Sunday, October 10, 2010

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 2nd 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.