THURSDAY FEBUARY 19

We started off our day by eating another hearty breakfast of greasy potatoes, sausages, and butter filled crapes!! Mike was coaching a handball school this morning so we all went to practice with him and the students. We spent the rest of the day shopping and sightseeing, with most of us again being health freaks we ate supper at the gas station that consist of bacon wrapped hot dogs and pop. It seemed to help as we pulled off our last game with a big W agenced the treaff womens team that plays in the 3rd div. After being down by one at half with a score of 11-10 we finally pulled away with strong defence and only allowing 7 goals in the second half winning the game 29-18.

After that it was time for some quick pics and showers as 8 of our girls left for Olso a few hrs later. After dropping off the Oslo girls at the bus stop (where they would spend the next 8 hrs on a hot bus with bending roads) we went for a late supper to burger king then off to the candy store to get some snacks for the night. Now we are all just relaxing and packing to extend the shopping hrs tm.
See you all in 2 days!!!

Up to The Thigh In Dirty Water

Wednesday Feb. 20th

We started with a bang, well more like a sink hole. Our adventure began at Atlantic Road, which is about an hour drive from Molde. Its mostly a tourist sight, a giant bridge that crosses the Atlantic Ocean with a beautiful view of the ocean and mountains in the foreground. All this was nice and dandy, until the ground decided to eat Alexis Krook's foot. Oh how snow can be decieving. It took two of us to pull her out. . it took several minutes to get her, and her shoe out of the thigh high water that had consumed her. After that we ventured to the hustadmarmor, it is the factory that makes the white on paper. They distribute to 85% of the paper industry, not bad for little town outside of Molde! Not to mention the best lunch of the trip, thanks Alf :) Some people got the pleasure of visiting Jen's au pair house to make supper. Mmmmmm Tacos! After the tasty meal We headed off to the gym for our game against Molde Div. 2 Team. We started off well. with strong defence and got a few quick goals right off the bat. Later on we had trouble finishing and let them get back into the game. We fought hard to the end, coming up short. We couldnt let it get the best of us, since we had another game against Treff U-18. We finished off the night strong with a 20 goal lead. Back to the hotel for a well deserved rest, ready for a busy day of shopping and our final game.

Barf Bag Included

tuesday the 16th
Our day started out with finishing the sight seeing of Trondheim. We got to see the different architecture of Norway. The church we visited was occupied with a wedding at the time, yet it was cool to see the detailing on the outside. Then we got on the bus.... more of a feat than expected. Winding roads with blistering heat was not the combination of champions. Thank goodness for the intermission (the twenty minute ferry ride), it kept us from getting too car sick. Upon arriving we had a game against the U-16 Molde girls. We shook off the car sickness well because we won by approx. 20 goals. A lovely meal of pasta finished our night, which was an awesome change from the sandwiches :) It was a late night so our early practice was cancelled, the morning of sleep was muchly appreciated.

no supersize for you

Today started off with shopping and site seeing. we got welcomed to the mall by a local crazy man screaming and trying to join our group. Kit finally got new handball shoes after a good five years. Driving to Selbu we got lost about seven million times. All of the city names were very similar so we ended up turning around in Flonase(no not the nasal spray... however they had a statue of a man with a giant nose there!). We kept on losing each other in the vans so the first van would have to pull over and wait for mike n to catch up. When we finally arrived in Selbu, we walked in and thought "oh this team isnt that big" ... then it turned out to be the U12's... needless to say... the team we actually played did not look like 12 year olds, and definitely didn't play like them. At half time, mike rott was tossing Handball Alberta bracelets into the crowd and hit a girl in the eye... ha ha. After the game we had to hop right into the vans and drive to our next game. We played against CSK. We started off strong, but were really tired and ended up losing by 1. The team was nice enough to offer us a ride home so we wouldn't have to walk 3km to the train station. Then Alexis K found a new boyfriend, who worked at burger king. Which leads to our title... mike said that if we won our second game we could all have super sized meals... sadly we are still hungry. The teams were very nice to us, we received hand knitted gloves from the Selbu team. CSK gave mike and mike t-shirts.
Time for bed!
Melissa and Jodi
p.s. Kit loves Steve! (ya brant amber loves you too!... Josh.... no dice!)

A Humbling Learning Experience

After a much needed sleep, we were ready to go for a big game against the Levanger Elite Series team... aka the Norwegian Giants! We maintained a 1 goal lead 2 minutes into the game, before discovering what Elite Series handball really looks like! Size and speed were definitely a factor in our 39-15 loss. Our numerous turnovers and lack of transition really hurt our game plan... as did their 20+ fast break goals! The highlight of the game was Kristen Kitagawa’s two 7m goals! That’s right, an Alberta girl shot 100% on penalty shots... unheard of! Our set defence proved to be strong, backed by our goaltending (which was being scouted by the President of the local club!) The only thing that really seemed to slow Levanger down was when a timeout was taken so that chuncks of Lynsey’s hair could be removed from the hands of their defender. (Lynsey’s still trying to get the stickum out!) After the game we drove to Trondheim and enjoyed a delicious lunch consisting of waffles with sour cream/jam, brown cheese, and smoked salmon. We’re resting up for tomorrow’s games, so make sure to check out the blog to see the results of our doubleheader!

48 hours of no sleep and sex appeal...

