The Silver Lining

Well, the grind did not go as well as planned. We lost a head to head match with the team we were tied for fourth place with in a five set screamer. We had a few chances to seal the deal, but choked in crunch time and have since settled at fifth place in the league. That being said, I don't feel like my team has underachieved. The league in Denmark is extremely divided with the top four teams carrying four or five American professionals, and the bottom three teams composed purely of Danish amateur players. Being that we only have one professional player and this team was nearly bumped to a lower league last season, 5th place is actually slightly above where we were predicted to finish.

I am disappointed we won't have a chance to compete in play-offs but I'm making an effort to keep my glass half full. My coach has been working with me in defense and serve receive for the past few weeks and for our last eight matches or so I will be a four-or-five-rotation part of the serve receive--an opportunity rarely, if ever, afforded to a middle blocker. I've also been playing a lot of right side, increasing my versatility as a player and making me more marketable for next season.

Aside from the technical stuff, I would have to say the silver lining of this gray cloud would be that my team no longer feels any pressure and its making playing with them much more enjoyable. Since we are not competing in play-offs, we must participate in play-outs. In play-outs, the bottom four teams play each other twice, then the two bottom finishers from that tournament are at risk of moving down a league. Because we competed well in the first half of the season, we have put ourselves in a nearly untouchable position in play-outs, giving us the ability to relax and enjoy the last few weeks of the season. We had a Fastelavns practice this past week, which is sort of the Danish version of halloween. Check out my Facebook page for more pictures of our costumes and festivities after practice :)

Still more optimistic, is my free time to travel now that our season ends in mid-April. I will be taking a trip to Germany after the season ends, and potentially a few more places when my dad visits at the end of April. I look forward to showing him how I have lived for the past seven months and helping him tap into his inner European. Expect many more pictures in the coming weeks!

Mid-grind update

Well, its mid-February and I'm pleased to say we are still in the running for play-offs. I am not pleased to say that we haven't exactly made it an easy run for ourselves. We did end up beating Fredriksburg very convincingly in 3 sets, but went on to lose to Fortuna in 4 sets and Lyngby in 3 sets. Lyngby was one of our "sure wins" and losing so severely really hurt the advantage we had over 5th place team Vordingborg. We currently sit at 1-3 in the final round and we need to end up at least 4-4.
 The next few weeks will be very tough but I'm reassured that we can do it by the team's effort last night. We had a tough match against Brondby, the 1st place team in the league. We haven't beaten them yet this season and they have 5 very capable Americans on the team. The girls fought hard for every point and had a few things gone a little differently, I think we could have taken that match. We have today at practice to work out a few kinks, then we play again tomorrow afternoon against Skobbakken at home. I would have originally labeled Skobbakken as a "sure win", but since it looks like anything can happen in this league, I've decided to take every set of every match one point at a time.
Updates on other aspects of life in Copenhagen will have to wait; this is the grind people.

The Grind

Many things have developed in the last two weeks. In our last home match against Holte, Dodi hurt her knee in the first set, which ended up being an ACL tear. She has a long road to recovery ahead of her and I wish her all the best. Unfortunately, this could not come at a worse time because we have the last round of regular season play coming up and we need to come out at least 4-4 to qualify for play-offs, 5-3 to get a sure spot.
Holger has made a few line-up changes to try and cover Dodi's former position. Simone, a very young player on the team, has taken over the second outside position where Stine used to be. Stine has been moved to Dodi's first outside position where she will have the chance to score a lot of points. I have been moved to right side, in order to create a sturdy block and score some more points in our out of system offense, and Vibeke, a very strong middle that recently came back from having a baby, is taking my old spot. I think these will be positive changes if we all work very hard to perform our new jobs. I am both excited and nervous to play a new position. I really enjoy playing all six rotations but having new responsibilities is quite a test of my discipline as well as my physical capabilities.
We start our expedition with this new line up this Saturday against Fredriksburg. We are 1-1with Fredriksburg and we play them at home. There are three teams that we "should beat" in this final round, and I consider Fredriksburg one of them. This weekend will be a huge test for us and I am excited to see how the girls respond to that test.
Six of our last eight matches are in February. Henceforth, February will be known as "the grind". We've got to concentrate and get through it and come out on the other side at least .500. Wish us luck, and stay tuned for the results :)

It's been a while

So, over a month has passed since my last entry, but to be honest not much has changed. We finished out the first half of the season with a couple bad losses, and I was out for a week with an achilles sprain in December. We are currently ranked third in the league, but I personally believe that with a little discipline and one or two upsets, we can end up in the top two when this is all said and done. December was rather boring for me, probably because I was just on autopilot for the last few weeks until I could go home for Christmas.

Christmas in the states was glorious. I ate Mexican food whenever possible, and home-cooked food when ever Mexican was not readily available. There is not Mexican food in Denmark, or none that tastes anything like Chipotle at least. I didn't even give myself a chance to get hungry at home--I'm not even kidding.

It was great to spend time with family and friends and I even made a few Danish holiday dishes for them to enjoy. My favorite part was making people try salte fisk, which are salty licorice candies that the Danes love for reasons beyond my comprehension. I think they are disgusting, and I took way too much pleasure in watching every American's face when they tried one for the first time. My grandpa actually liked them though, so I left the remaining fisks with him. 

I jetted over to Chicago to spend New Year's Eve with my long lost college teammates and I'm still recovering from the nights of excess that ensued. It's a good thing college only lasted four years because separately we are all reasonable ladies, but when put together we are a hilarious yet dangerous entourage of ridiculousness and any more time together would have killed me. 

So now I'm back in Copenhagen and I have a few things to look forward to. I start Danish classes next Monday so I will probably pick up enough Danish to get by just in time to go home. Additionally, I'm making a trip to Germany on our long weekend in late January and I look forward to doing some traveling. 

We play Vordingborg, the fourth place team, this Saturday in our new red jerseys. Wish me luck!