Sinsheim, Stuttgart and Snow

For the second time this year it snowed here!! I’m not talking a little dusting like we get in Vancouver and then it melts later that day I’m talking over a foot of snow just that day. I wasn’t too keen on all the snow being here because we had to drive to our game in Sinsheim about 2 hours north of us. But more I was nervous the club would say no to us keeping the sponsor mobile for the night as we had intended on heading out in Stuttgart for the night. Luckily the snow let up in the afternoon and we embarked on our trip to Sinsheim with our trusty Tom-tom (GPS) care of Megan and Jon.

We arrived in Sinsheim about 2 hours before match time and sat around until the other girls arrived 30 minutes after us. Our coaches seemed a little on edge before the game....they are very nervous that we might lose and it carried over to me a little bit today. During warm up I was a nervous a lot more than normal. I wasn’t sure if it was because we had a bye last weekend or that we had only worked on hitting combination plays in practice all week (something that is not my forte) or the vibe our coaches were giving off or just plain old nerves. Either way I needed to shake them before the game started!

Game 1: We started the first set a little slow....and by a little slow I mean really, really slow. We were passing well however we were struggling to put the ball away. If I could guess we had 6 or 7 hitting errors in the first 16 points of the game allowing Sinsheim to go up 14-8.

The start of the comeback!

We then got our act together and put together some nice plays and slowly climbed back into the game where we never looked back and took the first set by a score of 25-19.

Game 2: This game was by far our best over game of the night. Even though we struggled a bit on passing we were consistent in all other areas especially serving and defence. We were able to get the other team out of system and force them to set their outside hitters whom weren’t as strong as their middles or right side. There was one play I specifically remember....the rally must have been 30 second long both teams digging all the hard hits and no one able to put the ball away until we finally did. We were by far the most consistent I have seen our team play defence ever considering we are typically not the best defensive team! We won this game 25-23 although it felt as if we won by way more!!

Game 3: This game was our best serving set of the match. We basically served them off the court and won the set handily 25-14.

One of the few plays we actually had to convert in game 3 to win!

Our setter was a little all over the map with her set location so it was a good thing that we served well and didn’t need many opportunities to put the ball away. Another 3-0 victory which was greatly appreciated by everyone considering the past 2 matches we had been up 2-0 only to lose game 3! It was a good learning opportunity for our young team as we put the team away the first chance we had!!

Everyone was very happy that we won as we are now 6-0 and clearly in first place as we are the only team that is still undefeated!! We even had a cheering squad at the game. My friend Kelly who plays for the 1st team in Sinsheim came out to watch and Megan tagged along for the road trip. From the club we had our manager, our PA announcer, our Physiotherapist, the club president’s husband, our manager’s girlfriend and our setter’s 5 month old baby boy! We almost brought more fans than were at the game for the other team. It is definitely different than the 1000 people we play for at home every weekend! It will probably be a little quiet at our next game as well as we are on the road in Wiesloch! The best part will be having my own cheering section there in my mom and my uncle who arrive on Thursday!

After the game we headed into Stuttgart to celebrate the victory with a night out on the town. In Villingen there isn’t a club to go dancing at so we (Michele, Jana, Megan and I) were all very excited to hit the D floor! We heard that the place to go was Perkin’s Park on the hill in Stuttgart so after meeting up with one of the guys from the basketball team and his friends we headed to Perkin’s Park where we danced until the wee hours of the morning.

Me with Michele, Megan and Jana at Perkin's Park

It was a good thing we didn’t head home until the next morning because it snowed for the whole night and the roads were very dangerous.
The weather was nice all day until the evening when I went to the hockey game with Megan to watch her boyfriend Jon play. We walked to the game from her house and I have never been so frozen before I got to the game on our 15 minute walk. As I mentioned previously the arena where they play has 2 open walls that let all the cold air in and you feel like you are at a pond hockey game. Well tonight in addition to it being cold it was also snowing outside and the wind was carrying the snow onto the ice! Only in Germany! Megan and I managed to find a spot to stand that wasn’t directly in the freezing cold wind so the game was moderately enjoyable. Unfortunately the guys lost 4-3 in one of the worst refereed games I have ever seen. It seemed like every face off one or both guys being waved out, the linesman was having some serious difficulties that night. Schwenningen was down 3-2 early in the third when they tried to mount a comeback with Megan’s boyfriend scoring the tying goal only to have the other team score a couple of minutes later when the puck deflected off an arm and into the goal. It was a tough goal to lose on. Other than taking 2 hours for my toes to defrost and being driven home in a blizzard it was a good evening and I couldn’t have been happier to watch hockey! Hopefully they’ll get back in the win column next weekend!
Until next time.....Tschus!