World Cup 2014 - it's coming

When I was looking over the past year I realised how much Team Sweden was present, how we practiced, how we bouted and anticipated Dallas. I always been really excited about Team Sweden, it's great to see how your teammates all raise to occasion and how everyone work so hard. It's great to see how Sweden is growing as a rollerderby nation and how I very much have had the opportunity to be a big part of that. I and so many others with me have put hours of time into helping, developing, meeting and talking about how, where, when, who and why. It's sometimes a thankless job, but in the end is super rewarding, especially when your national team end up being number SIX in the world among 30 nations.

I still have not really had the urge to write about the World Cup, it's not because it wasn't awesome, it's more because I have so many other things going on in my life that I have to focus on. But I WILL recap the World Cup in a few days.

I am also getting back to shape after taking a break during the hollidays...and you can read more about that here: http://swedehurt.blogspot.com/2015/01/back-in-shape-for-2014-15-days-of.html

Ready for the World Cup

Name and number: Berglöf "Swede Hurt", #46.
What is your home league? Gotham Girls Rollerderby.
What's your preferred position on the track? I love blocking, but I will do whatever the team is asking and need me to do. I'll jam, and I do think it is fun, but I wouldn't like to be a main jammer.

When did you start with Roller Derby? November 2007.
What's your derby motto? Tillsammans, tillsammans, tillsammans (Together, together, together).
I love that rollerderby is a teamsport, we win together and we lose together. We go out on the track together and make each other shine.

Which song is your best theme song?
I don't really have a specific song, but it probably be a The Sounds song.

Playing Team USA again

I had an amazing weekend playing rollerderby in Stuttgart, Germany. Team Sweden played Team USA, and we scored so much more than we did last time. The level of rollerderby in Sweden have really done HUGE strides forward. The game was really fast and I felt like we played well together, it was fun to be in the same line as Alotta and Tjutet, two Crime City players. Alotta has been around since I lived, skated and coached Crime, Tjutet was Fresh Meat when I was leaving, and they are both great strong players. 

It was great to see so many friends in one weekend,both American, German and Swedish! International hugfest!

Team USA held a bootcamp during the weekend, and I participated in the Sunday sessions, and it's always really interesting to listen and learn from other coaches. I really liked the blocking session that Smarty, Jackie and Baller ran, I think I really picked up a few things. 

I did miss half of the blocking backwards session that Pfister, AJ and Cherri ran, because I decided on having breakfast. It really is not what I'm the best at, and I need to practice more, I stand up too much when I do it. Even if I do know that I probably always will be most successful blocking with my ass... But as I always say, the more tricks you have in your bag...

Team Sweden vs. Team Finland

This weekend was spent in Helsinki, the past years I've spent A LOT of time in Helsinki...

Game over :-D Finland and Sweden (photo by Vincent Micheletti)

Ouch, my body is drained and so is my brain... I had a great time playing rollerderby with Team Sweden, such an amazing team! Such a challange to play Team Finland, so many friends and so many amazing players! Scandinavian Rollerderby makes me happy, how far we have gotten the past years is beyond amazing...

On Saturday we played Finland, and they had a very strong team, and so did we. In the end they walked away with the win, but the entire bout wasa back and forth, and it could have gone either way. They were the better team at this time!
I had a great time playing with people I never really have played with before, but it took a while before we did find the synergy on the track, and truly got to feel like a sucessful pack. I am never really happy with my performance after a bout, well, I am happy, but I always think I can improve, and improve I shall.

(photo by Vincent Micheletti)

Both Team Sweden and Stockholm Rollerderby have VERY exciting futures, and I am more than excited to go towards that future! I want to be stronger, faster and more skilled!

On Sunday we got to Scrimmage against Helsinkis travelteam, and that was amazingly fun, I feel like many people were more relaxed, and we also figured out some things that we didn't really get to work the previous night. I am proud to be a coach of such an inspiring and hardworking team!

After scrimmage we set off to a REAL Finnish experiance, NAKED sauna! Yeah, it was a swiminghall, with a few saunas and a big pool. It's odd that I've been to Helsinki probably about 15 times the past years, and no one has taken me here. On Sundays it was women only and you could have a beer by a small table on the second floor, overlooking the lap-pool, where half of the women were swimming laps naked.. I had a beer, I deserved it, after the scrimmage I chugged a protein shake, so I was in need of cabs, and nothing could be better than this yummy beer! And after the beer I swimmeda few laps with Becky. It was a perfect ending with the team after an amazing but vey draining weekend.

Overall. this was a great weekend with rollerderby and a bunch of amazing people that I enjoy to play rollerderby with! Of course it was hard both physically and mentally, nad most of all I just want to lay down and sleep... sleep and sleep some more....

