Back On Track

After about two weeks off writing because my computer essentially crashed I have finally reloaded my operating system and can return to posting regularly.

In the past couple weeks, we have played two games and won both of them. The game against Bonn was a pretty easy game and we handled that one without any real difficulty. The second game and most recent was our final game against the Magdeburg Virgin Guards.

After the game against Bonn, I spent three days in Freiburg, Germany visiting my family there and getting the chance to visit the little village (Grafenhausen) that I spent two years living in when I was younger. I got the chance to visit the old farm that my family used to own and where my mom and her siblings grew up. The new owners have been restoring the property and in the short time that they have owned the property, the family living there has done an impressive job rebuilding/remodeling the property since it was basically unlivable when we sold it.

I also got the chance to go to France (which is just across the Rhein river near Grafenhausen) and eat a traditional food called Flammenkuchen. Flammenkuchen is similar to pizza, thinner dough and no tomato sauce; it can be prepared as dessert or main course, we had both. Just like pizza; flammenkuchen have many different types; we had some with onions and “speck”(smoked bacon), some with cheese and some with a combination of both. The dessert version is also quite tasty; it has “flambéed” apples with sugar on top of the dough. Here are a few pictures from that weekend.









In our first meeting versus Magdeburg, we beat them pretty soundly so we were hoping to do the same this time; the difference is that Magdeburg is 6 hours away and we needed to travel there the morning of the game. To the boys back at McGill, try to think the road trip back home from the East coast games on the bus but instead we stopped halfway and played a game, it was awful. We left at 6am from the Hockeypark and we stopped twice, once to pick up players that live on the way and the second time for a pregame walkthrough and a lunch prepared by Petra or as we imports call her “mom”.

When we arrived in Magdeburg it was about 30 degrees Celsius, you might think great, that is beautiful sunshine and wonderful conditions to play a football game but it was too hot. After a long bus ride, your legs are cramped and far from the best condition to be playing a football game, the sun only makes it worse by making it harder to stay hydrated and easier to cramp up. Many players and I were up on the field earlier/longer than usual to try and loosen our legs and get ready for the game.

We all did a good job getting ready since we took a commanding lead into half time. I obviously can’t speak for everyone but halftime was the worse thing possible for my legs. Sitting down and taking a break for a few minutes made the second half unbelievably hard for me to get my legs going again. I think the toll of the bus ride and the heat made the second half much harder for us as a team and we didn’t play as well and it became a game. Magdeburg came back and a couple of times were within striking distance; the game ended 37-29 Mavericks. It was a good character win for our team to remain undefeated as well as winning our fourth consecutive win on the road. Here are some pictures from our games against Bonn (baby blue) and Magdeburg (green/red).









As previously mentioned Magdeburg is 6 hours away from Monchengladbach, the bus ride took us from the Western border of Germany to the Eastern one. Berlin was only an hour and a half from Magdeburg so we decided as “Amis” that we would take a car with us to Magdeburg and then drive after the game to Berlin to spend a couple days there visiting the sights and enjoying the nightlife. We were supposed to be four players spending a few days in Berlin but Ty one of our Corners strained his MCL in the game and had to go back to ‘Gladbach to get evaluated by the doctors.

Since Ty had to go back to “Gladbach”, three of us decided to go and visit the sights. Berlin is a huge city with many things to see and do but we were only there for a day and half. We got the opportunity to see many of the big tourist sights such as Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall as well as the Brandenburger Gate but there were also many more that we didn’t get to see. Berlin has so many sights to see that we clearly didn’t have enough time to see everything but we accomplished a lot in our time there and enjoyed our time in Berlin. Below are some pictures from our time in Berlin.












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