My 15 U girls team

The DU15 girls team traveled to play in the Korsor Slagelse Volley Klubs Ungdomsstaevne 2008 on Saturday October 18th. The team started with only 6 players which meant lots of playing time for everyone. The girls competed against Lyngby first and after taking the first set 25-23 gave up the next two sets to lose a tight contest 2-1. Next, the team took on Grondal. Halfway through the first set, star setter Line came down with an ankle injury. Having only 6 players to begin with the remaining players were forced to play with 5 players. Abandoning the new system they had been learning, each player took turns passing, setting AND attacking. Henriette was a force at the net with each attack. With only 5 players, they beat Grondal 2-0 and beat Korsor-Slagelse 2-0 as well. The difference in the games was the girls ability to pass the ball directly to the setter and to consistently put the other team under pressure with serving. Marie Risse unleashed her cannon of a serve as opponents would duck for cover. Ag was automatic in their passing and
side out and come up with some very crucial blocks. The girls qualified for the semi-finals the following day. In a very even matched game against Gentofte, the girls continued to play with 5 players, however they were defeated 2-0. Feeling down but not out, the girls competed for the bronze medal against Amager. Splitting the first two sets, the girls went on to win the 3rd and final set 19-17 and secured the bronze medal. Astrid proved to be a very effective player, hitting shots around the block to score while Marie N was able to use a variety of shots including tips as well as hard hits to find the floor.
Although the DU15 girls were not able to implement their game plan that they have been working on for the past few months, they were able to demonstrate the variety of skills that each player has. They always stayed together and even when times starting to get tough, they seemed to know just what to do as teammates to bring each other back.
Congratulations!

Top Ten difference between Canada and Denmark

10. The street lights go from red, to yellow to green. Once it turns yellow you can start moving.
9. All the transport trucks are small and stubby in the front.
8. Everyone drives 140-150 on the highway, gets you everywhere nice and fast.
7. Everyone goes to Germany to buy beer since it costs about 25 dollars for 3 two fours.
6. Blonde hair and blue eyes, guys/girls... everyone!
5. People can drink here... clubs stay open until the early morning and the busiest time at the club is somewhere around 4am.
4. It doesn't just rain here. It can rain then be sunny, then rain again, the weather changes dramatically in just a few minutes. Conclusion: always have a rain jacket!
3. Power sockets are different. Do NOT, i repeat do NOT plug a Canadian power bar into an outlet, can cause a funny smell in your room!
2. Most television shows don't have commercials during the program. Even the American shows cut out the commercial beak until in between programming
1. They actually show volleyball on TV here. Mens/Women is all shown on TV.

And the very biggest difference about being in Denmark vs being in Canada....
I'm getting paid to play volleyball!!!

Being a Star in Vejle!

I was asked by the management of my team to be a guest at a Kidsvolley camp. Kidsvolley was started in Holland but has spread here. Basically, there are different levels depending on age and development. At the very begining, players are allowed to catch the ball at every position, but as they get older, different contacts must be volleyball contacts. There are even rules such as the first serve must be underhand and there must be 3 contacts or the other team gets the point. Anyways, I developed a powerpoint presentation and brought my projector and jumped on a train to Vejle. It's about 40 mins away. Olav was my chauffuer and picked me up at the station. During my presentation, I shared with them information about myself, found out a little about them, taught them the history of volleyball, and showed a video of japanese kids playing volleyball about their age (thanks dp!). The interesting thing is that not all the kids could speak english so Olav was also my translator!

After my presentation, we got to play a little bit of kidsvolley and i joined one of the teams! It was tonnes of fun and we even made a cheer (to, tre, frikadilla!) Frikadillas are a danish meat ball, but i love the word!

Anyways at the end, the kids said thank you and i signed a bunch of autographs! One has me sign his ball, his shirt AND his waterbottle!

I think being there was more fun for me than the kids! However, after speaking with Olav, he wants me to come back and do more tutorials as well as coach as many times as twice a week!!!

