StEnCh, CaReEr HiGh, a W, PaNdA & 1sT GrAdErS!!

It has been about two weeks since my last blog. Since then I had my first hotel experience in Finland, had a career high in scoring, beat the second best team in league, went to a chocolate factory called Panda, taught a basketball class to first graders and tried to get some Christmas shopping done.

The hotel experience was comical because the room was very small, it had bunk beds and there were four of us to a room. What made matters worse was the fact that we were not able to wash our jersey's before our next game so our room had a terrible stench to it. I slept in the smallest bed in the room which was a cot about the width of half of a twin bed and Vanessa whom is 6'3 slept on the top bunk bed that was held up by the wall. This was a classic night, and it could not have been great without several shows of Animal Planet we watched or the stench. Who would have guess overseas life was this luxurious? ; )

As for my career high game in scoring, it occurred the day we arrived in the hotel. We played a team called Team S and I had a great first half. Unfortunately I was the only one to have such a great half which was exhausting and frustrating for me. When the second half came around my body was tired and I was short on all the rest of my shots which got me even more frustrated. We ended up losing the game by 5 or so and I finished with 26 points but seriously I should have had at least 36 points. I say that because I missed some shots that I really should not have missed. But hey 26 is not too bad huh??

Now for the exciting part!! For our final game of the year we beat #2 Espoo team whom previously beat us twice by 30 points or so. It was amazing because it was the first game all three Americans played great together and because it gave us hope for the second half of league. We started the game off on fire and playing great defense. By half time we were up by 15 points and realized we can really get an upset. Like every great team, Espoo started the half strong and went on runs. By the fourth quarter it was a 2 point game and with a few minutes to go Rocky fouled out. Excitingly, the game continued to go back in forth and with 15 seconds left Espoo's point guard got fouled going to the basket and she made both of her free throws. We are now down by 1 point and we call a time out with 11 seconds left and our plan was to get the ball inbounded to me while Vanessa comes to set a ball screen for me. As we try taking the ball inbound I get double teamed which forces us to improvise the plan. So our other Finnish guard gets the ball, everybody is all scrambled up and she finally just throws the ball up for a shot but it gets blocked and Vanessa grabs the ball and gets fouled. Thankfully, Vanessa makes both of her free throws and Espoo inbounds the ball for a hell Mary shot with 2 seconds left and its off. We won and celebrated as if we won the championship. It was a great feeling!

It was great to have Salla back from her ankle injury even though she is not 100% healthy. Vanessa had season high of 27 points and 17 rebounds, Rocky had 16 points and 9 rebounds, and I had 16 points, 6 assists, 5 steals, and 5 rebounds. This was a great win and very exciting game to watch.

PANDA, has the best chocolate!! My awesome teammate Jossu brought me and Rocky to the factory! It was quite smaller than I imagined but I had a blast picking out the chocolate as well as getting free samples!

Other than basketball, I have been teaching a basketball class for first graders. This has been great because I know it will strengthen my teaching skills once I have a classroom of my own. It is pretty challenging sometimes because the kids only speak Finnish. I have to demonstrate everything I want them to do as well as use the few Finnish words I know. Since our last game we have had a lot of down time so Rocky, Vanessa and I have spent quite some time shopping downtown looking for Christmas gifts. I can not say that we found much luck but we still had a great time taking the 20 minute walk in the snow with the hopes of giving to others! lol

And for the best news of all, I will be home soon! I depart from Helsinki Finland Monday December 15th at 6:20 am and have an hour stop in Frankfurt Germany, then a 7 hour flight to arrive at LAX sometime around noon. I am so excited to be home with my friends and family and am so excited to eat at my top ten food places that I have missed since I left California! See ya soon!

Relaxin with my Roommates : )

A DAY OFF FROM HOOP....

