USA Fall 2010 Euro Tour

It’s a new month and a new week and I figure, time for a new blog. It’s been almost two weeks since the last time I scribed a blog and I’m sure you have all been eagerly awaiting an update. A lot has transpired in the last two weeks and I will do my best to fill you in on the specific events and happenings.

Let’s start with Jennifer; she is still mostly enjoying her day job of overseeing and encouraging 3-6 year olds in their individual plights of learning and growing up. She is actually dealing with 15 chocolate enthused young ones as I write this. Her school celebrated Halloween today and I can’t wait to hear stories about the costumes and actions of the crazy ones when she gets home. Jen recently went through her first round of parent-teacher conferences and was reminded how different Europe is from the U.S. when she found her parents enjoying wine and cheese as they met to discuss their kids. To say the least, Jen was surprised and a bit amused to see wine served at school, however I think it would make PTC’s even more interesting in the U.S. and should be considered. Jen really enjoys being able to drink wine with her coworkers and parents after a long day, school board meetings and school gatherings. She also said it is easier to break the news to parents about how their kid is a bully or how their kid refuses to play fairly when the parents have had a glass or two.

In more exciting news, Jen was named to the Women’s Team that will represent the U.S. against Canada in December! The Women’s Team was picked on the 20th of October and Jen was top of the list. What she has worked hard for all year is coming to fruition. We now have dates, times and places (12/21. 4:30 Lake Placid, 12/23 530 Montreal) and Jen knows the teammates she will be working with to get those two wins. She is thrilled to be a part of the team and excited for the competition. In other handball news, she still hasn’t been cleared to play for her team. She finally received her Official Visa and had the paperwork put into her passport at the beginning of last week. That is a huge positive, she can now legally be paid by her team and work and we can legally stay in Germany. However, her team must now go through another process to gain her player pass, we are desperately hoping that they finish them this week so she can play. She is very tired of practicing 5 days a week and not getting to play, especially because her team hasn’t won a game and we both feel that she could contribute on both ends in big ways. Her team is away this Saturday, hopefully she will be playing.

In more exciting news, I was also named to represent the U.S. on the Men’s Team against Canada. I am very excited and thankful for the chance. The decision came out last week after Coach Heath had the opportunity to see and evaluate the talent of the U.S. guys in Germany. He was nice enough to sacrifice a week of work and teaching to fly over to Germany last week and run a few practices and coach a conglomerate of Europe based U.S. men in a few friendly matches. We played and practiced from Monday to Thursday, winning 2 of our 3 games. Our first match was against Ober-Eschbach, the team that Mark Ortega plays for. It was apparent it was the first time we had all played together but we scraped together a win. Wednesday night we played SG Nussloch, the squad that Key, Chun, Mullin and Koerner play for. We lost by 3 goals I believe but had plenty of chances to tie or even go ahead in the last five minutes; their goalie came up with some big stops and we missed a few easy chances. Thursday night we played against SG Bruchkoebel, Hans and I club team. SGB led the entire game by 4 or 5 goals but we never gave up and fought back to tie it with 30 seconds left. Our intense 3-3 defense forced yet another turnover by SGB in the final seconds and Gary Hines was able to put away a goal to give us a 1-point win!

All in all the week was very good. Coach Heath was patient and knowledgeable and made the week very enjoyable. The games against our clubs helped to continue to build relations between German clubs and the U.S. federation. All three games had good turnouts in terms of crowds and all three clubs took care of us after the game. Ober-Eschbach’s club put together schnitzel and fries and unlimited drinks, Nussloch donated the best beer and SG Bruchkoebel put together a wonderful meal and a case of beer. Playing with English speakers for the entire week was refreshing and when we all get together in December and get a full week’s worth of work in, we have the chance to be a very formidable team. The possibilities, from my point of view, become endless with the dedication and talent we have in the current pool. I hope everybody else that has been selected is as dedicated and is working as hard as the guys based here in Germany. In a deal to allow Gary to play all week with the U.S. team, the guys based here will play another game this Wednesday against his team, 3rd Division HSG Bad Neustadt, to appease Gary’s coach. Look for a quick update on that later on this week.

So the table has been set for Canada, which gives everybody a month and half to finish preparing themselves the best they can. Jen and I are very excited and have already increased our training to ensure that we will be able to compete at the highest level come December. Jen would like to wish good luck to the girls competing this week down in Cuba. She really wishes she could have made it but due to the late notice, she could not get away from work or her club responsibilities.

I am still without a job, which is getting really frustrating. I have met with some boosters and other people from Bruchkobel who are supposed to be helping me out but I haven’t heard back from any of them. I have also been applying daily to jobs I have found on the Internet but nobody seems to want to hire me. Unbelievable. We are hoping to be able to move into an apartment very soon. We have inconvenienced the Self’s more than enough over the past three months and would love to be able to get out of their hair and enjoy a place of our own.

I’ve got a workout to get to, so this is it. Until next time, be easy.