Regardless of my usual behavior, I do not start going over this thing chronologically. Mainly because I simply cannot remember the order in which things happened. This may be because of my ever increasing memory problems (too much uni) or more likely because life was so hectic from time to time that the year from last autumn onward stormed by me like a haunted racing bunny on steroids. Indeed, it is absolutely positively beyond me how nine whole months can just float by without almost any kind of effort like a feather glides on top of a mirror clean ice surface when pushed along by a northern wind.
Most people probably noticed this as a massive drop in the blogging frequency but since most posts, if not all, were in Finnish anyway, the people who are capable of reading this load of bollocks probably weren't too excited about those posts anyway. That said, I am assuming that someone actually read them, or at least tried. In order to construct this post in to a some sort of relatively understandable entirety, I will section my thoughts in order to sandbox my stream of consciousness and pick up the relevant remaining pieces for you. Whoever you are. It could be that no one actually reads this, and this is just a way for me to clean up my thoughts and sort my memories while using some of the precious space internet has to offer. So in a way this posts acts the same way as sleeping for human mind and I am forced to do this by an external force so that I could sort out my memory and head. What if everything is just a dream and we sleep to escape in to an alternative reality, which actually is the Matrix inside a dream? Interesting... Anyway, the train goes on and waits for no one.
The Uni year 2011-12
The very relaxed pace we came accustomed to during year one was thrown out of the window and smashed to the hard pavement of London (yes, it is harder than the asphalt they use in Finland) during the very first sentence we heard from a lecturer. Chris Woodward did not mess about and after saying "Welcome to your second year in the London Met" he rapid fired 60 slides about the basics of biomechanics in front of us within approximately two hours and spoke over 5 minutes of every slide. It remains as a mystery to this day how he did it, but we are pretty sure that he has found a way to distort the space-time continuum in order to fulfill our heads with more stuff than Health & Safety recommends. But a sport student has to do what a sport student has to do because as Ronnie Coleman put it: There is nothing to it but to do it.
Year #2 was way, way more theoretical than the first one which was, let's be honest here: more about fun and games than really working hard. This blindsided at least yours truly, and the first exam weeks ran me over before I even had a chance to take the boxing stance to protect myself. Results of this could be seen in Evision at some point of the Spring semester as devastatingly low percentages were staring me in the eyeball across the screen. At this point it was painfully obvious that just cruising, mocking about, drinking beer, doing things for laughs and giggles and still getting A's and B's was not going to happen. If someone is wondering how bad the grades actually were, I can tell you that I was never in the danger of failing but "just passing" was not the plan when I decided to make the hike all the way to London-Town to study.
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| Even though I said it was theoretical, the data was not going to create itself. Happy to fill up a Douglas-bag anytime. |
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| I also participated in an interesting study that I already mentioned before at some point. Anyway, a Wingate test under way! |
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| Fun times at the Library... |
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| ...and at home. |
As most of you noticed, it is not clearly sport psychology as we know it and kinda weaves towards the sociological side of the art of sport psychology. But since our very own sport psychology GURU Christina Jacklin approved this approximately 2000 word long piece of my heart, soul and tears, I trust it like I trust the Soviet Union. Time will tell if my efforts will be rewarded and as usual, I fear the worst and make sure that my chin remains tightly tucked to my chest. I also kinda have a hunch of how the exams went, but if you actually read through this chapter, my expectations are pretty clear. Luckily majority of the final grade will be determined between the October of 2012 and the May of 2013. This gives me some to time and space to gather the pieces and try to scrape something together in order to successfully perform the final push at London Met.
Hockey Season 2011-12
The second season with the London Dragons began rather promisingly as I was named to be the Manager of the Dragons A and was allowed to took over the manager's email account as the King Dmitry who reigned this fearsome bunch since it's establishment stepped down from his throne. The newly found responsibilities included mostly contacting the returning guys and luring in new ones who contacted us via email over the super tight summer training period. But as soon as the beginning of the season drew closer and I actually had to do something else than just write emails, things got rather busy rather quick. Tryouts too place in October and things were looking very bright as we managed to gather around 30 guys to the tryouts held in the Dragons Den, Lee Valley Ice Center. The turnover from last season was simply massive and we only had a handful of returning players in both A- and B-team. But regardless of my best efforts, or maybe because of them, most of these players disappeared in to that grey mass of faces that people tend to call the capitol of England. When the season finally began, Bristol had already posted 8 forfeits in to the BUIHA Division 1 Standings and little did we know how prophetical that amount forfeited games would prove to be over the course of the season...
