shoulder around. Well if not completely around at least in the right direction. I was telling Joe today at the gym that today was the first time in a month that it felt like my shoulder was actually part of my body again and not me vs. my shoulder. Practice tomorrow will hopefully confirm that I am on the right track.

I have found a website online that streams the Bears games every week for free so I have been able to keep up to date with this wacky team. Week 1 looked like the Bears might win maybe 4 games all year. Week 2 made the Bears look like a 10 win team or just really highlighted the fact that the Cowboys aren't as good as everyone thought. I just hope the Bears can continue to win in the only way they now how, UGLY!

All for now. Thanks for checking in. Next week I'll upload some pictures of the new apartment as well as little Molly!

And we're back...

Hello all, it's been quite some time since I last wrote. "Quite some time" is an understatement, but in my defense, every year I think I have been writing more and more consistently. And yes I know, I have never finished an entire season on the blog. So lets set that as a goal this year. To update every Sunday for the entire season. (Yes this post counts as a May 12th post!) Can it be done? Sure. But it's not going to be easy.

I had a great summer at home. Highlights were playing beach ball, hanging with the crew, spending quality time with the fam, Phoenix, Michigan, Lollapalooza, and the Danes visit. They aren't listed in any order but all stood out in a fantastic summer!

I have been in Denmark now for just a day over two weeks. I'm all settled in to the new apartment. It is starting to feel more and more like home everyday. Solid upgrades on the living arrangements are 1) Dishwasher 2)Washing Machine/Dryer 3) Normal sized Fridge/Freezer. Check, check, and check! The location is nice too. A stones throw from the train station, and centrally located between Marienlyst Center, Idraetspark, and CCS. The three places that I spend most of my time over here. The weather has been reasonable too. No heat, but it has been relatively dry which is nice for the daily commutes. (It's raining now wrote this first part this morning!)

My shoulder has been a problem basically since I got here. I'm not sure if I tweaked it lifting luggage on the train into the overhead or I slept on it funny. All I know is the day after I arrived when I woke up I couldn't lift my arm. I tried to practice a bit that night and it never loosened up at all. I tried to swing once and I think I tweaked it even more. Lots of ice and ibuprofen since then. Also lots of light shoulder work at the gym. It has been making progress. I have regained most of my range of movement but I still can't go all out on a swing without pain. So it's a waiting game right now. I have treatment scheduled tonight before practice so hopefully we can figure this thing out. Not being able to play is very frustrating. I need to get going because I haven't really played indoor ball since nationals which was the end of May. I know it's a long season and I shouldn't rush it but I have never really been injured in my entire career so sitting out is not something I'm used to at all and I really don't like at all. I've got my fingers crossed that I will be 100% for the Middelfart pre-season tournament next weekend.

Some new additions to life in DK in the last two weeks have been pretty big as well. As most of you have heard by now Christa finally got her baby dog. We are picking up little Molly this Sunday. She is an 8 week old brown dwarf Dachshund. And as many of you have also heard I got my little baby too, a red Puch Maxi K scooter that I have already got a ton of enjoyment out of. And no Mikkel it's not lazy riding a scooter, but yea ok maybe gay.

We have finally just got everyone to practice so we can see how we are going to look this year. We have a lot of new faces. We lost 7 players from last years team. We added 5 players. The average age has gone down dramatically. I was in the middle last year. This year I am the third oldest. Not sure if that's good or bad but it's just different seeing all these different faces in the locker room. No Bits stories and suana oils, Merty Gerdy hammer left leg, Soe's shoe collection, Travis' saying "nah mate" or "I reckon", Nelly's Ray Lewis hagabow D, Joaks flailing on the ground, or Bertle aka Dilf blasting balls off the ceiling with foot or fist. We will miss you guys. The 5 new guys signature moves TBD.