Last night, my friend Joe who plays on the men's team told me to watch a scary movie called The Strangers. Anybody who really knows me, knows that I am not a fan of scary movies or the best person to watch scary movies with because of my excessive and uncontrollable screaming : ) Nonetheless, I promised I would be a "G" and watch the movie alone in my room, in the dark (not a good idea lol). Twenty minutes into the movie I screamed histerically and my teammate Rocky panically ran to my room trying to figure out if I was okay, only to find me shaking and seriously frightened. After that moment I decided to finish the movie with Rocky and Vanessa. There were many moments of me screaming to the top of my lungs and holding on to my blanket extremely tight. After that movie we watched one of my favorite movies "This Christmas" for the fourth time, which was still hilarious. Before we knew it, it was 4 am and decided to go to bed.

Today, we did not wake up until about 1:30 pm and were relaxing all day. I was able to talk to one of my best friends' Sade on the phone which is always fun. Like usual, my roomies and I got hungry around 11pm so we took a trip downtown, by foot and in the snow to get some food. We ate at this spot called Grillie 21 and on our way back we made some snow angels and had a mini photo shoot in the snow which was so much fun! One thing is for sure, Finland would not be the same without my roomies : ) Until next time, God Bless !

SNOW, Washing Machine & BASKETBALL

When I woke up this morning to the flash backs of last nights game which featured instant replays of missing 3 free throws and many jumpers, I decided to do some laundry. So, a bit upset I begin to get all of my clothes together, separate the whites from the darks and head down four flights of stairs. As I get outside I can not help but notice the beautiful white SNOW everywhere. I felt like a kid in the candy store because in an instant I was showered with so much joy and excitement. It was like a scene from a movie, the scene was so beautiful and perfect. There was about 2 inches of snow on the ground, snow covering all of the trees, the weather was perfect, the air was fresh and everything was white. It looked and felt as if I just entered heaven and God told me "Mandy, job well done". Unfortunately, this fairy tale start of my day ended immediately when I got to the laundry room because I get so irritated when the laundry machine decides not to work for me. I think that particular machine enjoys getting my heart beat racing and seeing my body tighten as I am 'frustratingly' trying to get the machine to stop making that beep noise it does when I push the wrong button. That machine is so annoying! lol Just to clarify for you, I am well capable of doing laundry, the machines here are all in Finnish so it is hard to figure out what the buttons mean : )

Enough about being in heaven for a couple minutes and ridiculous Finnish laundry machines. I am sure everyone is more eager to hear about our basketball games. First, we finally got a post player named Vanessa Gidden, who is pretty good! woo hoo I know so exciting!! She is 6'3 played at Hofstra University, which I have to add LMU beat my freshman year In the Miami tournament : ). Straight out of college she made it until the final cut of the Connecticut Suns WNBA team. After the cut she played for a team in Turkey who went undefeated for the season. Since her arrival we played two games and in both games our team looked so much better! Unfortunately we lost both games which we really should have won! The first game was to a team called Peka who is the defending champions. We ended up losing by 8 points which sucks because we are better coached, better conditioned but we could not make a shot. Our team shot like 17% from three point line and 25% from the field, and 56% from the free throw line which is terrible but even with the bad shooting we only lost by 8. The second game was last night against the Huima team. We lost by 1 point and again we should have won but we had to many spurts of missing shots, free throws and not taking care of the ball.

Our next game is Sunday against FoA and we are going to WIN because we keep getting closer and we are getting better!

I love you all and God Bless : )

HoNsU is back on the MAP

Hello Family and Friends! I am writing today in very good spirits. My team just won our last two games both in overtime and against the same team. We are now 2-6 in league and the two teams above us in league standings, both only have 3 wins which means we can turn our situation around! We have a semi-final game against Espoo on Wednesday and a tough game on Saturday which will round out the first round in league. Our last game which was yesterday was such a great win for us. We only traveled 8 players and we had many players show up BIG time for this game. Throughout the game there were several lead changes as well as many times we went down by 10 points. Then all of a sudden each player dug a little deeper and found a way to take the lead. With the final seconds to play we were down by 2 points and we ran our go to play, which is an isolation for Rocky. We executed it to perfection and Rocky scored which sent the game to overtime. The five minute overtime game started out pretty sloppy as both teams were exhausted and could not score for the first 2 minutes. Suddenly, one possession at a time, all five of my teammates on the court decided to hit big shots. It started with Katja hitting a jumper, then I came off a screen and hit a pull up jumper off the dribble, next possession later Rocky hit a three pointer, then Piia hit a jumper in the corner and to finish the game off we broke the press with ease which resulted in Laura scoring a wide open lay-up. The final score was 75-66 and it felt so good to win on the road let alone WIN. Everyone of my teammates confidence has risen to the next level and we were just happy. Tiia had her season high scoring of 16 points and 11 rebounds which awarded her Player of the Game, Rocky scored game high of 24 points, Piia scored 11 points and played great defense and I finished with a good overall statistical game, with 14 points, 7 rebounds, 5 steals, and 4 assists. Our next league game is Saturday at home against Peka, whom are the defending champions.

