Halfway There

Hey everyone, I know it's been like two weeks since my last entry so we have some catching up to do so let's get to it. We knew that if we won our last two matches going into the winter break we would definitely have a spot in the Grand Prix the first weekend of January, but of course we had to make it interesting.

Our match against Falkoping on the 12th was another disappointing one that eventually ended in our first home loss of the season. The match went to four sets, but for whatever reason we were never really comfortable playing that day. Our passing was pretty poor all day and offensively we couldn't seem to do anything right. We knew that we would still have an outside chance of jumping into the top four and getting the Grand Prix bid, but we had to beat a decent Habo team on the road, where we've won just once all year.

We made some changes in the lineup, including moving me to middle blocker and Eric Simon to opposite, and had a pretty good week of practice leading up to our trip down to Habo (another 7 AM van trip) and hoped to get off to the good start that we desperately needed. That didn't happen. We dropped the first two sets in a couple close ones. Going into the ten minute halftime break we thought that we had already been eliminated from the top four. We had a good team talk and went out with a whole new attitude in the third set. We knew we had nothing to lose.

The match completely changed after that break and we stormed back for a five set win, including dominating set five, where we led 10-1 at one point. The last three sets were probably the best we played all year, we were getting a lot of good touches blocking, which means it's a lot easier to play defense behind it. And offensively, we drastically cut down on the errors that normally kill us.

We got to the locker room and some of the guys immediately turned to their iPhones to check the other scores from around the league. We realized that Hylte was our main competition for the last spot and they needed to get all three points on the day (a three or four set win) against Linkoping. We watched the points add up for Linkoping through the first three sets and were extremely relieved when they took a two sets to one lead, which meant that Hylte could only get two standings points and that put us in the Grand Prix!

This was a huge relief for us as missing the Grand Prix would definitely mean we were underachieving greatly in the first half of the season. Going into the two-week Christmas break we are feeling pretty good about our prospects for a strong second half with a new lineup and hopefully a signature win to gain some momentum. We got most of our difficult road matches out of the way in the first half so as long as we can protect our barn down the stretch we should end up with a good playoff seed.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, I'll have some more Grand Prix info when I get back to Sweden at the end of this week!

Round Seven: Road Warriors

The one thing we knew going into the last three matches before the holiday break was that our fate is in our own hands. If we found a way to win these last three matches we would be in the Swedish Grand Prix, the beginning of January tournament of the top four teams in the country. However, we would have to get two of those three wins on the road, something that had alluded us so far this season.

The first match was today at Vingåker, a team that came into the match at 0-6 in the league. After playing the match I was personally surprised that this team hasn't won this season. They have to very solid middles and a good setter to go along with a less than average pin offense. We knew going into the match that if we controlled their middles we would win.

Game one was our typical slow start. We let a couple balls drop that should have been picked up and defensively it seemed like we were a step slow. Thankfully we figured it out and after a tough battle through the teens we took a 21-18 lead. Of course we made it a little interesting before pulling it out 25-23. It was only our second game win of the season on the road and we had to make sure that we carried that momentum into game two. We did.

We jumped out to an 8-4 lead before I came up to serve. For the first time since I got here basically I had a great game jump serving. I went on a five point run to put us up 13-4, which included a couple aces and a couple overpasses forced. As much as I'd like to take credit for hard work, I think the ball has made the most difference. Most matches we have played this year have been with a ball that for some reason doesn't do what I want it to do when I'm serving. It's a little heavier than the one we used today (which is actually the official FIVB international ball), and I just can't seem to get the toss right, or the ball to snap in bounds with top spin. But we just got an order of the lighter ones in at our home gym and have been able to practice with them this week. It made a world of difference in our match tonight, hitting and serving. Anyways, we took a 16-8 lead into the second technical timeout and were feeling good about about the way things were going. They proceeded to cut into the lead with a series of float servers to make it 21-16 and we limped to the finish for another 25-23 win.

Game three was a game that we had to have, not only to make sure we got three points, but to make sure we get some confidence in a gym other than our own. They kept it close until the first technical timeout, we led 8-7, but we broke away from there. A huge serving run from Kyle Masterson pushed our lead to 16-8 and we kept our foot on the gas all the way to the end for a change. It seems they couldn't do anything right, which was punctuated with a missed serve by them on match point.

Hopefully this match will be a sign of things to come. We played much more like a team today than we have been playing recently and it showed in the results. It may have been thanks to a change at libero, but in any case, it was good to see us finish games better than we have been.

