Suosähly -11

23.7.2011

After being almost a couple of weeks back in Finland again, it was time for me to head off into the nature to get myself a pair of smooth legs. Basically it was that time of the year again for swamp floorball national championships. It had been a few years since I last participated, so it did me also good to do something really Finnish; a sort of welcome back.

It was really nice to see some of my former floorball team mates, and before that I really hadn't talked that much Finnish in a while, which could be heard. And it was seen during the first match that I haven't been a goalie for a while (e.g. almost throwing the ball into our own goal). But the field was difficult too, since you didn't sink at all, and I tried my best to cover the goal with my leprechaun body. We lost 5-0, which a couple of goals were contradictable (high stick, players being in the goalie's area, referee a douche..).

But the first games are always the warm up games, because we won the next match 1-0 and got to sink a bit into the swamp. Basically that meant that we just had to win the next one and we'd be in the play-offs.

And so we did, with 5 or 6 goals to 0. We even sank more, which meant smoother legs. Though most importantly we qualified into the knock out rounds! My third time being in the competition, but only first time to make it through.

 First half we won with 3 goals or so, felt kind of confident of winning the match, but this time the swamp was against us. All the players sank until the waist, and as a goalie I couldn't really do anything, but to watch how the balls flew to the upper corners. In addition we had the same douche referee, who didn't let us change sides after being forced to play for the golden goal. So we had the worse side for the rest of the game, which finally lead to a 5-4 defeat.

The whole team felt disappointed. A lovely tournament ended in a bitter way. But for sure if I'll have the chance, I'd return next year. But not wearing retired grandpa clothes.