First off, It was brought to my attention that I forgot to mention the BEST part of my summer, I got to spend a lot of time with the Princess in my life..Andrea..I may be a little bias but she is perfect. This picture was taken when we took her to the Zoo, she is now walking and talking, and I miss her everyday!Our first week was jammed with games by Euro hockey standards, 3 games in 5 nights. Our first game was against Mangelrud Star (MS), the Oslo based team that earned a promotion to the Elite League last spring. Before the game, there was all the first game excitement and jitters, however we were in an extra tough spot we had to win. It is good to be the best team on paper but it means that every night we get an 100% effort from whoever we play and anything other than a decisive win against a team like MS would have been tragic.
We came out hard and so did they. We were able to score fairly early, much to the pleasure of our crowd and I felt a sense of relief with our team. Our power-play added a second goal and we went to the first intermission up 2-0. Our dressing room was very loose between periods, in my opinion a little too loose, and we needed a reminder that this game was far from over. MS didn't give up at all and they were able to get a goal on a 5-3 power-play mid way through the period. While we were short handed, I went behind the net to clear the puck and shot it off the glass and out of play. The ref didn't hear or see it hit the glass however and he called me for delay of game, my second one of the game. (I deserved the first one) They scored while we were killing my penalty. Oops. As we did so many times last year, we responded well and scored quickly in response to their goal sending us into the 3rd with a 2 goal lead. I was really impressed with their overall team, they are much better than Furuset (the team who went down to the 2nd Division) and they kept coming in the 3rd. They sort of out played us for the first few minutes of the period but they weren't able to score. We then got the back breaker goal making it 4-1. Niklas Roest, who is visiting Detroit this summer, made it 5-1 in the final minutes and celebrated way too much. We all made fun of him, he said ''When you only score 3 a year, they are all huge goals'' Haha Game one ended 5-1, they had 23 shots..I was fairly pleased with the game overall.
Thursday we were to play one of our close rivals Comet, however mid-way through my pre-game nap I was woke up by a text message, all in Norwiegan, but I was able to understand enough to pick up that the game was cancelled. Apparently, there arena had corporate suites added and they failed some fire inspection on the day of the game. So the game was rescheduled. I am not sure for when though, hopefully not Christmas time!!!! So pheww...back to only 2 games this week, exactly what I signed up for when I decided to play in Europe!
Our 2nd game of the season was against Lorenskog, the team we beat in the 1st round of playoffs last year, and the new team of my goalie partner from last year Lars Haugen. They added some good imports to their team from last year hoping to improve on their 8th place finish, and it looks like they just might. Coming in we all knew they had already beat, Lillehammar and Valerenga, so it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.
The game started fast, both teams getting some chances including Lars stopping a penalty shot about 5 minutes in. That must have given them some momentum because right after they scored a goal off a face-off in our zone that hit 3 people before going over my shoulder and in. The next shift, they got a 2-1 and converted to make it 2-0 before the first period was over. We have come back from down 2 goals before but they for sure had confidence and were not backing down at all in 2nd. They scored early in 2nd on a weird play, first of all I made a bad pass and it got intercepted, they got a chance and I stopped it with my head but before I knew what happened, they batted it out of the air to make it 3-0. Our rink was very quite. They then made it 4-0 on the power-play off another botched play between my defenseman and me. After the period our coach was very positive and reminded us that we can win still....that we just needed 1 and the gates would open. He was right, 7 minutes in it was 4-3, Niklas started the scoring, without the big celebration this time, although I am sure he will glot, Lars is his best friend. They got a couple chances and I made some good saves, giving us a chance to win but it wasn't to be. We couldn't get the equalizer and they added an empty netter.... Not how we pictured a Saturday night home game. Back to work on Monday.... Highlights can be seen at this link. Scroll down to Sparta-Lorenskog http://msn.tv2sporten.no/ishockey/se-vifs-snuoperasjon-mot-frisk-2915491.html
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