Besides basketball, I experienced -2 degree Celsius weather which is about 20 degree Fahrenheit. The lake in front of my apartment went frozen within one day and soon when the ice gets thick enough we will be able to ice skate on it. Also, I am learning how to count in Finnish which is a little hard because each number is a long Finnish word. Oh and today is the Finnish Father's Day so Happy Fathers Day to all you Fathers!

Alright well that's enough for now. Hope all is well and that God continues to bless you!

A Rough Weekend!!

Hey everybody!! I know many of you are wondering how my games went this past weekend so here it goes. Saturday we played a team called Catz who is the best team in our league. It was a rough game from the tip. We immediately started the game down by 6 points and the lead only expanded tremendously lol I was doubled team from the moment our post tried to inbound the ball to me and was heavily guarded once I received the ball. The other team would sub in and out new players to pressure me the entire game. It was very physically draining and frustrating at the same time because I am literally the only person on my team who can handle that kind of defensive pressure and I was expected to do that the entire game. Catz defense forced us into committing turnovers well above our average, forced us into taking bad shots or simply missing easy ones. By half time we were down by 20 points and my team could not hang as a whole with Catz. They have 4 Professional athletes on their team whom each are getting paid very good money and two of them are 6'3 post players from Russia. My team on the other hand, has two Professional players and no true post player. We have three girls on my team who are 6'0 and two of those girls should be 3/4 players and they are expected to guard these legit 6'3 dominate post players but in reality they are no match for the Catz posts. By the time the game was over our fans had witnessed our desperate need for a post and the difference between the top team in our league compared to the bottom. It was completely embarrassing and frustrating to feel as if there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome of them game. The final score was 94-50 (which I am dreading to share lol) I was the leading scorer for my team with only 10 points and a bad shooting percentage. I also finished with 6 assists and 4 steals. On the bright side, I was in the local newspaper the following day and the caption under my picture stated, 'Amanda DeCoud was the only highlight for HoNsU' (Something along those lines)

Unfortunately, our second game which was on Sunday did not go any better. We traveled three hours to Helsinki to play Espoo. My team played very well in the first half with exception of a couple minutes during the half. Second half rolled around and all of a sudden we were down by 20 points. It was literally two minutes before the lead expanded like that. As soon as that happened we were done. Our shots were not falling, again their post took over and started scoring at will, my teammates started putting their heads down and bam just like that we had another 40 point lost. The final score was 87-44 and I personally felt emotionally drained because again, I felt as if there was nothing I could have done to change the outcome. My final stats included a lousy 6 points and 1 assist but an impressive 6 steals. As terrible as those games went and felt I am not letting that affect my hunger for personal improvement nor am I allowing those games define my team. I do believe we will get better and that when we play these teams again they will not beat us like that again. I also wanted to inform you that an American post player is coming down here for a try out on Thursday. So, if we like her game then she will help us, be the team we should be.

After those two game I was a little bummed because my scoring went down but I realized I should not be because at this point in league, I am leading the league in steals per game and am tied for second with assists per game.

Anyways, I hope California is treating you all well and I am sure you all are getting excited to vote in the Presidential election. I miss you and God Bless America!

Some Random Pictures

Some of my teammates waiting for our delicious steak dinner !!

My team : )

Just Me.. acting like I am a part of the band!

At the 100th year HoNsU anniversary

Me N front of a church near downtown!

