Since it’s been more than 2 weeks since my last update the headline pretty much sums it all up , loads of stuff has happened since I wrote here last time.
The most important and biggest event since last time is that I have bought a car! Since the distances over here are way bigger than back home and the fact that I wanted to feel “free”, not having to depend and ask other people to drive me around, alongside with discussions with my parents back home helped me decide that it was for me to get a car. So I talked with my coach Rob and he got me in contact with a guy that had a Dodge Intrepid from 2004 for sale. After a testdrive and a bit more talking with the people at home I decided that this was the car for me for the next months of my stay here.
My Dodge Intrepid 2004
Besides getting a car life in Arizona has kept going with practices and last weekend (14-16 october) we played the New Mexiko Renegades at home. All the guys on the team were pumped up for the homeopener for this season and we started of the weekend quite confident in ourself and that we would do a good job over the weekend. My guess is that we were a bit overconfident because fridays game was a shitshow… We took the lead and everything seemed fine, after that however things just got worse. Our defensive game was virtually non-existant and we suffered for it bigtie. We lost the game 7-3 and realised tht we had to step it up several levels the next day. When it comes to my gae I wasn’t stisfied at all, I didn’t play as well as I know I can and I got my first penaltyminutes here in the states after my brain stopped working after I asked for a linechange and touched the puck after the guy who switched me of had touched the ice. That resulted in a 2 minute minor penalty which eventually led to the Renegades first goal of the game. That’s not the worst thing though, the prize for the worst effort of the game goes to me for having a wideopen net and miss it. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger so you just have to bounce back from that and shake it of and focus on the next shift/game.
At home before homeopener
Saturdays game was a way better team effort. We outskated and outshot the opponents by quite the margin but we only won the game by 2-1. But a W is always a W so I can’t really complain. My effort in this game was better than friday’s game but I still wasn’t satisfied. When you win a game you shouldn’t have a -1 in the+/- statistics. Sunday’s game was about the same as saturday’s game. We outskated and outshot the opponents and this time we managed to outscore them by a bit of a margin as well. We won the game by 6-3 and my line really got of to a god start after scoring the first goal only 14 seconds into the game. I was a +3 for the day and this was in my oppinion the best game of the weekend, both for the team and for me.
After that last weekend I started to feel more confident due to the large amount of ice-time and confidence that I recived from coach. This led to me having a really, as I felt it, good week of practice and I’m really looking forward to tonight’s and the weekends upcoming games against the Sand Diego Gulls.
Besides this week’s practices I haven’t been up to that much, just taking it easy and ralaxing at the house. Yesterday however, I went to watch my first NHL game of the season live along with a few guys from the team. We watched the Coyotes vs. Kings at Jobing.com arena, the Coyotes lost 2-0 and had a really hard time creating anything dangerous in their offense. But i till enjoyed it and the tickes were not expensive at all, considering it’s an NHL game. 19 dollars for a ticket to a game in the best hockeyleague in the world is in my oppinion a great deal. Even though we sat really high up in the stands we still had a great view of the game. The only dissapointment about the game was that it was so few people there to watch the game. It wasn’t even half a house….
Upper level seats
As the first Arizona Redhawks team ever we are undefeated (3-0) and for the first time ever the Redhawks has swept a series.
As I told you in my last post we were leaving Phoenix for Dallas on Thursday afternoon at 4:00 pm by bus. That 20 hour bustrip is by far the longest bustrip I’ve ever take and probably ever will make. It’s times like this you start to realise how big this country is, you could basically drive through the country of Sweden if you keep a good pace (speeding) but still you could make it if you wanted to. We only traveled through 3 states in thoose 20 hours (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas).
We (finally) arrived in Dallas around noon on Friday September 30th and got settled in at the hotel. After a quick search for shells to my pants (needed black like everyone else) a few hours of rest and food it was time to “suit up” and get ready for the first game of the season and my first regular season game ever on american soil. After warm-ups (dryland and ice session) and national anthem it was finally time for what I had been waiting for since I got here: Gametime! We didn’t play that great as we would have liked to do, this mainly do to dead/buslegs, but we still won the game 5-3.
