Dan Hailin'

Tough one for the C's the other night. From what I hear, they didn't help themselves by giving up a fourth quarter lead, yet the officials didn't help the cause either. Fifty-one more free throws attempted by L.A. in the series? As my mom always says, the Finals are rigged. She may be on to something there.

Truth be told, I didn't follow the series that closely. Part of the reason for this was that I couldn't, outside of watching on a poor quality internet feed. However, most of it was due to the fact that I wasn't willing to get too wrapped up in it solely based on morning-after game recaps. It's kind of a lousy attitude, I must admit, but at the same time, I didn't want to become too emotionally attached and then have no one to celebrate (or grieve) with depending on how the series finished up. Seeing as how it didn't turn out so well, this strategy unfortunately worked in my favor. To close this thought, I will say that if somebody told me the Celts were going push the NBA Finals to seven games a few months ago (amidst several embarrassing losing skids) I would have chuckled at the thought. Hats off to the Green Team on a fine season.

Shifting to the World Cup now, the USA - Slovenia match was pretty exciting yesterday, as I'm sure many of you know. Pretty weak call late in that one to nullify the go-ahead goal, but it was nice to see Team USA play more like the squad that showed up against England during the second half. In a few minutes, I'll be returning to Tir na Nog (the Irish pub from last post) to join several of the same guys to watch Team Danmark take on Cameroon; sk-goal!

I don't think I mentioned this in a previous post, but the Tigers actually have two Senior Teams that play separate schedules during the course of the season. This 'Developmental' Team is comprised of newcomers, long-time veterans and anyone else in between, including players from the Elite Team if they would like to participate. It is nine-man football (just like my U16 Team plays), so it's a bit different, but it still a great chance for guys that want to just get out and play ball. That is of course, when it doesn't start thundering with torrential downpours and lots and lots of hail.



I just got back a few hours ago from watching part of the Second Team's game and managed to snap these two pics before those very scary looking clouds brought forth doom and despair for all in their path. The pictures came out pretty good too, because at that very moment, the sun was shining directly on the field through a small hole in the overcast skies. If you were to just look at the players on the field, you'd think it was a rather nice day. That illusion quickly came to an end though, in the form of huge raindrops that soon turned into buckshots of hail. Those little buggers fell fast and furious, too. I attempted to use an umbrella that was left in the apartment when I moved in but quickly found this device to be:

1. Polka-dotted.
2. Too small to cover an infant.
3. Broken.

The hailstones lasted about five very painful minutes (somehow, the tops of my ears managed to get hit about two dozen times) before nastiest of the precipitation subsided. Before this happened though, a huge thunderclap and a streak of lightning prompted the officials to call the game. Nothing quite like Denmark in the summertime, I suppose.

That's it for now, I'll be back tomorrow after my Youth game.