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| Bench was full of more and less familiar faces. |
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| Sexing it up. |
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| Treasurer and President taking notes. |
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| At the first social of the season our Coach Dan (on the lower left corner) named me as the Captain of the University of London Dragons A and I immediately rallied the troops to cover me from the flashing lights. |
The A team on the other hand was going strong and after losing the first war of the season against Oxford in hostile territory 8-7, the team marched from victory to victory. This was, if the opposing team and/or referees showed up. I wont go in to the details, but the whole season was overshadowed by an astonishing level of confusion, bad organisation from every party, bad weather (yes, snow prevented us from playing an ice hockey game), forfeits and more forfeits. Here are few pictures captured over the course of this weird, distorted caricature of an ice hockey season.
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| Dragons - Cambridge @ Lee Valley |
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| Chillin' at Nottingham bus station, around 3am. |
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| The reason why Oxford originally never made it to London... |
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| ...and when they did, the referees did not. A scrimmage ensued. |
After the disappointing regular season and a painfully close defeat to the rock-solid Oxford, the Dragons were ranked #3 in the nation before entering the Nationals Tournament in Sheffield. This made the 12-strong group of Dragons alongside with their few supporters (the gorgeous Sara and Chantale's fiancée) absolutely furious, livid and enraged. After struggling a 1-1 tie with Nottingham in the first game, this premier example of strong defensive hockey, team cohesion, willingness to battle and physical superiority was off to the races. Late on Saturday evening Cambridge fell in front of the Dragons for the third time this season, this time with the score of 6-2. On Sunday the Dragons tore apart Cardiff Redhawks 7-1, abused Newcastle Wildcats 4-2 and finished second in the Group 2 after Nottingham. We faced the last years champions Southampton Spitfires in the semis and the tactic was clear: shut down their number one playmaker and superstar. This strategy worked and after Freddy "The Body" Hellander finally woke up, he scored twice and duo Tippett-Hermans took care of the sudden death shootout. Final score 3-2 and Dragons were destined to face the home team Sheffield Bears in front of their rather loud home crowd.
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| Den Glider In! Dragons - Cambridge vol 3. |
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| It's in. Dragons - Redhawks |
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| The Team. Dragons - Newcastle about to start. |
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| Facey was stonewalled, goalie is still trying to figure out which way is up and Dragons are in the Final! |
Being down 1-0 after the first 20 minutes (these were 2 period games), the Dragons summoned everything left in the tank and then some. One of the rookies, Calum Mathison, tied the game in the second and once again the King of Sixpacks, Freddy Hellander was the man to score the all important goal. With only three and half minutes separating Dragons from the Championship, these individuals on the ice were not just a group of ice hockey players skating about. They were a giant beast, they were the enraged bastard child of a Minotaur and a Valkyrie after several years of performance enhancing "supplements", every single one of us was a Fredrik Hellander with a heart of a grizzly bear and a mindset of a highly paid mercenary on a mission. The willingness to sacrifice everything for the team in order to protect the lead by the tiniest of margins was something I have personally never witnessed before.
As the seconds rolled by and every player wearing a white jersey only appeared to become stronger and faster by the second while shouting out war cries to each other, it was clear that both the home crowd and the home team were stunned by the physical dominance these 10 skaters were showcasing against a team that was outnumbering them heavily. Final faceoff took place after an icing with only a single second left in the clock and as the puck dropped, the galaxies exploded. Helmets, gloves and sticks were flying everywhere as players raced to surround the victorious goaltender, who happened to be a very short Canadian girl by the name of Chantale Tippett. I dont even know why I am just typing this. Here, see for yourself:
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| Freddy showing how it's done. |
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| Oh the joy! |
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| BUIHA Tier 1 National Champions 2012 - University of London Dragons A Upper row from left: Aadil Johnson, Gianfranco Raimondo, Lukas Frlicka (A), Jan Hermans (A), Fredrik Hellander, Alain Blaettler Lower row from left: Steve Staley, Raphael Clegg-Vinell, Adrien Beauduin, Chantale Tippett, Calum Mathison (A), Kalle Uusitalo (C) |
So a season that began kinda badly became worse but ended with a Championship celebrations for the second time in a row. During my rookie season we captured the Playoff Championship and now with me in charge the Dragons A conquered the National Championship. Therefore it can be safely stated that next year it is about a goddaamn time to combine these two and go for the Big Double. It has been a while since any team has done it and ominously the last group to achieve this was the Dragons A of the 2007-08 season. It will be the all-important 5th anniversary of this great season and my deepest wish is to honor that great team by pulling out the same. The National championship this year already made London Dragons the most successful team in the history of the National Tournament, which is an achievement unlocked in itself. Now it is time for a grueling summer of training and I hope that I can shape my physical appearance closer to a level more worthy of the responsibility that comes with the C on the chest.