So after 3 flights and a total of 20 hours of travelling we finally made it to Norway. Our trip started out a little rough since we sat in the airplane in Edmonton for an hour waiting for the fog to clear so we could take off, but after that all was good. We arrived in Norway to mild weather, tons of trees and a blanket of snow. It took us a while to get to the hotel in Levinger but all is good. We finally got to have a much anticipated nap at that time however it was tough to do since the hotel is under renovations and the constant drilling in the walls wasn't quite soothing enough to put us to sleep! But we managed of course.
Then we headed off to watch Levinger vs a Yugoslavian team in a Euro cup game. The girls are huge! We then played a Levinger team as well (not the same one obviously) and ended up winning 26-17! It took us a little while to work out the kinks and find our legs after so much travelling but considering the fact that we hadn't slept much in almost 48 hours it wasn't so bad. They did have this one girl who ripped my (Alexis) jersey and almost stripped me of it all in one motion... Putting the sex appeal back into handball!!!!!
So now we're off to bed to hopefully catch up on some sleep before starting all over again. So until tomorrow....
Alexis Baltimore & Alyssa Rayner

Playing Schedule

Date
Activities
Feburary 13th-14th
Be at Airport 6am, in front of Northwest Airlines Blue Handball Alberta Shirt on
EDMONTON/INTL MPLS/ST PAUL CHARTER 1022 Y 13 FEB 09 800A 1146A
MPLS/ST PAUL AMSTERDAM Fl# 6042 Y 13 FEB 09 315P 630A OK
AMSTERDAM VAERNES CHARTER 1173 Y 14 FEB 09 910A 1130A OK
Depart 12:00pm to Hotel in Levenger, Backelund hotel - http://norlandia.no/cgi-bin/norlandia/imaker?id=21737/
1:30pm-3:30-pm Lunch and Rest.
4:00pm- watch Live EHF Cup Match- Levanger vs Club Team from Slovika
6:30pm practice
8:30 Supper


Feb 15th
9:30am- Wake-up Breakfast
10:30am- Leave to Gym
12:00pm- Gm Vs J18 Levenger
2:00pm Lunch
3:00-4:00pm Rest
6:00pm Gm vs D2 and Elite Team Levenger
Change Hotels to http://www.choicehotels.no/hotels/hotel?hotel=NO030



Feb 16th
All Day Sightseeing and shopping in Trondhiem
2:30pm depart to Selbu (45min away from Trondhiem
5pm Game vs Shelbu D1 Team
8:30pm Vs CSK D3
Feb 17th
9:00am Breakfast
9:30-12:30pm Shopping in Trondheim, sightseeing and lunch
Depart by bus from Trondheim-Molde 1:35pm-Arrive in Molde 6:38pm
Go to Hotel-Rica Hotel http://www.rica-hotels.com/index.cfm?oa=hotel.display&con=429
7:15pm Light snack
8:45pm-10pm Match vs 16’s Molde (Player u-21 will play)
10:30 supper.

Feb 18th
7:00-8:30am Practice
9:00-Depart to Atlantic road http://www.atlanterhavsveien.no/e_index.html
1:00pm Lunch (Lunch and tour of Hustadmarmor)
2:30-4:30pm rest or shopping/sightseeing in Molde (up to each person)
5:15pm Light supper
6:00pm Depart for Match
7:15pm Match vs Mold D2
9:00pm- Gm vs 16’s Treff U-21 players will play

Feb 19th
10:00-11:30pm I am coaching handball school, players are welcome to come train, if not sleep in
12:00pm- cross Country skiing.
2:00-4:00 finalize and last shopping or rest
7:00pm Gm vs Treff D3
10:00pm Mike Rott, Alexis Baltimore, Kristen Kitagawa, Amber Smart, Melissa Smart, Kate Fenton and Angela Siegert depart to Oslo
Feb 20th
9:00am-Breakfast
9:30 go See the School and tour of the school I will work at if I get my Permit
http://www.molde.fhs.no/

Sightseeing and Tobogganing
4:35pm Take bus back to Trondheim
9:30pm Supper in Trondhiem and then take train to Airport
1am be at airport.


Feb 21st

VAERNES AMSTERDAM CHARTER 8336 Y 21 FEB 09 615A 850A OK
AMSTERDAM MPLS/ST PAUL CHARTER 41 Y 21 FEB 09 1020A 1230P OK
(go To Mall of America, Note all cost are ont he player to go to mall of america and food on this day)
MPLS/ST PAUL EDMONTON/INTL CHARTER 1023 Y 21 FEB 09 915P 1112P OK

Players Going on the trip

Here are the players who will be heading to Norway Feb 13-21st 2009
Goalies
Holly Deslaurier (Bayer)
Kim Ewanovich (Molde D2)
Right Wings
Jodi Ehrman (Bayer)
Tiana Moe (Gosa)
Left Wings
Kate Fenton (Pax)
Alexis Krook (Bayer)
Alyssa Rayner (Bayer)
Pivot
Laura Stafford (Pax)
Kristian Kitagawa (Pax)
Left Back
Alexis Baltimore (Gosa)
Mellissa Smart (Pax)
Center Back
Amber Smart (Pax)
Jen Randolph (Molde D2)
Right Back
Lynsey Nault (Gosa)
Angela Segert (Pax)
Coach
Mike Nahmiash
Team Manager
Mike Rott