While the match was going on I didn't feel like it was the best match I've played this season, but stats-wise it definitely was. I finished with 12 kills and three aces for a match leading 15 points, so I'll take that any day.

Upcoming this week, it looks like me and Eric are finally going to make a trip to Stockholm on Wednesday to check it out and we have a solid team in Falkoping coming up to Tierp this Sunday for our last home match before the three-week holiday break. Hopefully we can keep things headed in the right direction. God natt!

Round Six: W!

One of the worst parts of our loss to Falkenberg was the fact that we had to wait 13 days to finally play again. Thankfully, we would finally have another home match when we got to play, it had been almost a month since our last one. While we have definitely struggled on the road, we have yet to drop a set in Aspenhallen, our home gym, and last night was no different.

Lund came to town not having won a match yet this year, and when a team says on its website that its goal for the year is to win two matches, you know that this is a match you need to take three points from. Thankfully we did, but it was anything but smooth sailing.

The first game was surprisingly competitive, we just couldn't get anything going when we were serving, and that means that we could never take a lead during most of the game. They were a pretty sloppy team and somehow always find a way to get kills off the block, usually off of mine or Kyle's elbows. It's a really frustrating thing to know you put up a solid block only to get used really low. Luckily, we got our blocking figured out by the end of the game and, after trailing 22-21, scored the last four points to take the game 25-22 on a game-ending stuff block by yours truly.

Game two started out much better for us. We finally shook off some of the rust that was showing after our two week break and stormed out to a 16-11 lead. We gave it right back however and ended up being tied at 17 after a series of bad offensive errors. The rest of the game went back and forth and eventually we turned our third attempt at game point and won 27-25.

Game three was one that we needed to play like we could all the way through to 25 and we did. We jumped out to 8-4 and 16-12 leads at the technical timeouts and the closest they could get it was 21-19. Then I came up to serve and served the game out, including two aces with one on match point. That was basically the highlight of my match as I played probably my worst match out here so far. I still finished with 11 points but made way too many errors, including a couple at crucial times, but hey a win's a win.

It feels really good to finally be back in the win column. We now sit on nine points through six matches, which is less than ideal, but we still have a shot at the Grand Prix in January if we win out these last three matches. This is very doable, as we have definitely gotten past the tough part of our first half schedule. We just need to be a lot better on the road at Vingakers on December 5th and Habo on the 19th. We also play at home against Falkoping on the 12th. Taking nine more points before the holiday break will do wonders for our spot in the standings and hopefully give us a shot at a pretty good playoff seed, but that's all up to us.

I'll update soon. Go Bears!

Round Five

I know I've been bad about writing the last week and quite frankly, I haven't been wanting to talk about our last match at all so I'll just go over it briefly.

Any one who knows me even a little bit knows that there's very few things I hate more than losing (Jersey Shore and Brett Favre, for instance). Whether it's a game of soccer on Xbox or a round of golf or a national championship match, nothing gets me more furious than losing at anything. What makes it even worse is when I know my team has the ability to win and doesn't. And even beyond that is when we don't even give ourselves the opportunity to win.

Last Sunday was one of the longest days of my life. Woke up in Tierp a little before 6 AM (again, those who know me also know I am far from a morning person), hopped in the trusty Tierp Volley van and drove about six hours to Falkenberg, a town all the way down on the west coast, got our asses kicked, and hopped back in the van for the six hour trip home. All in all, 12+ hours of driving, 61 minutes of volleyball.

When I say we got our asses kicked, I mean we got absolutely destroyed in every facet of the game. Our passing was by far the worst we have had in any match, scrimmage, practice, you name it all, all year. This, of course, prevented us from executing the main part of our game plan, setting our middles. Once their serves had us off the net, we really stood no chance. Falkenberg is a big team with very good blocking middles and basically one big gun, their opposite. We really couldn't do anything right the entire match. Passing was terrible, hitting was pretty horrific and we couldn't even seem to get a serve in. Sixty-one minutes, including a ten minute break, was all it took to send us packing. Embarrassing to say the least, especially in front of about 1,000 people. Kyle and I led the way with eight points each, not a big number by any stretch.

Moving on, our practices have been promising this week and we are returning home next weekend where we have played our best ball by far this year. Also, we are hoping for a big, enthusiastic crowd as next Saturday is "Pub Night" at our match. Hopefully a couple brews will get the home crowd pushing us towards a much needed victory.

On the docket this week is more of the same, a couple practices, a couple workouts and a couple floating sessions will hopefully keep me fresh for next weekend. Other than that, still just killing time and trying to stay warm (it's been around 30 and snowing a lot this week, so we don't venture out much). Hopefully I'll be able to write with much better news a week from now! And if you haven't already, click on that banner on the right side of this page to become a fan on Facebook! Thanks, we'll talk soon.