Saturday was spent chilling out in and around the hotel with teammates until game 2 of the weekend. This game had a lot of “first’s” for me. I was in the starting lineup and got my name shouted out in the speakers of the arena. I got my first really BIG open ice hit, everybody told me it was a cheap shot because I didn’t have possession of the puck, but still it was a big hit and I draw blood on the ice for the first time since I got here. Just a bit of nosebled, no biggie, but still… I scored my first goal and my first GWG when I put the 4-3 puck in the net.
Sunday’s game was schedualed for 10:30 am. We won the game 7-4 and for the only time during the weekend the game wasn’t that close in the last period of play. After the game we went straight to the bus and started our 20 hour drive back home. After a few stops and quite a bit of sleep we got back to our rink at 5:30 am which ended this roadtrip.
I’m satisfied with my level of play throughout the weekend dispite the fact that my line didn’t score any more goals. We had a pretty solid level of play and I’m sure that we will start to get the points rolling if we get the chance to play together next gameweekend as well.
// Dennis
This friday, september 30th at 7:30, I will play my first game of the season and my first real game in the ”States” ever. The wait is finally over and the season can get under way for real. This is what I’ve been waiting for ever since I started dryland training back home in Sweden sometime mid-april. We are leaving Polar Ice (our homerink) at 4:00 pm tomorrow and we will be headed for our longest roadtrip of the year. A 20 hour bustrip to Euless, Texas to play the Dallas Snipers on friday,saturday and sunday.
Today we had our regular 2:30 practice, after that I had dinner and started packing for the road trip as well as I’ve been looking for some more music for my ipod during the evening. Found a couple of songs that are in there now and will make the 20 hour trip a bit more bearable. Other than that nothing much has happened today.
Since I las wrote I’ve been up to some fun things though. I went shooting with a real gun for the first time in my life. A real experiance that was really fun and something that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. thanks Daniel and Evan for taking me. I did unfortunately though forget my camera at home so no pictures was taken…. Which basically means that I will have to go back there to get some pictures that I can show to the folks back home. I can also tell you that I have a real natural talent for skeet shooting, first shoot I ever took resulted in a direct hit and the skeet was basically shattered into pieces. Jokes apart though about the natural talent, the real talent started to show up after the first shot, but I still hit like a total of 10 skeets out of like 50 shots which in my opinion ain’t that bad.
The weekend was overall pretty calm and spent with friends from the team and team dryland 8:00-10:00 on saturday morning. This monday Matt, Max and I went to the movies and caught the new movie Moneyball. It’s based on a true story and anyone that has any kindt of an interest for sport I strongly recommend to go see this movie. The movie is about baseball, which is one of the absolute smallest sports back home, but it’s still a good movie and I recommend you to go and see it if you have the oppertunity. I went to yoga on tuesday and even though it was only my second time it already felt as if I had a bit more control of what I was doing.
That’s it for now, I can hopefully update you as the weekend goes with results and efforts. If not I will give you a full recap after the weekend. Take care for now
// Dennis
Red vs. Black Game, golf, team meeting, practice and yoga. That’s a short recap of what has happened since the last update.
As I told you at the end of my last post we had the Annual Red vs. Black Redhawks game on saturday morning. For the first time since I got here we had to wear our shirts and ties when we arrived to the arena. That’s the first time ever that I’ve worn a shirt and tie to the game. I like it though, despite the fact that it can feel a bit “stiff”, it feels more proffessional than just showing up in your regular clothes or the tracksuit which is the case back home. My team won the game 3-1 and now have the bragging rights all the way up until our season opener September 30th. Both teams a solid game and according t all the vets on the team it looked better than last year. I’m satisfied with my effort even though I was on the ice when the white team scored, and I added an assist to my performance.
The time after the game and the rest of the weekend was pretty laid back. I hung out with a couple of guys from the team and realaxed and we even played a bit of golf. Or more correct, we hit a driving range a few miles from Anthem. My effort there on the other hand can be described in one word: Catastrophic! I idn’t hit many shots the way I wanted to at all, not that that’s the case back home either, and we had to borrow clubs and it’s them I blame for my terrible shooting. It was a fun time though so I’m not dissapointed about that at all. Monday was laid back and during the evening we spent 1 hour at the rink for a video review of the Red vs. Black game and the rest of the evening was spent at a couple of teammates house playing a bit of NHL 12, not happy with my performance during the 2 games I played.
