Wednesday, June 7, 2017

A Swedish National Holiday Means a Day of American Football!


Tuesday, 6 June, 2017:

Today would be a GREAT day for American football!

It was also Swedish National Day.

As I understand it, this holiday
is akin to our 4th of July

Before President Trump's election of course.

Our Wäsby Warriors U13 team would have a busy holiday.

The Djurgården club invited our
U13s to a one day tournament
in Stockholm

This tournament would allow our U13s to play four nine-man, 40 minute, including halftime, running clock games against the U13 teams from Tyresö, Djurgården, Stockholm and Sollentuna.

Grueling but lots of fun as it turned out.

Our first problem was transportation to the game on a holiday minimal bus/train schedule.

Because of this, we decided to walk to the Upplands-Väsby train station via the local stream.

Laurie liked this sculpture

 We both liked the scenery
on our 20 minute walk

The train ride into Stockholm Central and the Metro ride to the nearby Stadion station were efficient as always.

Now we had another short walk to get to the tournament site.

This walk took us by . . .

A music school

The Olympic Stadium

Nice crown in the brickwork

 Olympic Stadium Clock Tower

Finally, we arrived

Yep, this IS the place

The Sollentuna Stars were playing
the Stockholm Mean Machines
when we finally arrived

We missed the 9:30 a.m. opening game of the tournament between our U13s and the Tyresö Royal Crowns.

According to our coaches, it was an easy shutout victory by the Tyresö club that we saw play twice today against other clubs. They were by far the best team in the tournament coasting to a 4-0 record on the day.

After an hour off, our Wäsby Warriors U13s were ready for a shot at redemption against Djurgården.
  
 The kids and coaches were ready

 The ref with the dashing hair
was ready

 GAME ON!

Alexander had another good
day running the ball

The O-line looked good

The World's Smallest U13
Free Safety about to light up
a Djurgården receiver

Re-grouping at halftime

 Laurie was in the house!

Nice feeling being in the
open field with the ball

It will get vicious here in a second

Good D-line get-off and pad level

Our U13s improved to 1-1 on the day with a 14-6 victory against Djurgården.

We now had a two hour and twenty minute break until our squad played again.

We decided to leave the stadium for lunch.

The Siberian Soup Kitchen
was the call!

Patiently waiting for my goulash

Laurie went with the clam chowder and we were both happy with our choices.

Oh look, a church in Stockholm

On the way back from lunch to the tournament we again passed the scenic Olympic Stadium.

Wrestling will still be a sport
at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics

But it almost was not. How could they even have considered dropping wrestling with its roots going all the way back to the original Olympic games of ancient Greece?

Old school phone booth

Back at the field, it was a
pleasant 75° Fahrenheit

Game Three vs. the
Stockholm Mean Machines

The Mean Machines' Wing set
would cause our defense issues

Like the big seam here

Pass Rush

I love these
Line of Scrimmage pictures

Good pressure from our D-line

Attacking half a man

Mixing it up

QB SACK!

Don't run inside

Good open field tackle

Another victory! This time the Warriors won by the slimmest of margins, 6-0 over the Mean Machines.

We only had an hour between games this time so we stayed at the stadium and watched Tyresö completely dismantle the Djurgården team.

Our final game would be against the Sollentuna Stars that our U13s met a little over two weeks ago at our Spring Party set of games. They tied 12-12 that day.

For the Warriors, it all
starts with the ground game

You can't Stalk Block our FS!

But you can hold him

Speaking of Sollentuna holding

Tackling might be a better term.

 D-line controlling the
Line of Scrimmage

But we have a problem
on the edge

Lots of red hats to the ball

Warrior loose in the secondary

A final beloved photo of the
Line of Scrimmage

This game would, just like our last meeting, end in a tie. This time it was by a final tally of 6-6.

So, our U13 Wäsby Warriors ended the tournament with a record of 2-1-1.

Lots of good work and learning occurred today by the Warriors. I'm sure that our boys slept well tonight.

Happy National Day Sweden!

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