Home in Canada

I am currently home in Canada and enjoying a nice break from playing. Hard to believe that my season ended about two months ago, time is flying! It’s been so great for me to be able to spend some time at home and be with my family/friends. I have spent most of the past two and half years in Europe, only getting home for a few weeks at a time for the Christmas and Summer holidays, so its been a really nice break for me so far. I have been coaching for my old club, Peace Arch SC almost everyday which I’m really enjoying. I love being out on the field everyday and working with different youth teams, especially since it is the club I used to play for. I have also been training with my old team, which has been fun. I have mainly been focusing on getting myself into the gym on a regular basis and trying to improve my strength. I have been doing well with it since I got back and have been going at least 4-5 times a week. As we approach the New Year, I plan to keep training hard to get myself ready for next season.

I can’t believe Christmas and 2011 are just around the corner already. There are some really exciting things coming up for me in the New Year; I can’t write about them yet but keep checking back for updates. I will try to update the blog a lot more often from now on.

I have been receiving a lot of questions lately about what it’s like playing in Europe and I am more than happy to answer your questions. So if you’re a young player out there and you have any questions for me about playing abroad or soccer in general, please send me an email at robbie.tice@mac.com I will do my best to answer your questions! Also feel free to leave some comments on the blog, its always good to hear from my readers.

Robbie.

End of Season

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, the season is now wrapped up and I’m writing this while sitting on a plane heading back to Canada. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by and that it’s now October. By the time I post this on the blog, I will be sitting in my own room!

We ended up finishing in 2^nd Place in our division, one point behind the top team. It was disappointing because we had it in our hands two weeks ago; all we had to do was not lose any of our remaining games. But unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes. In my final game for the club, I had a great game. We were away to Meløy FK and I started at right wing. I started the game strong, setting up a few chances before getting an assist from a cross. In the second half, I scored my first goal for the club. It was a great feeling to finally get my name on the score sheet. The game finished up 10-0, which was a totally deserved result for the team. I was named as the game’s second best player in the newspaper the next day, so I was pretty happy. After I scored my goal, my teammates were happy to remind me of a deal, that I made with them when I first arrived. I made the mistake of saying when I scored my first goal for the team; I would sing the Canadian national anthem for everyone. They were very quick to point this out to me after I scored! So on the bus trip home, I had to stand in the middle of the bus and sing “Oh Canada” for everybody. It was pretty embarrassing!

Following the game vs Meloy, I had a couple more days in Bodø of training and I tried to enjoy it as much as possible. I had a really good time with some of my friends from the team and a great final night in Bodø on Saturday. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone, because I ended up making some great friends on the team, who I hope to see again soon. The experience overall was a great one and I would probably say my favorite experience of playing in Europe so far. Norway is a great country and I felt very at home there. When I got on the train to leave Bodø on Sunday morning, I felt a lot of different emotions. I was happy and excited to be heading for home, but at the same time I was sad to see the end of my season and to have to say goodbye to my friends there for now.

It’s going to be great to spend some time at home now during the off-season. I feel happy with what I have accomplished this year. There is no doubt in my mind that the time I spent training in Bodø for the last 5 months has helped me improve as a player a great deal. Now that I have some time off, I don’t plan to sit around and do nothing. I will probably take a week or so off before getting back into training. I want to return for pre-season next year stronger and more prepared then ever.

I will continue to update my blog while I’m home and write about what I’ve been doing while home, as well as stuff that I didn’t get a chance to write about while I was in Norway, so keep checking back. It has been a great year for me in Norway and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

Robbie.

Update

The last couple of days here have been pretty good. We had the day off today, as we usually do Sundays, which was nice. I had a pretty relaxing day and then went to watch the First team play against Sandnes ULF tonight. I thought Bodø/Glimt was easily going to win this one, but they ended up losing 2-1, after going up 1-0 in the first half.

We had pretty light training yesterday (Saturday morning) and Friday afternoon. On Thursday night we played against Fauske/Sprint. It was a big game for us because we had the chance to get a lead in the standings, but unfortunately we lost 3-1. Fauske were a decent team, one of the better teams we have played this year and they had some good players. In the end they finished their chances and deserved to win the game. We are now sitting in Second place, one point behind Stålkameratene; with 3 games each to go. It's going to be a close and interesting end to the season. We were supposed to play a game tomorrow night, but I've been told it is now postponed until Wednesday, because of a problem with the lights at the other teams field.