Watching mens rollerderby and longong for a shower (photo by Markko Nimleä)

Tomorrow: Team Sweden vs. Team Finland

I am still at work, but soon to leave and head to the airport to go to Helsinki, tomorrow is thefirst bout with the 2014 Team Sweden. I am so EXCITED and a little nervous. I will be staying with Only as usual, I love seeing only and her wife (!) Pygmee, and hopefully she will feed me some Karelian Pirogies.

I am also really excited knowing that my lady will be watching the VIDEOSTREAM from her home cheering me on, and many others with her. I am so amazed and happy how far we have taken rollerderby the past years! Yay for Euopean Rollerderby! Yay for worldwide rollerderby and YAY for all of teh amazing people that have made this possible.

Team Sweden tryouts are DONE

It is AMAZING to see how far Swedish rollerderby has come, the understanding of gameplay, the skills, the hits, the walls, the smiles and the motivation. I love being a part of this!

I love love love being a part of this, it is FANTASTIC to see how much better everyone get and how much everyone are pushing themselves!

It is very rewarding and awesome to be a coach, and at the same time I sometimes just wanna skate... looking at everyone having so much fun, while I have  to evaluate and think about everyones elses performance, it leaves leaves very little time for just skating for myslef. Rollerderby is fun, but we are turning into a more serious sport, we have to make decisions and everyone that wants to play just can't play at all times.

So many derbyplayers are dear to me, my best friends and people I both enjoy skating with and to spend my non-derby time with but rostars are made and teams are going to be formed, looking past friendship has to be done. You don't have to LOVE the person you skate with, I usually do, but to be crass, the person that you play best with, is usually not your best friend, but people you trust on the track.

Selections are never easy, we had about 60 girls sign up for try - outs, we invited 40 to try-outs and now we have to cut that group down to a group of about 25 girls that will practice together until later when we will make the selection of the people that will go to Dallas.

The people! 

Playing vs USA

Of course we lost - But we played really, really well, and i am very proud of what has become of Team Sweden. We scored 29 points on the worlds best team - and we built walls that I can be very proud of.
Team USA awarded me MVP, and Fenix got best jammer while Knickerblocker Glory got best blocker. I am super proud of us all, each and everyone that was out on the track, having a calm and fun game, smiling, fighting and playing rollerderby. That's what it's all about!
It was SO much fun to see and play with the CCR girls again! Rollerderby truly saved my soul, and then kidnapped it and keeping it for ransom... I just wonnder what the ransom is...

Team Sweden awarded Team USA:

Best Blocker: Sexy Slaydie
Best Jammer: Bonnie Thunders
MVP: Joy Collision

Team USA awarded Team Sweden:
Best Blocker: Knickerblocker Glory
Best Jammer: Fenix Fortsomfan
MVP: Swede Hurt (probably hte award I am the most proud of ever)

Fisti Cuffs - a derby person I heart

Photo by Nicolas Charest and stolen from facebook

Fisit Cuffs is a Gotham Girl, a Manhattan Mayhem skater and also on Team USA, she is a VERY impressive and amazing person. She is a person I miss sooo much.... and she also has a really cool company together with Beatrix Slaughter called Lock and Spoon... they make amazing jewlery... Fisti gave me a ring that she mase, and I always wear it... it is really simple but oh so pretty! 

So I moved to New York because Bonnie and OMG talked me into it (and all those other reasons), and I was superduper lonly and lost (and excited and nervous), and I didn't know anyone except from Bonnie and OMG -and they both had busy lives and still did an amazing job of being my derbymothers (there will be a blog about them coming up too).

I don't know why me and Fisti Cuffs became such good friends, maybe because we shared the equal lack of co-ordination while off-saktes, maybe because we both were tall (I am taller), maybe because we both are kind of goofy I  really don't know. I don't really even know when we just became friends, but somewhere along the way in New York she became my captain, both on the Allstars and on Mayhem and she was always an inspiration but also a friend.

We are VERY serious people

Fisti has done derby longer than any person I know - she started in Arizona and then moved onto New York, and her style of playing is just lazy but with urgency. She always tend to be right where she needs to be, and she knows that when she has to go for the big hit, she has failed blocking, I admire Fisti Cuffs very much. She is a VERY smart and accomplished player and I love watching her play and I love playing with her.

it was the look of 2010

Fisti LOVES vintage shops, art and sparkly things, it very much distracts her. She took me to Trash beach (she likes to refere to it as Treasure Beach, and it is an old landfill in Brooklyn that now is leaking into the ocean) where we got a tan and coca-cola bottles from teh 50's. Fisti also discovered the punching games and I have gotten many bruises from her pracitcing it.... and also trying to save her from playing it with 250-pund muscular guys a week before Championships... and she will dress up and be silly.. I am scared of letting her cut my hair... I will admit that!

