January 30, 2011

My team won our game last night 8-3 against Vallentuna. The makeup of my team has changed in the past week. Our head coach has been in the hospital for the past week, which has forced our oft absent assistant coach to fill his spot. However, he let our manager know on Thursday that he was going on a vacation this weekend for his anniversary. To make it even worse, we lost our starting goalie to Djurgarden IF, a SuperElite team in Stockholm. Finally, some of our players are sick and missed the game. So all these losses left our team shorthanded and coach-less. Thankfully, two coaches who coach younger Nacka teams volunteered to fill in. Our team had a fresh look and it showed on the ice. We scored 3 goals in the first 6 minutes. We dominated the entire game and played with a new intensity. Unfortunately, our team lost another player in the beginning of the third period. Victor Gortz was hit hard into the boards while skating the puck up the left side. The hit was not huge, but Victor appeared to be in excruciating pain as he was screaming and rolling around on the ice. To make a long story short, an ambulance came an hour after the hit and the game finally resumed play after the 90 minute delay. Victor was hospitalized with back pains. Our team hopes that Victor will be back on the ice soon, as he is one of our leading scorers.

Victor's injury was another example of how Swedes treat injuries and sickness. I do not mean to sound insensitive because I luckily haven't experienced either since being in Sweden, but I am used to a different mentality at home. When I played for Delbarton, the only thing that kept one off of the ice was any form of serious injury or sickness. We didn't let the minor injuries or the occasional cold keep us off the ice. If we did miss some time, we were itching to get back on the ice and doing everything we could to get healthy. Here, however, players and parents are much more sensitive to sickness or injury. For example, a player will rehab 'not feeling well' for a week. Other times, players will be out for a couple weeks for injuries that I never saw happen or heard about. This may have to do with the fact that health care is entirely government funded and that everyone has access to it. Yet, I see this careful attitude also parallel the soft-spoken, reserved, non-confrontational behavior that most Swedes possess. They are extremely organized and punctual and they do not like when things go off course. Americans tend to be less proficient in that area.

We have 5 games left and still hope to finish in second place. Sean's dad arrives on February 12th, just in time for Sean's birthday, which is on the 13th.

I have a game at home on Wednesday against Trangsund.