It's been a good week!

Game vs Aalborg

We had our third game of the season against Aalborg. It is the furthest we travel for a league game and after about a 3 hour drive we arrived in Aalborg. Our game was held in the same athletic complex that Aalborg played Manchester United about 2 weeks ago in football. The facilties were impecable. This team knocked out Middelfart last year in the semis in game 3 of the best of 3 series in the 5th set. They went on to lose to Marienlyst in the finals. We had seen them play at our tourniment but hadn't played them yet. Most of us were excited to play a new team as it had felt like we had been playing the same teams.

Well, they definetly were a new team. They picked up 3 new players since our tourni, 3 of them play on the Danish national team, and played incredible. In short, we could not pass their serves. They continually put passing pressure on us that we could not handle. One serve in particular was possibly the hardest server had the hardest serve i've ever had to pass. Instead of it simply being a fast spining serve, his serve would be that speed however it would not be spinning, it would be floating at you and changing directions in the air. I believe he alone had 6 aces on us in 3 sets!

Simply put, we were not prepared for this game. We lost 3-0 and the sets were not even close. Every time we started to get some rythim our passing would break down or we would make a hitting error. I do beleive they had an exceptional serving game (the week prior they lost to Gentofte and missed over 20 serves) however, we must be better than we were on saturday. Training will be paramount. We have a bye weekend and I have been spending much of my time and energy in the gym, getting stronger and faster.

First Coaching Tourni

taken from Middelfart-vk.dk

Resultater fra DU efter søndagens kampe 5.okt.

Her var hvad holdets træner, Parrish Offer skrev:

The D15 and D17 girls teams traveled to Veijl to play in FSYVBK Grand Prix. Both teams have been working hard to implement a new offensive system and this was the first chance to try it in a game situation. A team dropped out of the the D15 team's pool so their two round robin games were against the same team.

Unfortunately, they lost both 2-0, but all were fiercely competitive. The DU15 team won their third and final game and by the end of the day seemed to be very confident for their future games. Line Amussen showed true leadership and an ability to run a great offence.

The D17 team played two round robin games and Unfortunately they lost both as they were continuing to learn the new system. They're third and final game was a 2-0 victory, captivated by a 25-23 victory in the second set which included two miraculous digs on game point. Henriette was unstoppable both in her attack and consistent serve.

The games were a very good test to see where we stand as a team, what we are good at and what we need to work on.

DU15 endte som nr. 5 og DU17 som nr. 4.

Holdet spiller næste gang søndag den 26. oktober.

Game #2

We played Skobakken on Saturday October 4th. This is the team that we had a training match with and went 5 with in our tourni. Well this time around it was a little different. They proved to be not quite as difficult this time around as we were able to properly gameplan for a single game. We won the first set 25-15. Careful to not let the momentum slip away as we did the week prior against Marienlyst, we kept the foot on the gas. We won the next two sets 25-16, 25-17. Good to get under our belts.
STATS:
7 Kills, 2 errors, 12 Times Attacking, 3 aces

First League Match & Birthday Night in Odense

Our first league match was against Marienyst. We've played them a few times, but this was the first time that really mattered. They are in Odense pronounced oonza. It's the gym with the concrete floor!

The game was live on TV so that was kinda cool having video cameras and stuff. They interviewed some of the guys after the game. Mostly guys that speak Danish on both teams.

We knew were were in for a fight as they are the defending champions. We started off playing pretty well and won the first set 25-23. It all started to unravell after that. They continued to play at a high level and we dropped our passing making it really difficult to score. They begin blocking us all over the place. We lost the next 3 sets as we could not find rythim in our passing and attacking.Stats; 6 Kills, 5 errors, 13 Times Attacking

After that we decided to stay in Odense to party for the night. The guys had strict instructions from Leah to make sure I had a good time. They did not disappoint, we met up with the guys from Marienlyst and went to a clubg. George (who does not drink) drove us home at about 6am after the club.