Round Four: Heartbreak in Sollentuna

Hey, sorry for the delay but I haven't felt like writing the last two days after what happened at Sollentuna on Tuesday night. We let another one slip right through our hands to a very beatable opponent.

Things started out well in game one and we were in a great position to take a 1-0 lead in a very important road game when we just couldn't get the job done. We were up three points late (20-17 I believe) and ended up dropping a tough one, 25-23. Game two was just an absolute disaster on all levels for us. We fell down 12-4 early. We couldn't pass, couldn't hit and couldn't serve. That's not a good recipe for a team trying to beat an opponent that will probably be in the top 4 come playoff time. The beating continued even after a sub and a libero change and we ended up losing game two 25-15.

The only thing you can do when you get smoked in a game is try to regroup in the three minute break before the next game starts. The beauty of set play in volleyball is that once a game is done that score means nothing in the next game, it's right back to 0-0. We knew we had a huge hill to climb but we got off to a great start in game three and were able to keep it rolling all the way through to a 25-18 victory.

After this win we knew that this team wasn't doing anything that we couldn't deal with and if we imposed our will on them we could definitely take the next two sets and the match. We knew we had to control their opposite, a Brazilian who gets the bulk of their sets, and keep up with the pace of their offense to the left sides. We did a great job of it in games one and three and knew if we could just keep up with that we could take two points home. Things didn't exactly go as planned, however.

Game four was the most intensely competitive of the match, but again we found ourselves up late and couldn't slam the door. After battling early and through the teens we found ourselves with a 21-18 lead, only four points from forcing game five. That's when the wheels came off. A timeout at 21-18 was followed by an immediate three point run by Sollentuna to tie things up thanks to some shaky passing. We were left playing catch up in a sideout battle for the rest of the match. The match ended on a block at 27-25. The brutal van ride home through the first big snowstorm this winter didn't help any of our moods, that's for sure.

If you would like to watch the match (I don't) you can view it here:
Tierp - Sollentuna
Be warned, however, putting microphones in the huddles is a bad idea. The language isn't for kids.

This was a horribly frustrating match for a bunch of reasons, namely being up by three points late in not one but two games! At that point all you have to do is side out and the game is yours but for some reason it seems like we take those three points for granted and let the other guys off the hook. Volleyball is a unique sport because you have to keep scoring at every opportunity you get. You can't get up 20 points early like in basketball or football and just coast through until the end.

Personally I played a great game one, pretty sure that's where the bulk of my nine kills came, but really didn't have an opportunity to do much the rest of the match because I didn't get set much. I blocked really well and forced some bad passes once I switched to my float serve but the whole match left me feeling like I could have made a bigger difference.

We need to improve our killer instinct if we are going to be contenders late or if we are even going to qualify for the Grand Prix in January. Right now we sit at six points, six back from first place Orkelljunga. You get three points for a win in three or four sets, two for a win in five and one for a loss in five so even pushing Tuesday's match to five games really could have helped us.

Luckily, we have a quick turnaround before our next match. We play at Falkenberg on Sunday. It's going to be a long day. Leaving Tierp at 7 AM, playing in Falkenberg at 5 PM and then right back on the road home, hopefully with three points and Monday off. I'll update soon, thanks for reading!

Highlights from the Hylte Match

Here's a highlight video my coach put together of our match against Hylte this Saturday. I'm number 7 in blue.

Week Three: Protecting Our Barn

After what was a disappointing showing in Orkelljunga, all of us were anxious to get back out onto the court to set the ship right again. Unfortunately for Hylte, they were the ones that had to bear the brunt of our frustration on Saturday back home in Tierp. As Coach Andy would say, "We must protect our barn."

Hylte was a team that was coming off a very rough loss last weekend, including losing one game 25-10, so we knew if we did our thing we should have no problem going home with three points. Game one started off well and set a tone for the match that they just couldn't hang with. We jumped out early and controlled the first game, holding a 21-14 lead late but we let them back into it and ended up winning by just two at 25-23. We knew we had to buckle down and kill any momentum they had gained and we did just that with a dominant game two victory, 25-13.


Hylte is a team that relies heavily on two players, a middle and their opposite. We did a great job serving, much better than last weekend, and for the most part their passing failed them and they had very few chances to even set their middles. When they did set him the connection just wasn't there. We also did a great job shutting down their opposite, including a rally where I dug him three times in a row, a career highlight of mine. He did finish with 11 kills but at crucial times we stopped him.