Living and being
We began the year with new flatmates in a new flat located in a new area. I had never even been to Poplar before and the only thing I knew about it was that "the north side of the DLR is not that nice". Visits there consisted only of weekly journeys to Lee Valley in the D6 bus through the area, and I had never even registered any of the surroundings while passing through. Luckily we found a good flat for a decent price, and it even included everything you needed. Literally, everything. I have never actually posted any pictures of the flat, so here are few pics I took right after I left the flat last Wednesday.
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| The now very empty bedroom. |
Year went by quickly as mentioned, and living in a flat like this was a significant improvement to the previous experience. Even though it was not THAT bad by any means and we had more space at our disposal, this year we never even had to turn the heating on. Double-glazing and the general insulation worked this time around like a warm hoodie over the flat and we were so pleased that we have every intention to return to this pad sometime mid-September. Who will be accompanying me and the stunning Sara then remains to be seen, but we will keep on pushing towards keeping this gem under our siege. I have talked about this before, but it is worth mentioning again that the surroundings were very, very different to what we became accustomed to in Wheat Sheaf Close. Busy road and a "traditional" marketplace right next to the flat, neighbors who apparently like to settle their differences in the middle of the street regardless of the time of the day and the local college next door made sure that there was usually always something interesting to observe from the balcony aka Hockey Kit Drying Place (HKDP). All the necessary shops like Iceland were closer too, as were Canary Wharf and Stratford with their shopping centers and it is safe to say that the negatives are heavily overrun, humiliated, and harassed by positives in every way. Even the journey to the practices was ridiculously easy and required only few minutes of walking and two buses. The amount of luxury is mind-boggling...
Even though I do have almost limitless amounts of cash always available, I still decided to start working just because I can. This opportunity bumped in to me when our very own Coach Dan who also happens to be the area manager of London for a betting company called BD Stadia, offered me a spot as a betting cashier at the Emirates Stadium. I saw this as an opportunity to earn some MORE cash as well as a way to gain more knowledge of the weird culture surrounding that funny sport called Football the Brits seem to be very fond of. I've also heard that it has gained some support in the other countries too, but this is yet to be confirmed. Apparently I did something right, because I soon expanded my field of play in to Fulham stadium Craven Cottage and later on in to West Ham and the infamous Boleyn Park. I also was appointed as the "Away Man", the lone soldier who stands tall in the middle of the away fans and deals with absolutely plastered people who do not hesitate to use the whole nine yards of accents when talking to you. In a way it was the perfect place for a foreigner like me, because talking to people who mumble some language that only distantly resembles English was a harsh but valuable lesson. And they even invited me back next season, so the accent bath shall continue!
On top of that, I landed a seasonal job over the Christmas at the prestigious Somerset House Skating Rink, which was the main reason we did not spend the Holidays in Finland. Job was all about skating clockwise in circles, trading shoes for skates or skates for shoes and throwing some legendary banter around the staff area. It is the nicest and the most relaxed place I have ever worked in and I sincerely hope that they will hire me again this year, from the beginning of the season this time around. The surroundings were second to none and co-workers who were funny as anything made the days just fly by. Simply awesome. Here are few pictures from the environments I was working in.
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| Craven Cottage, Fulham FC |
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| Arsenal v Borussia Dortmund. Borussia fans arrived and man, did they ever bring some loud friends. |
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| Emirates Stadium, Arsenal |
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| Boleyn Ground (aka Upton Park), West Ham United FC |
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| Canary Wharf Ice Rink, which was the "local one". I did not technically work there this year, but quite a few people I knew from Somerset House did and that meant free skating. |
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| Somerset House, sponsored by Tiffany & Co. |
My diet over the year consistent 95% of pasta and mincemeat in various forms. As a sauce, as meatballs, as burgers... You name it, I probably had it at some point. Ketchup was used cautiously as it contains a ton of sugar and I always made sure I had plenty of veggies. Alcoholic beverages were only enjoyed occasionally and extremely responsibly, always keeping the daily limits in mind.