My team and I eating dinner..i told everybody to make a funny face and the girls who didnt do it, told me later that they did not understand what that meant. It was a cute moment~

No Worries..this was ALL NET : )

I was heading downtown with my teammate!

My team picture minus the tallest girl in the middle

My team at our Fashion Show for HoNsU's 100th year anniversary!

It has been awhile since my last blog but not much has happened out here besides traveling 3 hours to our basketball game and two a day practices. This past Sunday we played a league game against a team called PuHu. This team is a very experienced team with everyone in their starting line up over the age of 25 except one player. The first half my team played great. We executed our offense perfectly, played the aggressive defensive our coach demands from us and everything was clicking on the court. Ending the half with a couple poor offensive decisions in a row allowed PuHu to quickly catch up. By half time we were up by 1 point which should have been 15 if it weren't for the last 2 minutes of the second quarter. Second half rolls around and unfortunately it was a whole different story. All of a sudden we couldn't make a shot, we were getting terrible calls from the refs, we were playing terrible help side defense and just like that PuHu was up by 20 points. It was so deflating because of the awesome start we had but that is the difference from being on a team with experienced players oppose to young ones. Experienced teams capitalize on their opponents mistakes and that is what PuHu did. Even for myself, I made some poor choices such as driving to the basket early in the offense and not finishing, when instead my team needed me to set the offense up and run through the plays. I also fouled out of the game which I have managed to do twice this season. Even though, I was disappointed in myself for how I played in the second half, looking back I am glad I made those poor decisions in the game. The reason is because I realize I do not want to ever feel as if I did not complete my job, which is how I felt after the game. I have a responsibility as a point guard to take control of the offense and it was clear that I did not do that in the second half. Do not get me wrong, I am not putting pressure on myself about the game and I know my entire team contributed to our lost but there are things I should have done differently in the second half. The final score was 73-53 and we are now 0-4 in league. My final stats included 14 points, 3 rebounds, 4 steals and 1 assist. To my surprise, I still was awarded Player of the Game and received a pretty cool Michael Jackson CD which is a Finnish Collection.

Our next game is this Saturday against one of the best teams in league named Catz. Sunday we travel to Helsinki to play a team called Espoo who is one of the best defensive teams in league.

Besides basketball, after our game on Saturday HoNsU is celebrating their 100th year anniversary and the girls on the team including myself, have to participate in a fashion show. I am actually excited and think this will be a lot of fun! I will be sure to update you on my weekend : )

God Bless!

CUP Game...second round

Yesterday my team and I played in the second round of the Cup games. We played a team called BC Nokia who we are currently tied with for last place in league : ( Our team has had many changes since our last game. Elise Morrison, our American post player from Darthmouth University was released on Monday, our second starter Salla was told she would be out for about three weeks due to her ankle injury. Consequently, we had a new starting line up, with two new starters and many players seeing action on the floor for the first time. Despite, the "new-ness" of our team we came out and kicked BC Nokia's butt! We were 10 times better than that team and ended up winning the game 81-59. This win was very much needed and felt good to get under our belts. Our next CUP game will be against a team called Espoo on November 12, 2008. This game will be in the semi-finals which is the furthest HoNsU has made it in the CUP games. If we beat Espoo we will be in the finals which is a nationally televised game so I will be sure to update everybody if needed. My final stats included 20 points, 5 assists, 2 steals and 4 rebounds which awarded me as Player of the Game.

This Sunday, we face a team called PuHu in a regular league game on their home court. We will travel about 3 hours near Helsinki and fight for our first win in league. Love you and God Bless!

