why this american is rooting for sweden

For all of the sports inclined people out there, it won’t be news that the Olympics are currently occurring. For all of the women’s soccer enthusiasts it won’t be news that the USA woman’s team has won four golds in the past five Olympics. Or I should say, six Olympics, as this Olympics marks a marked decline in the teams results with a loss to Sweden in the quarter finals.

Why, you may ask, would this American then be rooting for the exact team that dashed the USA team’s chances and dreams of winning a fourth consecutive Olympic gold? My answer is Pia Sundhage.

To summarize the media coverage (and awesome memes), after the US lost to Sweden in a nail-biting shoot out, Hope Solo called the Swedish team a bunch of cowards. When asked about this comment Pia Sundhage said “Jag skiter i vilket. Jag ska till Rio, hon ska hem.” The popular translation of which is: “I don’t give a crap. I’m going to Rio, she’s going home”. My personal translation would be “I don’t give a shit…” but I suppose that makes for a slightly less child-friendly meme. So I understand the distinction.

What makes tonight’s final even more exciting is the nail-biting shootout win that brought the Swedish team here. After an initial loss to Brazil in group play, Sweden came to play this past Tuesday. Overcoming the initial loss was no small thing either, the two team’s first meeting this Olympics was an epic loss for Sweden with Brazil finding the back of the net a full five times. But with another grand display of defensive play the Swedish team did it again in five shootout shots, with two saves by Lindahl.

And yes, no one in Sweden has any finger nails anymore after all this shootout action.

The cherry on top is that Pia Sundhage was the head coach of the US women’s team for the past two Olympic golds. That is to say Sundhage is coaching tonight for her third gold in a row. Making their win over the US team a little sweeter for the Swedes, and her response to Solo’s comments all the better. But wait, this also happened: A reporter asked Sundhage if she could coach a men’s team. What do you think she said?

Mic drop…

Now, I hope I’ve convinced you to also root for Sweden tonight. As we say in Sweden: Heja Sverige!

 

go skating on a bandy arena while it’s snowing

Just to be clear, it needs to be an outdoor bandy arena. Little did I know when I wrote this list, there are, in fact, indoor bandy arenas. The thing is, outdoor hockey rinks work just as well.

A couple of winters ago I was practicing with my hockey team on the outdoor rink.

There’s something about being outdoors in the winter. Working up a sweat and having a blast with your teammates. It’s a feeling that’s hard to beat. I think working out and training during the winter is especially important. Especially when one lives in Sweden where the winters are dark like night for 6 months. Getting outdoors in the winter time can also be less than motivating. Which is why I highly recommend this activity.

Gliding along in a muffled world of white while snow sprinkles down from above. It’s truly an experience.

The thing is, there is no longer an outdoor hockey rink where we play. A second rink was built this past year, and finished for this season.

It’s a beautiful rink, fully equipped for sled hockey. We even have our very own sled hockey team here in town.

Check out those clear boards!

 

Luckily there’s still the outdoor bandy arena. So there really is no down side. It’s soon to be spring in Sweden, but don’t forget to lace up those skates next year and take the time to be outdoors in the winter. It’s worth it.

another season come and gone

Not only is it officially spring, but the hockey season has officially ended.

If you haven’t read my previous hockey update, check it out here. We had our last playoff games this past weekend. Although we didn’t quite get the results we were hoping for, we still had some successes along the way. Here were the results:

We came in 7th place. It would have been great to be one of the four teams moving up to Riksserien, the highest women’s league in Sweden, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us this year. But, like I said there were some positive aspects of our play. We won 2 games, and tied 2, winning 1 game in over time. Against the team that has played their season completely undefeated, Djurgården, we were the only team in kvalserien to score against them in both games in playoffs, scoring one goal each time we played them. We were also the only team to win a period against Djurgården in the entire playoff series, our third period in the second game against them we won 1-0. We took points from Sundsvall, winning in overtime our first game against them. We worked hard, but most importantly we came together as a team.

We played with determination and heart. Although we didn’t achieve all of our goals, and while it is difficult to be completely satisfied placing 7th in the standings it’s important to focus on the forward strides we did make. Live and learn.

