With practice and games right up until our Christmas break, I didn't get out of New York until Dec. 22. It was supposed to be a pretty easy trip back with one stop in Chicago on the way home to LA. Sadly, blizzards in the midwest had me delayed for two days before I made it home to California!!
So, Christmas break with the family was super short, but at least I made it home. On Dec. 27 it was back to New York to begin our training camp at Lake Placid.
Let me begin by saying that the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center is tight! It isn't particularly huge, but everything about it was nice. It was about as ideal as a training center could be (for the short-term, anyway).
We were sleeping three to a room, which was pretty fun. I was rooming with my teammates Megan Ballard (our right back) and Melanie McCormick, our leftie (right wing). It was a fun room to be in, and when we weren't napping or listening to music, we were dominating the board games as the "Rm 205 Mafia." Just for the record, we won at Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and Catchphrase! It was a blast.
The food- also fantastic. In fact, there was nothing better than waking up and having a bunch of fresh fruit, eggs, waffles/pancakes, ten kinds of cereal ready to be eaten. I was in heaven, and the only reason that I didn't gorge myself was because we had morning practice AFTER breakfast. So sadly I had to excercise a little bit of self-control. Lunch and dinner were equally exciting with my favorite being the steak and potatoes. I love it when I get to eat food for free that I can't normally afford to buy for myself. Lake Placid food gets a big thumbs up!
Granted, as fantastic as the living experience was (comfy rooms, great food, and nap time), our purpose for being at the training center was to prepare for our games against Canada. In that sense, when it came down to practice, it was time to be serious. For the most part our training sessions were really good. We had four coaches around, including our two new Scandinavian coaches (Thomas from Denmark, and Niclas our goalie coach from Sweden), and we spent a lot of time working in game-like situations and scrimmages. Most days we did two practices, one in the morning and another one in the evening. It was tough!!
The first game took place on January 4th at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center. Going into the game I felt pretty prepared, we'd had a lot of good practices and everyone seemed really motivated (we even watched the movie "Miracle" before we played, trying to get into the right spirit of things). Sadly, when we got out onto the court, something was off. The first half ended us with us behind by three, and then Canada took it away in the second half to win 28-22.
We played the second game in Montreal on January 6, and again we lost to Canada, who won the North American slot for the Pan-American Games. Thankfully we still have a chance to go to the Pan-Am Games if we win at the second-chance tournament in Mexico. It's just sad that we lost twice to a team we can beat!
Click here to read more about these games in the WNT press release
Friday, January 12, 2007
Sweden Recap
You can read more about the Sweden trip on our team blog: WNT Abroad.
But as for my personal interpretation- it was a great trip! After our three-week tour of Europe over the summer, most of us agreed that it didn't get much better than our stay in Stralsund, Germany. Well, Sweden definitely gave Germany a run for its money!
Firstly, we stayed in these cool cottages which were nice because we had our own kitchen and it was just two of us to our room. The team that was hosting us also brought us some good food to stock our kitchens so we could make a nice breakfast in the morning with eggs, french toast, and juice. Yummy.
As for the handball side of things, it was a great mix of training sessions and games. The schedule was pretty nice while we were there, so even though we played nearly every day, we still had down time in between our 10:00am practice and our evening games. I got to read, nap, and just chill with my teammates. Good times!
Another highlight of the trip had to be going to the European Championships in Stockholm. We saw a total of four games, and it was amazing! It definitely hyped me up for thinking about all of the international competitions we have coming up this year.
The games went pretty well for us, which was a good confidence booster for all of us. Even when we played the Sweden U-20 team, we held on in the first half 12-12! I think one big thing we learned on our trip is that we have to keep pushing the ball and playing at a higher speed, that's how handball seems to be played at the higher level.
Definitely check out the team blog so you can get a feel for what the trip was like on a day-to-day basis. It is too much for me to try to cram in one blog post!!
But as for my personal interpretation- it was a great trip! After our three-week tour of Europe over the summer, most of us agreed that it didn't get much better than our stay in Stralsund, Germany. Well, Sweden definitely gave Germany a run for its money!
Firstly, we stayed in these cool cottages which were nice because we had our own kitchen and it was just two of us to our room. The team that was hosting us also brought us some good food to stock our kitchens so we could make a nice breakfast in the morning with eggs, french toast, and juice. Yummy.
As for the handball side of things, it was a great mix of training sessions and games. The schedule was pretty nice while we were there, so even though we played nearly every day, we still had down time in between our 10:00am practice and our evening games. I got to read, nap, and just chill with my teammates. Good times!
Another highlight of the trip had to be going to the European Championships in Stockholm. We saw a total of four games, and it was amazing! It definitely hyped me up for thinking about all of the international competitions we have coming up this year.
The games went pretty well for us, which was a good confidence booster for all of us. Even when we played the Sweden U-20 team, we held on in the first half 12-12! I think one big thing we learned on our trip is that we have to keep pushing the ball and playing at a higher speed, that's how handball seems to be played at the higher level.
Definitely check out the team blog so you can get a feel for what the trip was like on a day-to-day basis. It is too much for me to try to cram in one blog post!!
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