All that weirdness
All kinds of funny things happened as the year went by and probably the most memorable one took place right in the beginning of the year, around the time of the tryouts. I received an email from a French high-fashion magazine called L'Officiel and they for whatever reason wanted to use our players in an ice hockey themed photo-shoot for their Netherlands edition. This fashion-explosion would take place in the beautiful Alexandra Palace, during one Friday from 9am onward. It didn't take many phone calls and much persuasion to some of our prettier players like Ludwig "Prince" Wolfegg and Donny "Mr President" MacPherson to make sure that they are in and these stunning pieces of meat were more than happy to skip few classes in order to be featured in the magazine. The other two players to join me and the Holloway Boys were our goalie Michael and the feisty Slovak, Lukas. When the day came, we managed to pack all this male-beauty in to minicabs (one for each of course) and gathered outside Ally Pally with time to spare. Fashion enthusiasts Sara and Jenni also made the journey over in the same Jaguar as I did, and we were in for something no one of us had ever experienced before.
After intensively following several versions of "(Enter a country here)'s Next Top Model" I thought that I kinda had an idea of what fashion photo shoots would be like, but I had no idea how wrong I was. The TV's glamorized version of the reality is the biggest scam of the decade as we spent first 2-3 hours just skating about and fooling around with a puck before even seeing the model or actually capturing a single frame. When she finally was ready for the first picture, the photographer ordered us in to a weird pile and then literally sat the model on top of us. After approximately 7 and a half minutes, she disappeared again for 45 minutes to change the hair, make-up and clothing. And this routine took place quite a few times during the day. At least we got several hours of free ice time, a chance to have some fun, take some shots at Michael and even free food! Donny was especially stoked about the latter. Here are few frames they took of us and which we used as promotional material.
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| Donny, Lukas, Michael, Ludwig and me. |
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| One of these fighting pictures with the model involved actually made the magazine. Talk about reinforcing the stereotypes... |
It really is quite interesting what playing ice hockey in London can get you involved in. We were even contacted by Ladbrokes who wanted a team for their Swedish TV ad and by the Jonathan Ross show as they needed some gear for some of their guests like Chris Martin and other nobodies. So after all, ice hockey actually is quite a trendy, or at least trending sport in the UK.
We also got an invitation to attend probably the most well known Varsity series in the world, Oxford v Cambridge. The invitation to the Oxford Ice Rink came from the organizing party, as the Dark Blues wanted to showcase how attractive University hockey in UK can actually be. A jam-packed rink full of screaming fans really was something new to me here, but the game itself could have been a bit more interesting. Me, Sara, Michael and Dan witnessed some Dark Blue domination as they cruised to victory while absolutely crushing the Light Blues 18-1. A humiliation like of which I had not witnessed since we beat Cambridge 16-5 in the beginning of the season...
I have to mention tho, that the Ice Hockey game in the Varsity series between Nottingham University and Nottingham Trent is the most attended University ice hockey fixture outside North America. They sell out the Capital FM Arena year in year out, filling 8000+ seats with drunken screaming students. This year the game was even streamed live in the Internet and in the local pubs. I have to seriously consider Nottingham as an option if I happen to get accepted to a Masters program there. This annual match is a great example of what COULD be done with university sports in the UK, if people would work together and put in some effort. Time will tell if something spectacular like this will take place in London too, sooner or later...
Conclusion
Year went by too fast as the academic demands went up quite rapidly, but I should have seen that one coming. Year was good, and you learn something new everyday in London. If not about the town, then about the people who live there. Or yourself. Even though the summer in Finland is amazing, I am longing back to the LDN-town and I actually just booked flights for the Olympics where I will be volunteering in Road Cycling and Mountain Biking. My precious wifey Sara will also join me for a weeks period in the late July/beginning of August, and I cannot wait to stroll the streets of London once again hand in hand with her. I also noticed that I have constructed this text very much like a report for uni, but I guess that only means that the things they have been banging all year are finally starting to stick. This should be a positive when going in to the final year at London Metropolitan. My sole plan is to do a Masters degree, but we may have to relocate ourselves to some other place than London. Whether this place will be in the UK or some place else remains to be seen. I will reveal more as things progress to a certain point...
As I predicted, things did get a wee bit out of hand and I managed to actually produce some text too! If you made it all the way here and actually read something on the way, I salute you. If you didn't read much and just focused on pictures, I still do. I hope you are enjoying the summer as much as I am, waking up at 5am in order to get to work is indeed a great way to spend your days. :)
From the very bright night of Kangasala, over and out. Till next time...
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