Huge Week for the Gold Diggers

It's the beginning of a very important week here as we prepare for our game against the London Blitz in the semifinal of the EFAF Cup. The winner of this game gets to take on the Wild Boars from a place in Serbia that I cannot spell off the top of my head. As a team I know we are excited to play in a game of this magnitude and are embracing the challenge.

Well, let's rewind to last week. On Thursday I helped out on behalf of the team at a field day basically for kids in the Søllerød  town area I guess. There were hundreds of kids, it was unbelievable. I got there with two other players around 12:30 and left at 4:30. We brought some shoulder pads and helmets and some bags for the kids to beat up on instead of each other. The kids loved it, and I wish I would have taken a picture of the little kids in big ass pads and stuff. We had a couple kids that were there a long time. I made good friends with a little guy named Bjorn. We really couldn't talk because we knew little of each others language, but we was able to say some things such as "thanks" and "my name is". At one point he told his friend to say that and say what his name was, but I didn't catch it. I thought it was so neat that a little guy was trying to speak English to talk to me. I'm pretty sure I taught him how to say throw, since we played catch for a long time. It was an absolute blast.

The most difficult part was obviously not knowing the language that the kids were speaking to me. I would either respond by just saying English? (Ron Burgandy style) or taler engelsk and they would understand. If they looked puzzled, I would call one of the other guys over. The really neat thing would be when the kids would try to speak the language. I just know that if I were younger and learning a new language, I would be a bit shy to try to speak it. Towards the middle part of the day, I may not have understood everything, but I could pick up on words or actions and realize that kids wanted help with shoulder pads, or a helmet or something like that.

After that, I had the U19 practice as we prepped for the biggest game of our season so far against the Copenhagen Towers. It went well and we felt rather prepared going into Saturday.

Friday was a fun day as I met up with AG, Lars, and Simonsen to see the Hangover 2. We went to Simonsen's apartment and killed some time playing Call of Duty and NCAA Football before we had to leave. We then got some food and devoured some all you can eat ribs before enjoying the movie. The Danish movie theater system is much different that in America. Here, you have to reserve your tickets in advance and go pick them up in the theater before the show. Seating is assigned, and I'm not sure if you can pick you seat or really how that works, so there is no benefit to getting there super early for a movie to get good seats. We all thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as we have been talking about seeing it since the trailer came out. I enjoyed the laughs very much. We then went out for a bit, but I left early as I had to get up for the U19 game against the Towers.

I woke up in top form ready for a battle as we took on the visiting Towers. The game definitely lived up to the hype as we took home a 26-15, well earned victory. The first quarter was a battle for field position as we had the ball deep in our zone a few times. The offense and defense played a good game and allowed us to win. As a DL, we played some pretty solid football, but we made some costly assignment mistakes that hurt us at times. They did a great job taking in the coaching of the week, which was a big focus on hitting the QB when we get the chance, and boy did we rattle him! My favorite play of the game came in the 4th quarter as we are battling in a tight game. The Towers have the ball in their zone and throw complete a pass. Our DB is there and catches up to him to strip the ball and we recover it and are on the verge of returning it for a touchdown when the play just kind of stops. Apparently there was an inadvertent whistle somewhere along the way, which means the play never existed and is replayed. Great. The U19 has had at least 3 inadvertent whistles in their games this year, which is 3 more than I have ever had in my life. Don't know what the deal with that is, but whatever. The very next play, instead of tucking our heads and getting pissed, the Towers run a screen pass. Like a fantastically coached, smart DL, we have a few guys putting pressure on the QB, and our end reads the screen and covers the RB. The QB throws it past the RB right into one of our DBs hands. This time, no inadvertent whistle, Gold Diggers ball. One thing I noticed that I really loved seeing on that play when I went back to watch the film was one of our DBs. This DB, who is a smaller guy, went to take on their biggest OL with no fear at all, just trying to block for our guy. I absolutely loved it! The game ended and we celebrated a hard earned victory in a great game.

One of the parents takes pictures of the game. Here is the team after the big win!

After the game, I went over to one of the OL's apartment which is right by the field. We stuffed our faces with barbecue, which was absolutely delicious. I love barbecue and am so happy with the insane amount that I ate. We also watched the Champions League final and hung out. It was a lot of fun. I ate so much food, that I really didn't eat much of anything yesterday, I was so stuffed from Saturday night. Today, the weather got nicer and it didn't rain for the first time in what seems like a week. Like I said earlier we are prepping hard to travel to London and get the W. Hopefully the next time I right, we will be headed to the finals of the EFAF Cup!