Battling it out in conference play

Saturday was our second game of the season and we traveled 3 and 1/2 hours to a town called Forssa to play a team called FoA. This was the same team we played in our first CUP game at home which was my first game as well as my first win as a HoNsU player. This game was a very different game then the first time we played them. They started the game off on fire getting easy fast break points and pumped up. They played a zone defense either 1-3-1, 2-3 and even box-1 (which i have not seen since high school). We struggled to get some points on the board but eventually started scoring a bit. Five minutes into the game our best Finnish player Salla sprained her ankle really bad and was out for the game. This hurt us as well as not having a dominate post player. Our coach has not been happy with our newest American addition post player and sat her on the bench. Now our team had to rely on girls who usually do not play very many minutes to contribute to the game. Unfortunately, those girls came in scared and not confident. They could not catch the ball, they were shooting air balls right after the other, and became very hard on themselves. By half time we were down by 20 points and it did not look like we had much hope. As second half came around we had some of the younger Finnish players step up their game but we just did not have what it took to win the game. We ended up losing the game 81-70, a key player to an injury and potentially losing our American post player. I finished the game with 19 points shooting 2/3 from the three point line as well as having 4 steals.





Today's game was against a team who has one of the best post players in the league. At the tip of the game I was exhausted from last nights game, but I knew I had to still show up for my team. Our starting line up changed and we began the game without the American post player and obviously without Salla (due to her ankle injury). So, with two new girls in the starting line up we knew we had to hide our exhaustion and show our pride. We had some really good runs and the other team also had some good runs. By half-time we were up by 4 and feeling and looking good. There were many girls on our team who stepped up and played a much better game then the previous night. But again we didn't have enough of what it takes to get our first league win. Although, we lost 72-82, we gained many things as well. Many of our players gained confidence in themselves, many of our players gained valuable game experience, and us Americans, well Rocky (the other American guard from Delaware State University) and I, gained more belief in our team due to the many great moments we had throughout the game. This game again has left us more hungry to get our first win in league. We are now 0-3 in league along with another team whom we play this Wednesday in the Cup game. My final stats of the game included 14 points, 7 assists and 5 steals, which awarded me as the Player of the Game : )

Until next time have a blessed week!!

HoNsU vs. Huima..Season Opener

Today we had our home game season opener against Huima. Like usual it was a tough match against our cross town rivals. There was a lot of pushing and shoving, whining and complaining on the court. It was a battle! We started the game well and took the lead in the first few seconds of the game. The Huima offense had no idea what to do against our full court zone defense and once they did it was time for us to play man to man defense. The game was going back and forth until the second quarter then Huima went on a run and by half time we were down by 10.

After several missed lay-ups by myself : ( and our 6'4 post player Elise Morrison I had enough, I got a little pissy and I start taking it to them. I finished my lay-ups : ) and hit a couple outside shots and tried to stop Huima's run. With several of my teammates in foul trouble and Huima getting 8 offensive rebounds in two possessions we started to fold. Although, they started expanding the lead we did not give up. We kept fighting and try to take it one possession at a time. During those moments we cut their lead to 7 but that took so much out of us that we ran out of gas. The final score was 66-79 and the worse thing about the game was the we let a 30 year old women get a double double at 17 points and 21 rebounds! Yes, that's right 21 rebounds!! We call her THE MAN I'm sure you kind figure out why! We lost the rebounds by over 10 and ultimately we knew that would have changed the game.

My final stats included 15 points, 3 boards, 2 assists and 6 steals. I had decent numbers but I still didn't feel complete due to the missed lay-ups, 13 point lost and giving up 21 rebounds to ONE player who is over 30 years old. So, very frustrating for our team but luckily we play them two more times so I smell a sweet upset coming soon! Watch out Huima!!

Our next two games are Saturday October 12th and Sunday the 13th.

I hope everyone is doing well and that you remember to smile because it feels so good : )

Some pictures

What it looks like...well on a sunny day
Downtown Jyvaskyla..shops n malls n food : )
The American Baller crew : )

At my favorite Pizza Restuarant
Eating with my teammates
Some of my teammates again
Rocky, Me Tiia, Laura aka Peka
The street I live on..

HoNsU Basketball

Hello Everybody!! Since my arrival my team and I have played in three basketball games. The first game was a CUP game against a team in our league called FoA (I have no idea what it stands for!) We won the game by two and it was the first time HoNsU has ever made it passed the first round in a CUP game, so my coach was pretty excited! I started and practically played the whole game and it didn't take long for me to realize basketball in Finland is much different from the states. For one, the girls out here are not as talented basketball players but are really physical, really fundamental and did I mention they are really physical? lol I stress the physical-ness because the girls do not care and will take you out! But with no hard feelings at all. Anyways, my first game I played well I had about 11-13 points, several nice passes and a couple steals. My coach told me that I am just the player he has been looking for and is happy that I am here. He also told me his goal for me this season is too be in great shape and much stronger!