Here’s looking forward to what next season will bring, and all the hard work to come during the off-season.

riding motorcycles

Two years ago Evelina and I went on a little adventure. All my best intentions had me writing this post two years ago, as well. Here it is at long last.

Evelina’s cousin has a few motorcycles, and offered us to come play. For us that was a resounding YES! We went out to a track where we got to try out two different bikes, one of which is a Honda. Learning to ride a motorcycle wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, and it was WAY more fun than I thought it would be.

We did pretty much just ride around in circles, but trying something new it the beautiful summer sun is definitely a memory I’ll hold dear.

Since then Rasmus has invited us to come and start learning even more in order to get a motorcycle license. At the time I politely declined, thinking that it was more important to focus on my driver’s licence. The much fabled Swedish licence to drive, who may make an appearance on this blog, coming soon.

twenty three. buy a guitar and learn five songs

After four successfully completed goals I thought it time to bring up one that remains incomplete.

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Now, I did not buy a guitar in the past 3 years, nor have I learned to play five songs. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t gotten anywhere with this one.

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I did borrow a guitar from work, and signed up for a guitar course on Coursera. When I wrote the goal of five songs I imagined picking five of my all time favorite songs. But as time went on, I thought I might settle for Mary had a Little Lamb and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Mostly because this would also be fun to play at work. And Ke$al’s Cannibal isn’t really appropriate for pre-school aged children.

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But, also, Baa Baa Black Sheep is probably a lot easier to play.

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Well, as mentioned, this one still remains on the to do list. Maybe I’ll have to take five weeks of paid vacation this fall and learn me some guitar.

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an apology

I have been away now for over two months. Those of you who have followed this blog for a while can attest to the fact that this tends to happen occasionally.

Life gets busy.

In the recent months I have been wrapping up my Swedish as a second language course – the final exam is tomorrow. I’ve been running like a mad woman. I’ve travelled across the Atlantic, which was lovely, I’ve hosted a friend here in Sweden, and I’ve been party planning. I’m well on my way to taking my driver’s test at the end of the month. Work has also made a big appearance in my scheduling, as we’ve entered the busiest time of the year – the end of the school year. Meetings galore!

I would like to say that you’ll all soon get to hear more about these exciting events soon. But there are no guarantees. Especially with the exciting announcement that’s coming up.

Tune in tomorrow to see what’s in store!

In the mean time, I will leave you with this lovely thought from Brian Andreas:

My own picture, Brian’s words.

season’s ending

Not only does it feel like Spring in Sweden, but they hockey season is ending as well. As of my latest hockey update, around half way through our season, I discussed our team’s goals and expectations that we discussed last summer about what our expectations for the upcoming season were.

Looking back, I think we have had a successful season. Concerning the wordclouds I made, I would gladly say that we have found success in all categories…but one. Unfortunately this year we did not make it to AllEttan (take another look at the previous post for an explanation of AllEttan).

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Last year we were one win away from AllEttan. This year we were three wins away from AllEttan. But all was not a disappointment. We play in a tight league, and all the games this season were close competitions. So, really, when you look at the season over all it was certainly a good one.

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Not making it to AllEttan was a let down, but the continuance series was a success this year, as it was last year. As in the regular series we continued to play close games. The continuance series is six games, where the four teams who did not move on to AllEttan play each other twice. Of our six games four of them were taken to shoot outs, where we were able to take an extra point in two of them. Our team fought hard, and lead the continuance play in points throughout the series, unfortunately only up until the last game. The loss of the extra point gave us equal points with AIK, who had one extra point in goal differential and therefore won the series. Still an over all success for the team though.

I’m proud of the work we have accomplished as a team, and look forward to start off ice training. (Accompanied by my marathon training of course.) I’m a little less proud of my personal statistics in the continuance series. I’m certainly glad I was able to score 2 shoot out goals, as well as another two goals and an assist in regular play, to land 4th over all in points. (First in decisive goals.) However, my penalty minutes are embarrassing. Before the game today I had 14 minutes in the box.

Luckily I managed to get my act together for the final match up of the season, but as the most penalized player in the continuance series I can’t really count that as a win. In the off-season, as well as focusing on forward strides in my fitness, I’ll have to focus on clean play. I’ve yet to figure out how to work out for that, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

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See you in the gym!

sweden : portugal :: zlatan : ronaldo

The other day the idrottsgalan was on television. That’s Athletics Gala for all you non-Swedish speakers out there. Where the athletes of Sweden are awarded prizes and it is broadcast on television.

