Heinola Trip

Aku offered to take us to his hometown of Heinola so we definitely couldn’t turn it down.  It's a small little town but is so nice (see pics).  His mom was absolutely the nicest lady, right when we showed up she brought us a bowl of the best strawberries that tasted like they were covered in sugar.  We then ate lunch consisting of salmon and rice cakes, followed by a strawberry pie for desert.  After lunch we took a small tour of the town.  We took random pictures and then Aku took us to this bird zoo with lots of exotic birds.  It was a nice little day trip and always good to get out of Kouvola every once in a while.

Coach Masa and Coach Whiteboy

We spent most of our off weeks coaching the junior team.  Their ages range from 15-19 so it’s similar to high school.  We didn’t have much time with the guys so we had to squeeze in a practice right before the game to install a few more plays.  I was the offensive coordinator and it was pretty challenging to teach these guys new schemes and plays with only 3 practices before our first game.  We started out pretty rusty on offense but finally found our groove and rolled up 30+ points on em.  Defense was pretty dominant, 3 of our 4 linebackers (3-4 defense) are all studs and actually play with us on the senior team.  So as a team we are undefeated at 4 - 0 and as coaches Ryan and I are 1 - 0. 

Junior Team Game 2

We traveled to Helsinki to play the Wolverines Junior team.  They apparently had several Junior National players but we knew we could hold our own.  We had all week to practice new plays and to get into a rhythm.  We found several guys that could really play so offensively I decided to mix things up.  We put in a few outside screens, a reverse, and a reverse pass.  I was pretty excited about this game.  

We started out very well.  Defense was great, by the time the Wolverines offense was off the field after the first possession they had actually lost 30 yards.  Offensively we were clicking on all cylinders.  We played several guys at several different positions, set up mismatches and had their defense totally confused.  It was really cool because one of the receivers (Jukka) is the younger brother of the QB (Mikko, who also plays safety on senior team).  In the first quarter Jukka caught a touchdown pass from Mikko, and then in the second half, we ran a reverse pass throwback.  Jukka took the ball on a reverse and turned around and threw it to Mikko running down the opposite sideline, Touchdown.  So the brothers got to throw touchdowns to each other.  

It was a really hot day and several of the players began to cramp up.  Otto (our stud linebacker and running back) injured his hand, and others were just exhausted so we started throwing guys in at random positions.  All the while Ryan and I were out there shirtless getting a nice tan!  We dominated again and actually ran up the score a little just to show this big city team that we could play.  We ended up beating them 32 - 6.  We stayed undefeated and I received my first ever Gatorade bath!  5 - 0, Playoffs here we come!