The second team we played against was named Huima. This was just a practice game since our season has not started yet. Huima is one of the best teams in our league and they have a point guard who came from The University of Texas, so I was excited to challenge her on the court. In the first half my team was doing really well we were up by 10 at half time. I scored about 15 points, was 3-4 on the three point line and was basically HOOPIN! Then the second half came...and they went zone and our team struggled! I really didn't get back in the rhythm offensively but I was still very happy with my overall performance. We ended up losing by 22 points which was bad but considering we had our 3 player playing a post the whole game it could have been much worse.

The third game we played was also a scrimmage verse the same team Huima. We were excited to play this game because our third import player just arrived the night before and we finally have some size. Her name is Elise Morrison, she played for Dartmouth University and is a 6'4 post player who lives in Detroit. Unfortunately, we still lost the game by 20 which was very upsetting because they just dominated us the entire game. On the bright side there is a lot of improvement to be made and will be made because I refuse to get handled like this every game! I ended this game with about 15 points, a steal or two, and a couple assists. But I need to do more because we play this team again three times in the regular season and our team has to be better!

Our season home opener begins next Saturday against Huima ...again! So we have a week and a couple days to improve so that we can win our first game in league. Until then we will be practicing really hard and hopefully have some fun this weekend and explore Finland.

Until next time, take care!

**Please pray for the families and town here in Finland who just recently experienced a tragedy with school shooting!

Mandy#13

What it is like so far..

I have been here in Finland for almost two weeks now. I am still adjusting to the 10 hour time difference and would rather sleep during the day than at night. But other than the time difference I am adjusting quite well to the Finland lifestyle. The city I live in is a small university town about 5 minutes from downtown. Everybody out here rides bikes everywhere (which I soon will be as well) and the people are very active and healthy individuals. Before practices there are a group of 12 older men about 80 years old playing volleyball and some even basketball. It is pretty impressive to witness their physical abilities which is not like California!

The Food out here is not too bad. Everyday some of the girls and I eat at this restuarant/bar which includes salad bar, always some sort of pasta with either, chicken, sausage or beef. And it is pretty tasty. My rooommate and I found a very tasty Pizza spot down the street which we have already eaten about 3 times so far lol I have tried to expland on my food choices and be open to trying new things and I think some of you would be very proud of me!

My teammates are awesome! They are all so sweet and they take good care of the American players. My roommate is from New York but played basketball at Delaware State. Her name is Rocky. We are getting another American tomorrow evening who played at Darthmouth University and Spain last season. She is a post player whom we really need!

My coach is also a real cool guy. He is extremely passionate about the game and getting us in great shape. He is also taking great care of Rocky and I and continues to ask us if how we are doing.

My daily schedule begins with a morning shooting practice for about an hour. After that my roommate Rocky, myself, my teammate Tiia, the assistant coach Piia and I go eat lunch near the gym. We seat and eat for FREE then go home to our apartment. We usually nap for a bit or go on our computer to waste time. A couple hours later we go to our evening practice. Before our evening practice we either lift weights or do some conditioning like run in the woods for 20 minutes. After practice I usually go home and wait for my friends and family to chat with me on SKYPE or AIM and relax for the evening.

Although, this update seems very long I still have so much more to share but I will end it here. I hope life in the States is treating everybody great and you realize that God is so Good! I am truly thankful : )

Mandy#13

This is the Beginning

Hello Friends and Family!! Welcome to "My Life in Finland". I have created this site so that you can continue to be updated with my life. I will use this site to show you pictures, tell you stories about my experiences, possibly teach you some Finnish words : ) and of course to hear comments from YOU. So, I hope you enjoy my blogs and that you feel a part of my experience in Jyvaskyla, Finland! Thank you everybody for your love and support. I love you all so very much!