Good basketball, great food at Vaerlose

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  Copenhagen, Denmark
Saturday, March 29, 2008

The food just did not stop coming from out of the kitchen.
We were in the eating hall just off the gym floor in Vaerlose, a community about 20 miles north of Copenhagen. The games had been played, and the parents of the girls team took it upon themselves to lay out this incredible feast for the players of all four teams, and the traveling adults. There were chicken and vegetable hot dishes, roasted pork, salads, roasted potatoes, fruit pie, you name it. We sat in long tables, the nationalities well-mixed, and the greatest scene was the active, interested conversation between our players and theirs. It went on for close to two hours.
Then we picked up our bags, hugged everyone goodbye and trundled off into the night towards our train station for the ride home.
The dinner, like the games, were set up by Rasmus Munck, the excellent coach of an excellent Danish girls team that is among the top three in Denmark. They play 73 games a year. They came in second in nationals last year. There are two girls on the squad who possible recruits to a U.S. college.
That was our girls first competition of this trip. It took our Nighthawks several minutes to get used to the pace of the game (fast) and the size of the court (big). Combined with the 24-second clock and the 8-second back-court clock, the game is very fast -- a combination of soccer and basketball.
Once the Lady Nighthawks got up to pace they played very well. We were down by over 20 in the second period, pulled to within 8 and finally lost by 9. Everyone played very well together, and that is going to get stronger as we go along.
The boys also ran into a strong, speedster team and also fell behind by 15. They climbed up to even in the third period, went ahead by nine in the fourth, but got nipped in the closing minutes. A tie game at the buzzer but Vaelrose sent a man to the free throw line with no time left. He missed two. In the overtime, Vaerlose prevailed by a single point. There was a clear hometown advantage to the officiating late in the game, and those gentlemen were not invited to our fabulous dinner.
All teams earned the respect of the other, and for a first set of games this is promising for both.

Tomorrow we play Solroed Comets, another nearby town, where we will also have a post-game gathering and meal. In this case the game is preceded by an official welcome by the Mayor of Solroed, and fortunately I obtained an official letter of thanks from the Mayor of Port Townsend to offer in return.

Things are going very well. Everybody is still a bit tired from the time change, but we are well along towards being adjusted to local time (9 hours different). We are eating breakfast as a group in the hostel cafeteria, which is very large and clean, and then lunch out in the historic district of Copenhagen which is only 8-10 blocks away. We are are only a few blocks from Tivoli gardens but it is closed.

The athletes are mixing well and enjoying each other, and the chaperones are too. No problems, knock on wood,and we're off to a good start.

More later.

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