Thursday, July 28, 2011

League Table & Fixtures

It's a good feeling to be back training again. All the players are raring to go and we're all looking forward to the second half of the season. Thought I'd share with you the current league table, as we head into the second half of the season; as well as our remaining fixtures. As you can see, we currently sit in 9th place in the league, but with a couple of wins we could easily climb into the top half of the table.






Monday, July 25, 2011

My Summer Break

Fishing in the Trondheim Fjord!

At the Rosenborg Vs Stabek game

At Harry Potter with some old teammates

My summer vacation is coming to an end and it feels like it just started! I've had a great two weeks off and managed to fit quite a bit in over the last two weeks. After our last game against FK Senja, I just relaxed at home in Oslo for a few days. I then travelled to a city nearby called Hamar, to watch my old team (FK Bodø/Glimt) play in a tournament. Hamar is about 2 hours away from Oslo by train. It was really nice to see the guys again, since I hadn't seen any of them since last October. I was only planning to stay for the day, but they asked me to stay with them at the hotel, so I ended up staying a bit longer. We went out to watch the new Harry Potter movie in 3D, which was fun. Most of all it was just great to see everyone again. I also joined the team for training one day, it was really nice to train with them again.

Once my old team got knocked out of the tournament, one of my friends from the team came to stay with me for a few days and a few of the other guys stayed with relatives in Oslo. We had a fun couple of days hanging out in the city; we went into the city centre quite a few times, trained a little bit and went to watch Stabek Vs Rosenborg. After my friends returned to Bodø, I travelled to Trondheim to visit my family there. The couple of days I spent there went by really quickly, but I had a really nice weekend. I was able to see another one of my good friends from last season, who lives in Trondheim. It was also my 21st Birthday this weekend and my family had a party for me, which was really nice of them. After the party, my cousin took me out on his boat and we went fishing in the Trondheim Fjord. I managed to catch a Cod, which I was pretty happy about, it was a great ending to a fun weekend and birthday. I'm back in Oslo now and we start training again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting back to training and seeing the team again. Our first game back is scheduled for next Monday.


Wednesday, July 20, 2011

RedNation Online

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Canadian soccer website, RedNation Online. In the interview, I talk about my development as a player growing up in Canada, the last three years I've spent in Europe and recently signing with my new club in Norway. You can check out my interview with RedNation at: http://www.rednationonline.ca/RedNationInterviewSeriesRobbieTice.aspx

Monday, July 11, 2011

Trip to Tromsø



I made my first trip to the Northern city Tromsø on the weekend. We had a game against FK Senja, a team located on a small Island near Tromsø. It was definitely a long travel day for us. Some teammates picked me up at around 7 am on Saturday and we drove to Oslo Gardermoen airport. The flight left at 8:50 am and is normally a 2 hour flight, but we arrived a bit earlier than expected. Once we landed in Tromsø, we drove for about 2 hours and stopped for a pre-game meal at a restaurant pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But the food was quite good; Chicken, rice and salad. After lunch we drove for about another hour and we finally reached Senja. It was surprisingly quite hot, not what you would expect when traveling North of the Arctic Circle.

We won the game 4-3. It was a really exciting and back and forth game. Overall a great result for the team, it’s never easy to travel that far for a game. We scored the winning goal in injury time and everyone started to celebrate like mad, when the ball went in. My team was pretty pumped and following the final whistle, all the players ran out of the stadium and I wasn’t to sure what was going on. The sea was right beside the stadium and I guess someone had mentioned before the game that if we won, we all had to swim in the Norwegian Sea. So the whole team went for a swim, everyone in full kit. The water wasn’t actually that cold and it felt great, because it was so hot out! I think it was 92 F, which is very uncommon there. Following the game we drove straight back to Tromsø and checked in at our hotel. We stayed at the Thon hotel downtown and it was really nice. Because this was our last game before our summer break (3 weeks off), we went out for pizza and then went out in the city as a team. It was a fun night and a good chance for me to get to know my teammates better off the field. In Tromsø, they have 24 hours of sunlight in the summer, which I experienced living in the North in Bodø last year. But it’s still a shock everytime you see it. We came outside at 3 am and it was completely light out, it’s really a weird feeling. It’s pretty unbelievable how far North Tromsø actually is. Its about 560 KM further North, than Bodø is. If you were to draw a line across the world to Canada, you would find yourself North of the Yukon Territories in the Beaufort Sea. Check out the map of Norway below:



On Sunday morning, we had a great breakfast at the hotel and I walked around the city with a few teammates, before we caught a taxi to the airport in the early afternoon. I got home at about 7 pm on Sunday and I was completely exhausted. It was definitely a long weekend. I’m really glad I got to check out Tromsø though, its always exciting to check out a new place. We now have the next two weeks off training and three weeks without any games. I’m looking forward to my time off, but I would rather continue training and playing! I’ll be looking to establish myself in the team when the season resumes and I’m looking forward to getting back to training already.

Robbie