LearnSweden Blog

A Hockey held heart!!!!!! and some skiing

 Live from the sofa............

How happy can one be when Sweden beats Finland to get into the top 8 of men's Olympic hockey? Very happy. Louis Erikkson scored two goals for the Swedish team and one of them in the first quarter,but the best goal was just right at the end. The fans in this living room were going crazy.

Now we will just have to wait until tomorrow to see how things are going to go.

Though I will watch any sport when it has to come to the Olympics, this girl stops for hockey. I just love the sport, always have, always will.

The other half of Learnsweden, however, has been firmly planning his day around the ski challenges. We were all so glad to see Anna Pärson come back and wish her much success in the slalom,.... and what about  Sweden's Charlotte Kalla winning a  silver medal in the cross country sprint? Yea!!! Way to go. Today Norway and Sweden will be natural rivals in the sprints. We will just have to see who ski's the fastest. I'm sure it will be Sweden, not that I'm biased or anything.

 

Go Anja Go!

It's the Olympics and I will be the first to tell you that I spend every night in front of the telli watching sports I didn't even know existed or only watch during the Olympics. One sport I always watch, however, and that is skiing. Wednesday night saw me coming off the sofa when Anja Pårson had a horrific fall on the downhill Alpine slope. Clearly she was on her way to a silver medal until she crashed. 

I was sure her Olympics were over, but no........I heard throughout Thursday that she was planning to ski in the super-combined, which is a downhill run and then the slalom. Anja, who was severly bruised on Wednesday was quite proud of her medals of the slope stating, "Normally I never bruise so I'm pretty pleased with my bruises."

Thursday night saw me back on the sofa wondering how she was going to get down that mountain?.... twice. Once I saw her come bounding out of the gate with an intense look on her face and steady skiing, I knew the others in the race had some competition. In the end she takes home a bronze medal. Way to go Anja.

 

Anja has had an illustrious career with a remarkable 41 wins (18 slalom, 11 giant slalom, 4 super-G, 5 downhill, 3 combined) on the World Cup circuit on which she made her debut as a 16-year-old in 1998.

The Stockhom Marathon

       

Each year, on the last Saturday in May, there is the Stockholm Marathon. Last Saturday in a very sunny and warm Stockholm it was time again. All around the town:
     

    

42.195 meters, a lot of water, a lot of sweat and a lot of running, there are some winners. There are winners that manage the whole marathon, that manage to do a better time than last year and of course thera are winners with the best time, both male and female.

      

     

    
We have been walking around Stockholm and stop to watch all the runners, and all that sweating around the town. We were so glad, not having this on our bodies, from running around in the heat.

    
The winners this year are:
Paul Kipkemei won at 2.15,34, seven minutes before the best Swede in third place. That is about 20 kilometers/hour and the best woman was Isabellah Andersson, born in Kenya, but now married to a Swede and a Swedish citizen, ran all the way at 2.33.52.

     

 
 

Spring came just in time for the Royal Palace Sprint

                       

       

On Wednesday, the 18th of March spring came to Stockholm. The sun was shining warmly and everywhere you looked you could see people enjoying the sun at cafes and anywhere else there was a place to sit in the sun.

      

I ended up going to the Royal Castle to see all of the great skiiers compete in the last part of the Ski Championship Cup, which ended last weekend in Falun.

     

  

  

Nearly 200 hundred skiiers from all over the world were skiing around the Royal Castle where they had brought in snow to manage the day. Totally there was 1030 meter of ski slopes.

         

       

 A lot of people were enjoying the sun and the skii competition, and then the crowd started screaming loudly when they saw the Swedish ski queen Charlotta Kalla wearing the number 17. 

        

                     

The King of Sweden opened the skii competion and surely where watching all the skiiers from a window somewhere in the castle. The former skii king of Sweden Thomas Wassberg was walking around everywhere controlling the snow and the slopes. He was the organizer of the event.

         

            

 It was a great event and wonderful day to just get out in the sun. Today the snow and grey is back but we are hopeful that another sunny day is coming soon our way.

I'm dreaming of a long ski race !