This is Fisitis way of showing love before a jam starts

Fisti and I worked really well on track, and she was always a person that I would feel confident playing with, oh oh oh, and we equally hated to jam.. he he he... Fisti will arrive late to everything if there is a pondshop or something cute on the way, she is easier distracted than me (and that says A LOT)... and her boyfriend is my derby husband... and I love him too... Those two have made my day so many times I cannot even count on my fingers. Justin is probably the most patient person in the world... having to collect me and Fisti from wherever our heads have happened to end up...

I need to go to New York and visit soon... or even better... FISTI come here and bring Justin with you!! 

Wile. E Peyote - a derby person I heart

I sort of don't really know when I met Wile first, she was one of the owners of Fast Girls Skates, and I'm not sure if it was her or Morty who fitted me for my first ''real'' skates. But however - I met Wile a whole bunch of times, but it wasn't until when I started to work around the corner from Fast Girls and later tried out for Rat City that I really got to know her. When I got on Rat City I ended up on the Sockit Wenches that was Wiles hometeam - and later on I also became an All Star - and we went to Western Regionals 2009 in Denver.

Rat City Game Face (Wile, Braxley, Drea and Mater)

Wile is one of the tinest people I have ever met - she just happen to think she is twice her size and she is a hot head, she is a little like Stich, in Stich and Lilo. Once she even found a Stich kid-costume for Halloween - it was aaaamazing...   She also LOVES great food - and her husband makes fantastic food. The two of them is one of the main reasons I quit being a vegetarian and started to eat meat. I promise, the pulled pork is totally worth it!
Wile and I used to go for really long outdoor skates, and I really miss this - I would come by Fast Girls and she would whine about something and then we would drive somewhere far or close and then skate, skate, skate and chat, chat, chat... I mostly remember many sunny days on skates, and then we would go for ice-cream (or vegan donuts) or to her house and chill in her hot-tub. I even used to have my bikini waiting for me at her house, I would not be suprised if it's still there... Ha ha ha... Ahwww, I really miss Wile, she is really an amazing friend, she might bark, but she doesn't really ever bite, and she gets tipsy on a glass of wine, and the more I think of her right now, the more I miss her!

At Rat City we also worked interleauge together, and as mentioned we also skated lots and lots together, we equally hated jamming and loved blocking - I might have had a little more patience for the jamming than she did - but she was (and still probably is) at jamming.
Together we did lots of  fun things, like me whipping her between my legs and other just silly derby show-off things.
A few times we even went skiiing together. (well, I snowboarded and she skiied) and she seriously is HILLERIOUS! Oh - she also drives a VERY awesome car!
At the World Cup I did not get to hang out with her enough, since she was busy skating for Ireland - and I was busy skating for Sweden...
Oh, and her and Morty are the owners of Fast Girls Skates, the first Brick and Mortar rollerderby store in the world, how cool is that! I'd say that is VERY cool - and they know their stuff really well, when I lived in Seattle I spent many hours there! 

MVP for Sweden

I got World Cup MVP for Sweden, I must say that I think that now in retrospective I do belive that every girl at the World Cup deserved MVP. We all did an amazing job and wrote histrory! I am proud to be a part of Team Sweden - and it has been a looong way here!

We accomplished so much! It is amazing!

(And I love that Nanda, MVP of Team Brazil is wearing a Team Sweden shirt...)

Niagara Falls in late November

So much water and like Vegas in IceAge wen went to Niagara Falls on Monday morning.

It was nice and quiet, me an Loony went with Kix and Becky and got on the cheap casino bus with a bunch of little Chineese women that seemed ready to gamble their lives away.
We also got scared to death at the huanted house... totally worth it! And none of us felt like taking hte barell down the falls - at all!
Now we are gonna watch dexter and then gp shopping at Queen street - that be window shopping!

Team Sweden went to Finland and some more...

Alotta Riot, me and Barbara Barfight

As the first nation vs. nation Sweden played Finland in Helsinki - and it was fun and an amazing learning experiance. Getting the team ready for the world cup this bout showed our strengths and weaknesses but also that we really have fun as a team. I love this team - it is so much fun and makes me so proud to be a part of!

Maito Karhu (yes it is Finnish)

This weekend is our last Team Sweden training weekend before we are heading to the World Cup in Toronto in three weeks! Don't miss out on buying some of our really cool merch - you can find it online HERE.

If you feel an urge to donate some money to Team Sweden (and why would you not) you can always hit up www.teamswedenrollerderby.com and klick on our donation button. There you can also learn a little about all the 20 girls of Team Sweden.