Evelina really wanted to see it because a friend of hers was there. A friend and former teammate. The captain of the Swedish Women’s National ice hockey team. Fancy. We turned the TV on just in time, as she was being interviewed.

At this Gala Zlatan Ibrohimavic was up for a number of awards. He wasn’t actually there, so this picture showed up on the screen a lot:

picture found here

Seeing Zlatan reminded me of a time when the hockey team I play for worked at an event. We work at various events in order to earn money for our team. To pay for bus trips and such. The event was a soccer game, and yes Zlatan was on the field. It was a match up between Sweden and Portugal. Or, as many sports news outlets discussed, a competition between Zlatan Ibrohimovic (of Sweden – if that wasn’t yet clear), and Christiano Ranaldo (of Portugal).

picture found here

Now, I don’t claim to know very much about soccer (also known across the world as football). To be honest, before the game at The Globe in Stockholm, I didn’t even know what Christinao Ronaldo looked like. The only thing I knew about him was that one of the children at my pre-school claims to be his brother. (They don’t share a last name, so I have my doubts.)

After seeing him in person though, on the field, looking smoking. I think I may have my first crush on a soccer player. (Sorry Beckham.) This athlete is good looking, to say the least. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about his Swedish counterpart. I enjoyed working the game, and getting peeks at the play on the field. As well as standing field-side. (Do they say that in soccer? My goal was to apply “court-side” to soccer.) Live soccer is actually relatively exciting. I can see why so many people are absolutely insane about it. Alright, maybe there should be a limit to the insanity…but then it wouldn’t be insanity, would it?

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2013-2014 hockey season

Every hockey season spans two years. Since starting off the hockey season in September we have come a long way.  The second half of the season starts tomorrow with a game in Stockholm.

Back in September we had a team bonding day where we played different team bonding games. Games that involved long poles, cooking meat sauce and rock climbing. It was a great day, where lots of bonding took place.

We had a few serious conversations about our goals that day. I thought it’d be fun to take a look back, now that we’re embarking on a new year and the second half of regular play. Which is why I made a word cloud, using the fancy Java found here. Before our season started up we had the following goals and ideas about what this season would look like and what it would take to get where we wanted to be.

Yes this is in Swedish. For those of you less adept at the Swedish language I also made one in English.

This is how we thought, felt, and expected to act at the beginning of the season. This is what we thought we would need to achieve in order to reach our goals.

Side bar: I know I didn’t translate “allettan”. Let me explain. We play in Division 1 East. That entails that at the end of our season three teams from our division move on to compete in a tournament called “allettan”. Allettan is a compilation of the top teams of Division 1 across Sweden. The top two teams from the allettan tournament go on to compete with the bottom two teams in riksserien for a spot in next years riksserien (the highest women’s hockey league in Sweden).

I thought it would be interesting to take a look again at what we were looking to get out of this season. How well have we lived up to these goals? It may be too soon to tell. We still have a chance at making it to allettan, but the road ahead will be a long one. We will have to work harder than we have worked thus far. I still think all of these words have a place in describing our team. I hope they still do when the season wraps up.

happy lucia!

It’s that time again! Today is Lucia, so I hope you all have a happy happy day. Last year I wrote about the Lucia tradition here in Sweden. It’s a pretty big day.

You all remember the general gist of things. Swedes dress up in one of four outfits, walk around in a line while sing traditional songs, and then eat lussekatter & drink glögg.

This year at work a colleague and I were in charge of planning the Lucia train for the children at the pre-school. It was quite the task as over 200 people would be present. We were in charge of scheduling, assignment of different tasks, attendance, food, et cetera. Basically, this was my first endeavor into party planning – for 5 year olds. I think we pulled it off. My biggest fear was not realized (that someone would get set on fire – which was rational, we had open flame), and none of the children cried. The children seemed to have a grand ol’ time singing away the an outdoor stage, and the parents crowded around trying to get a good photo.

I would do it again next year. To be honest, just give me an excuse to wear a Santa hat and I’m in.

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