        

I'm really not sure how to go about this. It is a lifelong dream of mine to participate in the Vasaloppet. Despite the fact that where I live we get very little snow. I had this idea that we, as in, we at LearnSweden ,could form a company team. I could fly into Sweden, stay a couple of months and train rigorously, do the race and fly home. :) That was until one certain co-worker admitted that he never has any intention of getting near this race let alone participate in it. There is hope, however, because I haven't spoken to the teaching staff yet. So teachers brace yourself because I'm coming to you with my dreams on a platter. If they say NO I will just continue on .....alone, with my loud guter family members.

     

       

     

For those of you who have no idea what I'm babbling on about let me give you a little background.  Since 1922 people have been racing on cross country skis between Sälen and Mora, in Dalarna. It takes most skiers an average of 10 hours to complete this journey that is unless your name is Daniel Tynell. For the third time he has won the Vasaloppet with a staggering time of 4 hours,10 minutes, and 55 seconds. Our ladies winner was none other than Sandra Hansson who finished in 4 hours 43 minutes and 13 seconds. This year saw 15,000 participants.

To see the race to the finish have a look !

                  

(Today's photos are from a news source from previous year's races. The video is courtesy of svt.se)

Did you say Bandy or Brandy?

Mid-Winter Festival Day 7

It was an email from Per like no other. "Signe and I are having a father-daughter evening to go and watch bandy. The best part,however, is the bandykaffe. You know coffee with strong alcohol....(long pause)..........Signe will only have coffee while I enjoy my bandykaffee.  Well that's a relief, thought I.

I could only make one reply....Did you say bandy or brandy ?  Yes was the answer.

So what's Bandy?

(Per's Answer)

Sweden is the World Champions this year in the ice sport called Bandy. They won the finals against Russia. There are only a handful of countries which play this fine sport and Sweden is one of them. Other countries include: Russia, Finland, Norway,Ukraine,etc.

            

Today my daughter Signe and I were invited to a game between Hammarby,a Stockholm team, and Västerås. It was a very cold night at Zinkensdam, which is in the South part of town. Bandy isn't only a sport it always includes a culinary delight. First we had a Goulash Soup with a choice of wine or beer. Next came a great game of Bandy and then during halftime came, in my opinion, the most important thing.....Bandykaffe. To be able to manage, outside in the cold we need this cup of coffee with strong whisky or something simular.

   

Okej... to answer Valarie's question 'What is Bandy"

Eleven players on skates playing on a field of ice as big as a Swedish Association football field. Using a small ball and sticks, each team tries to score goals.   

Bandy is played on ice, using a single round ball. Two teams of eleven players each compete to get the ball into the other team's goal using sticks, thereby scoring a goal. The team that has scored more goals at the end of the game is the winner; if both teams have scored an equal number of goals, then the game is a draw. There are exceptions to this rule, however.

The primary rule is that the players (other than the goalkeepers) may not intentionally touch the ball with their heads, hands or arms during play. Although players usually use their sticks to move the ball around, they may use any part of their bodies other than their heads, hands or arms and may use their skates in a limited manner. Heading the ball will result in a five-minute penalty.

        

                          

      

It is such a fast game. Signe and I talked about how we wouldn't want to be a goalkeeper.
After a very chilly evening we both went home, warm after a Bandykaffe, but chilled after a cold night.

    

Late Villa goal leads to Spanish Victory

It looked like the match would end in a draw between Sweden and Spain. David Villa cinched a goal during injury time which perhaps has inched Spain a place in the quarterfinals of the European championship.

After Spain had controlled early in the game, Sweden remained diligent and patient. Isaksson played a great goal keeping game as he caught and kicked ball after ball out of the box zone. Ibrahimovic , taking the ball from Stoor at the far post , placed it in for the perfect goal.

Sweden had a couple of injured players in both Ibrahimovic and Christain Wilhelmsson.  Sweden has until Wednesday , Jun 18th to get their heads back in the game , where they will play against Russia.

To know more about Euro-Cup 2008 go to www.euro2008.uefa.com

Euro Cup Today

Hej Allihopa

I don't know what everybody is doing today but I know what I'm doing . In just an hour and a half Sweden will be playing in the Euro Cup against Spain. The match starts at 16:00 Austria time and noon EST on satellite and cable networks. There have already been some big upsets in the UEFA matches like Croatia beating Germany. ???? Sweden is playing so well and we will keep our fingers crossed for a great success today.  We will have highlights from the game later. Play On , Game On !!!!!