We had a team trip last weekend. Laid out all the team goals, expectations, roles, and grievances. First night we slept on a gymnastics pad that was harder than the Marienlyst gym floor, if thats possible, in sleeping bags. The next day, after maybe sleeping 2 hours because I couldn't get comfortable and Hjorth was snoring like a chain saw right next to me, we had breakfast and our first team drill was flag football. I ran QB for our squad. Spread the ball pretty well I think everyone on our team scored a touchdown or a PAT. We won 35-13, gave a pretty good beating to the other side. After that we biked to the military obstacle course just like we did the year before. Man that is tough work. Lunch was sandwiches and a beer and then we walked and talked with a partner all the way back to the city center to Munke Mose which was a good hour away. Once we all arrived we had another team building exercise where we had to use some strings and a bike inner tube to move a bucket filled with water to another bucket 50 ft away all while not coming closer than 5ft to the first bucket at any time. And once you have moved it to the other bucket you still need to dump all the water from bucket 1 to bucket two while not spilling any We failed the first time. Second time through we nailed it. After that we biked all the way out to Kaj's house which is not close either probably 30 minutes by bike. Once we got to Kaj's we had to set up a 9 meter x 3 meter tent so we could all "maybe" sleep under it. The "maybe" is because there was this weird secrecy to everything that we were doing. Not at any time did we really know what was going on or what was next. So every question we asked it was either "yea maybe" or "I don't know we will have to see". Once the tent was up everyone had to take a shower. No problem Kaj had a nice outdoor shower with only cold water. Wait what? Yea it was maybe 50 degrees outside and he had a only a cold water pipe on the shower. I said no way I'm not doing that, that is crazy. But according to Kaj no food if you don't shower. So I sucked it up and had the coldest shower of my life by far. It actually felt kind of good but I wouldn't do it day and night like Kaj half kiddingly said he does. After that we sat around a table and went over what our hour long walk talks were about but this time in front of the whole team for people to comment on. And finally at this time we had some ice cold beverages at hand. They were well deserved. We went through that and got ready for dinner. Just about everyone had a job to get the meal ready. Some in the kitchen, some on the grill, and some on table duty. It ran smoothly we ended up with a ton of meat. Chicken, steaks, and sausages. Cold ones going down and wine flowing we were having a good time. After dinner was done we had some more team stuff to do. This time it was called something like team or sport theater. We had to first play a game similar to telephone where you pass on a word down a line and see what you come up with, but this game was a bit different. You had three words to pass on, a weapon, a handicap, and a profession. With only acting using no words you had to get the next person down the line to guess the three words that the other team came up with. The first person in the line is the only one who knows the real words. Once you act each out and get a thumbs up you were done and out from the back room the next teammate would come out and the guy who thought he knew what you just showed him, did it all over again but with what he thought the words were. As you can imagine down the line things were lost and by the end it was hilarious. We had ninja star, dyslexia, and glass blower. I think at the end we had bare hands, illiterate, and fire eater. Bare hands was funny because it initially started out two words 1) ninja - so there was kicking and breaking of necks 2) outside pointing to a star. Then tying it all together. As it progressed to the end all that was left was a guy coming up and breaking someones neck going "ahhhh" it was really funny. We played a few more acting games that were hilarious and then got ready for bed around 2ish or so outside in the tent. Was really cold outside but the sleeping bags did a good job only the ground was so hard my back was and still is really tight. In the morning we had a nice pancake breakfast and went out for a walk to get a stretch in. We had one more team meeting and that concluded the team weekend. Lots of laughs and we got much closer as a team so it was overall a success.

Other than that we have just been practicing and lifting like usual. We did have a scrimmage last night in Arhus but it was pretty uneventful the competition if you can call it that was very poor. Good to see us in a 6 vs 6 against someone other than ourselves but the other team didn't help us much other than to put it bluntly waste our time. Sad but true. We have this weekend off and next week we will be very busy. We have a German second division team coming up to scrimmage us. And next weekend we have the Middelfart pre-season tournament. Like I was saying earlier I hope to be good to go by then otherwise I might go crazy. So it should be good to see how we match up even though it's just pre-season and doesn't really mean much other than bragging rights. We are looking good and I expect us to be just as good as last year or better. Things are looking good. All for now. Miss everyone at home. Talk soon.