Today I had a first in a lifetime experiance. I participated in a yoga class for the first time in my life. As all of you that know me, along with myself, know I have the moveability of a refridgerator and I’m as bendable as a ful grown tree. It was a really fun experiance though and I’m totally down for joining tht class more times since it will help me loosen up my joints. After class Evan, Justin and I (whom participatedd in this class) went to a deli for lunch and then hit the rink for our practice. After a day of yoga, 2-2.5 hours of icepractice+dryland with pylometrics and weights I’m pretty much done!
Right now I’m just laying in my bed taking it easy getting ready for tomorrows practice and dryland. Besides practice and freetime there is not that much going on. I’ve started to count down the days until our season opener away against Dallas Snipers on the 30th of september. Just 10 more days to go and we are on our way to a (I hope) succesful season, loads of fun and the playoffs.
// Dennis
So there hasn’t been a week since the last update but I might just fill you guys in on what’s happened since last. The weekend overall was really calm, didn’t do much at all, just hang out by the housed and relaxed. Saturday was trainingday whith dryland from 8:00am-10:00am. After that me and a few guys from went to breakfast at Jimmy John’s. You could basically say that it’s like Subway but more italian, hope you guys follow me on that one. The rest of the day was spent realaxing out at the house doing nothing much. Sunday and monday was the same, without the organised practice. I did practice a bit for myself during onday where I went for a run for about 4 miles in total. My cavs where killing me the next day due to the fact that I tried rolling on my entire foot while I was running, it doesn’t sound that hard but it really is.
Tuesday was practice day with both an ice-session and a dryland session. Today was also preactice day with ice and dryland session. After that I went with 3 other guys from the team (Evan, Justin and Daniel) to grab something to eat some food and buy NHL 12 for their Xbox 360. I’m not billeted with any of these guys but they live really close to me (whith USA measurements). So after a best out of 3 series, the curfew stopped me from being there longer, Evan drove me home and here I am.
Right now I’m catching up to Entourage again watching some of the episodes that I’ve watched before. So that is going to keep me busy during the evenings. This weekend I will probably go and play some golf and/or possibly do some skeet shooting which would be really nice. I’m still following my old team back home and so far during the preseason they are 1-2-0 where the two losses, (5-3, 5-4) came to a team that’s playing in another tier and the win was a crushing 12-2 win against a team from the same tire. Just hope that the guys back home will have a great season and might be able to take the step up to the next tire for the 2012-2013 season.
Almost forgot to tell you guys that you will have the oppertunity to see our team play the annual Red vs. Black Game this Saturday at 9:00am, which means it’s 18:00 back home in Sweden. Tune in if you like, you will be able to watch the game at our teams website: arizonaredhawks.com and click your way to the broadcast.
// Dennis
So, it’s been almost a week since my last update so I figured it’s time to update you guys on what has happened.
During Labour Day (5th of september) Max, Matt and I went to a big lake called Lake Pleasant that is located like 35 miles from our house. After a very long drive, that got way longer than necessary due to the fact that the GPS sent us of way beyond the point of where we were supposed to take a right, we finally got to Lake Pleasant regional park. We drove around for quite some time since we didn’t know where we could go for our swim. After a bit of a discussion we decided to go offroad to get as close to the water as possible. After what I experianced as the bumpiest ride of my life we finally got to a point that we found “suitable” for parking the car. Unfortunately the location was not suitable for our swim so we got back into the truck and went back the same way we came, the offroad+regular road, until we reached one of the lake’s boat ramps. We found a way better place to park the car this time and decided that we wouldn’t find a more suitable place for our swimming that day. And I can tell you that the swim was awsome after such a long drive. We stayed in, swam a bit, took some pictures and then went home ue to the fact that it got dark. I would so like to go there again, but get there earlier and hopefully we will have clearblue skyes and some hot weather, it was actually a bit cloudy out there that day.