Game three was an almost exact repeat of game one. We jumped out to leads of 8-5 and 16-11 at the technical timeouts but we didn't put the nail in the coffin when we needed to. We ended up winning the game 25-22 on the last of Eric Simon's three blocks on the day. While a victory is always a plus, we need to be able to play all the way through matches without taking our foot off the gas if we're going to make some noise come playoff time.

Overall, it was a successful day for me, I played really well again. Nine kills and a block gave me my first career double digit point match, so I'm headed in the right direction. A couple other results, including previously undefeated Sollentuna losing to Falkoping, left us in a good spot after the three points we gained in our victory. Hopefully we get the film from that match soon and can repeat that result next Tuesday when we play at Sollentuna (nine days seems like forever until our next match!).

Of course, we had good reason to celebrate so a bunch of us hit the town in Uppsala for a good time. It was a much needed escape from the walls of this apartment and we will definitely be making the 30 minute train ride more often in the next six months, hopefully for more celebrations.


Talk to you soon! And if we don't already talk, add me on Skype (dan.fabry)! I'm on basically all the time, at least in between episodes of "Mad Men."

Week Two: My Debut

So after being forced to stand on the sidelines during the season-opening sweep last Sunday I couldn't wait to get in the action this weekend. But first came a week of practice, watching "Mad Men," eating Swedish pancakes and a six-hour van ride to Orkelljunga (sound it out). The ride wasn't that bad since I had "The Other Guys" loaded onto my iPod and we had a traditional all-you-can eat Swedish meatball dinner at a truck stop.

The week crawled by and finally match time came around in "The Shoe Box," as our coaches call the tiny Orkelljunga gym. After an overly lengthy warm up and a pretty ridiculous home team entrance that included a smoke machine and one of those flashing red lights that they use for goals at hockey games I was ready to play in my first pro match. It was basically all downhill from there...

While the gym was small, even smaller than our home gym, it really made for a great home court advantage for Orkelljunga. They really packed the place, well over the actual number of seats they had. Add to that the kids beating on drums and blowing those horrible horns from the World Cup and it really was us 13 against a whole town. The atmosphere at these matches is nothing like I've ever played in. The crowd was very into it and got loud after every big play they made and then dead silent whenever we would make one (which wasn't often). Also, I could do without the 10 seconds of dance music in between every single point. Lady Gaga is the last thing I need in my ear after missing a play.

From the beginning of the match we knew we were in for a battle. In both games one and two we fell down to early big deficits, including 8-1 in the second. It was a frustrating match to say the least. We definitely weren't prepared for the speed of their offense and were really helpless to stop it. The match ended in a 3-0 sweep to the bad guys, with game three being the only one that was even competitive at 25-23. Overall, I played well offensively and led the team in points but my blocking was pretty disappointing.

We were all pretty disappointed by the effort, which didn't make the six hours of driving home any easier. Even the traditional Swedish comfort food of Big Macs and fries didn't help much.

These first five weeks will be absolutely crucial for how we end up doing this season. After beating the defending champs last weekend we played the runners up this weekend. This week we are back at home against a decent Hylte team. Hopefully our crowd will push us back into the win column. After that we play a good Sollentuna team and then first place Falkenberg. We need to get our game together quick.

Well it's off to practice for me now to work on that, but for now I'll leave you with a picture of one of our neighbors walking his cat (yes, on a leash and everything).



The cat pretty much sits there and stares, even he doesn't know what's going on.

Week One

So day six in Sweden has come and gone and I still don't know how exactly to start my season blog so I figure I'll just start with how I ended up here in Tierp.

Last season I came up empty in my attempts to find a team to play for myself so I enjoyed a year back living at home just outside of Chicago. I got a bartending gig, coached an 18-year-old club team, and worked on the golf game (it's not too promising), all the while going to a personal athletic trainer to stay in my old college shape (big thanks to Justin, Mike, Roger and all the guys and girls at WCS/Gattone Sports Performance in Buffalo Grove, IL). This year I took a different approach, however. I ended up going on a professional volleyball scouting tour through an agency called Bring It Promotions. The entire tour took place in Spain in August. It began in Madrid for five days from there we moved on to a small town called Teruel a couple hours away. After a couple more days of practice and scrimmaging nothing was turning up for me team-wise, but I was told to stay in country in case something popped up for me in the following week or so, so I moved the flight back and decided to take advantage of someplace I'd probably never be again.

