Lulea Upset!

November 19, 2006 10:33pm

We won – upset the only undefeated team in the league on their home court!!

Home now after being gone just for about 12 hours, but I feel like I’ve been gone sooo much longer!

The journey… met up this morning at 10:30 with Erin, Emma, and Giovanna to drive about 45 mins to Arlanda. Our flight to Lulea left from the airport at noon and was only supposed to be an hour-or-so flight (out game was at 4pm). However, as we were up in the air and on our way there, the pilot came over the speaker system and told us that we were unable to land in Lulea because of too much fog. Lulea is about far north as you can fly and still be in Sweden. I guess at this time of year, when the lakes haven’t completely frozen over yet, there is dense ground fog. We landed in Skellefteå – a 2-hour bus ride from Lulea – instead. We ate our pregame meal in the airport in Skellefteå, then drove to the game on buses provided by the airline (so there were a bunch of other passengers from the flight on the bus with us too).

The other team was pleasant enough to delay the game until 4:30. We had 20 minutes of warm-up time and then tip-off! We played well enough to win – nothing spectacular on our end. Erin did a really good job of getting to the free throw line in the last quarter and the whole team played pretty good defense (against a team who normally scores many more points than the 60 or so points we gave up). I didn’t shoot great, so that wasn’t too hot. They were a really physical team, so it’s real helpful (and challenging too!) to try to play against that kind of team. They would even push your hands on your jump shot and call no fouls… I guess if you can make a shot while someone is fouling you, even better for you! It was a really terrific win though. Did I say that Lulea was undefeated… not anymore! We were even on Swedish tv (the highlight reel : ), so we heard. Oh, our trip home was thankfully uneventful aside from a very minor delay out if the Lulea airport.

Famous guy sighting: on the plane ride up north, there was a really famous Swedish guy on the flight. We got a picture with him (see my entry above for the link). Lasse Berghagen is a really really famous, influential, and super-well-known musician in Sweden. Even though Erin and I didn’t know who he was, it still seemed pretty cool – especially since many of my teammates were “freaking out” to see him and get our picture taken with him : ) One of them said it would be like us, in the U.S., seeing Dolly Parton, or something like that.

Tomorrow we don’t have shooting practice, but will be working out at night in the fitness club (aeroboxing and strength training most likely will be the agenda for the evening). In the afternoon, I’m hoping to head to Karolinska to meet up with more members of the lab.

Have a great week! Short one?! Right? With Thanksgiving coming up? Let me know what your plans are for Thanksgiving. I can live it vicariously through all of your turkey-eating : )