I was in for a bit of a surprise during the day as well… When we overdrove our exit by quite some distance we actually hit rain! RAIN, out here…. I know it doesn’t sound that strange but after being here in Phoenix for almost 3 weeks, I havve only experianced one day of clouds and nothing but (almost) clearblue skyes and degrees over 100 F. So to hit rain is a bit of a shocker.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday was training days with both ice sessions and dryland sessions on our schedule. We left the house around 12:00-12:30 pm and got back home between 7:00-8:30 pm. each day. Thursday was extra fun since we scrimmaged during the whole ice-session. I’m not totally satisfied with my efforts but it could have been worse. I feel like I’m taking way to long to make my decisions out there… But I just got to keep working hard and it will get better. I think I still need to get more customized to tha smaller rinks over here.
Today nothing much has happened. Just chilled out at the house and talked to my folks back home. I also worked out to this Insanity workout that I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. The plan of following that scheduale the whole 60 days burst like a balloon during day 2… A bit sad but it’s the truth. So I’m gonna try to perform that during the days that I don’t have any schedualed practices or activities with the team to get even stronger. The rest of the evening is going to be spent at home just taking it easy. Got practice tomorrow morning at 8am.
Right now the wind is blowing like a hurricane (a bit of an overestimate, but it sounds better than: the wind is blowing really, really hard…) outside the window and lightnings are hitting the ground as crazy over by the horizon so that’s a bit fun to watch and the winds outside is actually pretty nice. Feels like a hott summer night wind a bit of wind back home.
Take care for now
// Dennis
It’s been a few days since I last updated so I thought I might fill you guys in on what has happened since I wrote here the last time.
After maincamp we had the weekend of where nothing much happened. I just chilled out at the house and hang out with some guys from the team. The following tuesday we had the first team meeting where we meet up with the team doctor/dryland responsible for the season. At the meeting we got a briefing about our dryland scheduale for the season as well as pretty quick go through about how our diet is supposed to be on a daily basis. Almost forgot to tell you that we also recived gloves fro the team that we are upposed to wear for the rest of the season, no picture of those gloves though, they are at the rink.
After that we had the wendnesday of before we on thursday, finally, got to hit the ice again. Dispite the fact that I’m not to happy with my performance during the ice session it felt great just to be able to skate again. After all it was a week since last time. Besides the ice session and the following dryland session (where we did suicides) we also recived most of the rest of our gear. Sweatshirt, shorts, laundrybag and our tracksuit. Now I’m just waiting for my team bag and I’m all set to play.
Tracksuit, Sweatshirt and Shorts
So friday then… Nothing much happened. Me and Max went down to peoria and ended up inside one of the mall’s there, think it’s called arrowhead mall (not sure though), were we both ended up buying clothes from the hollister shop. After the “shopping” tour we ran into 2 other guys from the team and decided to hang out for a while.
So today (saturday) the alarm was set for a stunning 6:00 am since our dryland training was about to start at 8:00 am. Dryland lasted for about 2 hours where we did both a bit of running, pylometrics and some gym. The team is supplying all of us, on the team, with a gym card. That’s really good and I hope that it will come in handy dispite the fact that the gym is pretty far away from my house.
That’s about all that has happened that’s happened since last time. Right now I’m just hanging out in my room doing nothing much, just realaxing.
See you guys
// Dennis
My house for the next 8 months
My room
The surroundings
Wanna shoot some pool?
Family dogs (Prince, Jack and Sally)
Home aren this year
Hej på er igen!
Lovade i senaste inlägget att jag skulle lägga upp bilder på huset och omgivningen samt berätta lite om maincamp. Då jag har lite problem med att lyckas komprimera mina bilder till den tillåtna storleken så ska jag be om att få återkomma med dem.
Så vi hoppar vidare till maincamp. Campen började redan i tisdags kväll då det var ett lagmöte för alla spelare som skulle delta på campen samt de föräldrar och de värdfamiljer som hade möjlighet att närvara. Där fick vi info om vad som gällde för året angående klädkod (slips och skjorta) på matchdagar, vilka regler som gäller i allmänhet och vad som gäller för laget under säsongen.