The first night of freedom was our last in Teruel, and one we will never forget. We decided to do as the Spaniards do and go to a bull run in a small town. It was probably the craziest thing I've ever seen. They let a bull loose down a street in town, but to make things more interesting they attached flaming torches to each horn. The bull basically runs up and down this street while people run in to slap it, pull its tail or just generally try to piss it off before running to hide behind the metal fences set up to protect the humans. Needless to say, the only person hurt that night was one of us Americans, a pretty gruesome broken arm, all caught on video. Email me if you really want to see it, you have been warned though. So after all that excitement, the remaining guys on the tour all took a bus down to Valencia where we spent a couple late nights. It was a really beautiful city and had some pretty cool museums that we made it to in between nights out.

From there, me and two friends decided to go to Ibiza Island. If you've never heard of it, look it up. The island is famous for its nightclubs, generally considered the best in the world. The rest of the island is also a beautiful paradise. Each town is basically a resort with several beaches full of tourists from all over the world. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep while on the island between the 4,000 person foam party one night, the 12,000 person Tiesto concert the next and the days on the beach. However, the trip was far from over, because Barcelona awaited us.

We arrived in Barcelona pretty tired and beat up from the previous couple of weeks, but the second day there was the one I had been waiting a long time for. While in Teruel we were trying to plan the next week or so to have some kind of structure to where we would end up. When the possibility of going to Barcelona came up, I knew there was no way I could be there and not see a FC Barcelona football match. They are my favorite European team and they happen to be playing another European powerhouse, AC Milan while we would be there so of course I ordered tickets. The match and atmosphere were unlike anything I've ever experienced. Seeing 100,000 people in a stadium well over an hour before match time screaming their team fight song was a sight that no American sporting event can compare to. Definitely worth the experience if you're ever in the area. The good guys won in the end on penalty kicks. It was also a pretty cool night to go because it was their first home match since winning last year's La Liga championship so it was a pretty unbelievable evening. We spent three more nights in Barcelona and then one more in Madrid before heading home, a little disappointed.

A couple days went by in Chicago, still holding out hope that something would turn up for me. About a week after I got back, my friend Kyle, who I had bartended with Skyped me about a possible opening for an opposite/middle on the team that picked him up, Tierp Volley in Tierp, Sweden. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity and couldn't wait to get started. I knew I wouldn't be making much money but I needed to take the risk and do this while I still could. However, the wait to get everything figured out and actually get my butt into a plane seat took over a month.

I finally boarded a plane on October 11th and about 16 sleepless hours later I landed in Stockholm. After another hour of driving I finally arrived in Tierp. Tierp, Sweden is a town of about 5,000 people an hour north of Stockholm and 20 minutes north of Uppsala, the fourth biggest city in Sweden. Obviously, the small town thing is something I've never experienced before (and if you clicked on that link, you see there's not much to tell you about it). Growing up in Chicago and going to college in Long Beach gets you accustomed to being surrounded by millions of people at all times. However, I wasn't given much time to get accustomed to the time change (I'm still not), I was thrown into practice later that afternoon.

I have two roommates, Kyle, who I mentioned earlier, and Eric Simon, another North American from just outside of Toronto. So at least I'm not going through the culture shock alone. We have a pretty light schedule here, practice Tuesday, Thursday, Friday night, workouts Monday and Wednesday and one match a weekend. This leaves us plenty of free time, something I'm pretty used to. Our main excitement everyday comes when we get to make the six block walk to the center of town for lunch at Gastis (Swedish for "guests"). Thursdays are the best, Swedish pancake day of course! So delicious, definitely worth a trip to Ikea if you're anywhere near one.

My first couple of days were basically spent napping at random times, laying awake all night trying to stay warm and attempting to get into some kind of normal body schedule. All this to get ready for the first league match of the year against none other than the defending league champions, Linköping (pronounced Lin-shepping). By the end of the week, however, I was very disappointed to learn that because of work visa issues I wouldn't be able to play. Luckily, the guys pulled off a great 3-0 win to start the season right in front of our home fans. We fell behind 24-21 in the first game and stormed back for a 26-24 win. After a tight game two win, the beginning of game three found us down 5-1, but again, the "New Tierp," as the townspeople are calling us, got right back in it and took game three with an amazing block to finish it off with authority!

We've already been featured in several Swedish newspaper articles and from what our teammates are telling us, the whole town is very excited about the start to the season and is looking forward to seeing us play again at home in two weeks, there are whispers of a big town party for the match. Well I'll try to be shorter and provide more Sweden info in the next post, but for now, tack (Swedish for "thank you") for reading.

Only two more days until pancake day...