Below are some pictures I took from the First team's game tonight VS Sandnes ULF.

Game Vs. FK Herøy/Dønna

Yesterday we beat FK Herøy/Donna 5-0 at home, to stay in first place in our division. It's a good result for the team and we now have only four games remaining this season. We have a busy week coming up, with our last away games of the season. We play Thursday against FK Fauske/Sprint and also Monday against Meløy FK. Fauske is pretty close to here, about an hour away; but Meløy is a bit of a long trip, a couple of hours each way I think.

It is also a busy week for the first team, they have home games on Wednesday and Sunday, which I'm looking forward to watching. They also won tonight, 1-0 to stay in 5th place and inside the playoff zone in the First Division. I just found out we have an early morning training session tomorrow (08:15), so I better wrap this up. I'll write again during the week and try and get some more pictures up...

Robbie.

Games

In our last game (Monday, Sept. 6th) we played against another team from the city of Bodø, called IK Grand Bodø, who have an agreement with our club to use our stadium for their games. I came on as a sub with about 30 minutes left, at right wing. We ended up winning quite comfortably, 7-1. It was good to play and I thought I did well when I came on.

In our previous game we played against a club called Stålkameratene, who were in 1st place before the game. It was a huge game for us and them, as we wanted to move above them in the standings and they wanted to get further ahead of us. I think everybody expected a very tough and close game and it turned out to be the complete opposite of that. It was a very strange start to the game, we went down 1-0 within the first 10 seconds of the game, conceding the fastest goal I've ever seen in a game. We had the kick-off and passed it back to our goalkeeper, he went to clear it and it hit their striker and rebounded into the net. I was told the goal was 7 seconds into the game, it was pretty crazy; I think we all thought we were in for a long game. Our team reacted very well and turned things around completely. We ended up winning 10-1. I don't think anybody could believe it after the game. It was a great result and ended up putting us above them in first place in the league.

Tomorrow we are playing a club called FK Herøy/Dønna. It's a home game for us, but I believe they are from an island south of here. They are near the bottom of the standings, so hopefully we can pick up another three points and stay in first place.

Here is what our standings look like as of today (In Norwegian, but I'm sure everyone can figure them out! Also, I can see that the whole table isn't fitting on here, so basically we have 41 points, Stålkameratene also are on 41 points and Sandnessjøen have 37 points. We are in first place because of our better goal difference.)

PLASS	LAG	KAMPER	HJEMME				BORTE				TOTAL					POENG
			V	U	T	MÅL	V	U	T	MÅL	V	U	T	MÅL	DIFF
1	Bodø/Glimt 2	17	7	0	1	53 - 13	6	2	1	31 - 14	13	2	2	84 - 27	57	41
2	Stålkameratene	17	7	0	1	45 - 6	6	2	1	38 - 21	13	2	2	83 - 27	56	41
3	Sandnessjøen	18	7	3	0	27 - 10	4	1	3	17 - 15	11	4	3	44 - 25	19	37
4	Innstranden	17	6	1	2	29 - 19	5	1	2	22 - 13	11	2	4	51 - 32	19	35
5	Mosjøen	18	7	1	1	34 - 12	3	2	4	25 - 24	10	3	5	59 - 36	23	33
6	Fauske/Sprint	19	6	1	3	37 - 19	2	3	4	23 - 34	8	4	7	60 - 53	7	28
7	Steigen	19	2	2	5	16 - 31	3	3	4	17 - 25	5	5	9	33 - 56	-23	20
8	Tverlandet	18	3	2	5	29 - 29	2	2	4	19 - 28	5	4	9	48 - 57	-9	19
9	Brønnøysund	18	2	3	5	29 - 29	2	0	6	16 - 35	4	3	11	45 - 64	-19	15
10	Herøy/Dønna	18	2	2	4	17 - 20	2	0	8	14 - 32	4	2	12	31 - 52	-21	14
11	Meløy FK	18	1	0	7	12 - 37	3	0	7	20 - 48	4	0	14	32 - 85	-53	12
12	Grand Bodø	17	2	2	4	17 - 23	0	1	8	6 - 56	2	3	12	23 - 79	-56	9
* Lag sine kamper er ikke med i tabellutregning