Själva träningen drog igång på onsdag med 1 ispass vid 1110, 1 ispass vid 1330 och efter det fys. Ska tilläggas att alla ispass var 60 minuter långa. Torsdagen såg lika dan ut och det här var första gången som jag hade fys utomhus i den extrema väre som råder. Vi sprang 1 st 50 yards rush, 1 st 100 yard rush och 1 st 400 yard rush. Kan säga att det är bland det jobbigast jag gjort. Inte på grund av distanserna utan på grund av värmen. Så fort man andas för djupa andetag med munnen så torkar hela munnen och halsen ut och förvandlas till sandpapper. Så vatten är ett stort måste vid fys utomhus. På fredag så hade vi återigen ett ispass vid 1110 och sedan campens match vid det andra ispasset som startade 1330. Efter detta så var det dags för våra individuella samtal med coacherna för att få veta om vi fått en plats i laget eller inte samt vad dem ansåg att man skulle försöka förbättra samt ett kort samtal med lagets GM för att kolla så att alla papper var i ordning. Efter att alla spelare haft sitt samtal och alla fått sina individuella bilder tagna så var det dags för lagmiddag på Hooters.
Det enda som är lite segt nu är att vår träning inte drar igång förrän på torsdag och direkt efter det så är det uppehåll till nästa tisdag. Vi har dock ett lagmöte imorgon där vi ska få en del utrustning, träffa lagets kostspecialist, få vårat kostschema samt vårat styrketräningschema för året.
Utöver detta så var helgen lugn, umgicks med några i laget på lördagen och tog det lugnt under resterande del av helgen. Idag så har vi 3 hockeykillar i huset dragit igång vår egen träning utöver den träning som kommer att genomföras med laget. Vi följer ett program som heter Insanity Workout vilket är ett träningsprogram där man enbart använder sin egen kroppsvikt för att bli starkare, etc., etc. idag så var det ett fitness test för att insamla testvärden så att man längre fram i träningen kan se sin egen utveckling. Trots att det bara var ett test som innehöll 8 övningar och att vi bara höll på i 25 inuter, inklusive uppvärmning och stretch så är jag helt slut. Men nu har vi bara 59 dagar kvar innan vi är klara för denna gång. Sedan får vi se om vi kör en vända till.
Det var väl i princip allt som jag hade att bjuda på för den här gången. Ska som sagt försöka få pli på bilderna så att ni får se hur det ser ut här.
Ha det bra så hörs vi snart igen.
//Dennis
Ps. Komer nog börja skriva mina kommande poster på engelska då det inkommit önskemål härifrån om detta
Välkommna till min blogg!
För er som inte känner mig så är mitt namn Dennis Allingmon och jag är född och uppvuxen i utkanterna av Stockholm och för er som känner mig, kul att ni också hittat hit. Som ni kanske förstår av rubriken så kommer jag att tillbringa denna hockeysäsong i Arizona spelandes för laget Arizona RedHawks i ligan WSHL.
Jag kommer bo i Anthem som enligt Google Maps ligger 32.5 miles (vilket i runda slängar är 5 svenska mil) utanför centrala Phoenix och ungerfär 3 mil från ishallen. Huset som jag blivit inkvarterad i är extremt fint och värdfamiljen som är ett yngre par är extremt trevliga och sköna människor. Jag är inte ensam hoceyspelare i huset utan har även sällskap av Matt från Cali och Max från Österrike.
Jag har nu varit här i en vecka sånär som på några timmar och trivs mycket bra. Det enda egentliga problemet är värmen. Just nu när klockan nyss har passerat 14 så står termometern på 43(!) grader celsius. Alla ni där hemma vet direkt att sådanna temperaturer inte ens existerar i fantasin. Så att röra sig utomhus utan vätska är bara dumdristigt och när man väl har vätska med sig så ska man se till att ha det i stora mängder. Som värdfamiljspappans pappa sa till mig då vi stannade vid en mack för att tanka och passade på att köpa dricka: “When you are in Arizona, always take the big one”. Och här är stor verkligen STOR. Hemma i Sverige så skulle nog storleken klassas som XXXL då den innehåller drygt 1.4 liter dryck.
Under veckan som gått så har jag hunnit med att acklamatisera mig en del och även varit med på lagets maincamp. Jag är nöjd med min insats, bortsett från en del onödga misstag. Lovar att berätta mer om det senare. Ska även ta och slänga upp en del bilder på huset och omgivningen, samt ishall etc.
Dags för sen lunch nu
