Long week of rehab, filming practice, and a night out in Zurich

After pulling my hamstring in our game against the Bern Grizzlies on April 7th, I have been getting treatment and physical therapy on it at least once or twice a day. It has gradually been getting better, but at this point I am not sure if I will be able to play in our upcoming game against the Helsinki Wolverines. Hopefully it will continue to heal up, and I hope that I will be able to sprint without any pain by saturday. It hasn't helped my hamstring that ever since easter sunday, the weather in Switzerland has been pretty cold and cloudy.

My drive to treatment in Maienfeld each day.

Drive back to Chur 

View from the gym we go to everyday

On friday we found out that our game against the Winterthur Warriors was cancelled due to the rain on the field. Apparently if there are more than 2 drops of rain on the field in Wintherthur they cancel games......only in American Football in Switzerland. So since our game was cancelled, our practices on friday, saturday, and sunday were all to prepare for our first Eurobowl game this week against the Helsinki Wolverines. Because my hamstring is still injured I didn't participate in any of the practices, but I did get to film them--lucky me ;-)

On thursday night, most of the imports and I had a fun night out together in Chur. We started off at a place called Tom's Beer Box. It's a small bar near my apartment in Old Town Chur. It has over 130 beers to choose from, I had a Belgian beer called "Duvel" which was amazing, one of my coaches told me it was voted the best beer in Belgium in some beer magazine. Then I had a German beer from Munich called "Augistiner" which was really good as well. After Tom's we went to a local club and danced the night away....our defensive line coach and I ended up at a friends apartment and jammed out to some tunes and our friend's had some Swiss Cheese from the Italian area of Switzerland for us to eat.

Augistiner Edelstoff--very good beer from Munich

My teammate Iiro from Finland. He asked the bartender to surprise him with a different beer, and I told her to get him a Coors Light...he wasn't too thrilled with it :-)

Conti and Sasha at a club in Chur

Our defensive line coach--Dave Banks, playing some late night tunes

After practice on saturday, 5 of us decided to drive to Zurich for a night of partying. I went with Tissi (from Germany), Yoan (from France), Greg (from Pittsburgh), and our new import Flo (from Berlin, Germany). We all squeezed into a VW Golf, and since I was the smallest one of the group, I was fortunate enough to sit in the middle seat on an hour long car ride. Besides the car ride we had a great time. Tissi has a friend who lives in Zurich who helped us get into a couple clubs. The first club we went to was called Jil, we got a table and bottle service right when we walked in. It was nice to be in a big club in a big city--reminded me of some of the clubs in the States. After Jil we went to a different club called Flamingo which was another great time. We ended up leaving the club at 5am, went to a kebab restaurant, ordered a Dürum and hung out with some friends we just met that night. We didn't leave Zurich until about 6:15am and we got back in Chur around 7:30am. I took a quick nap, and woke up at 9am to leave for 10am practice....luckily I only had to film :-)

Me, Flo, Yoan, Greg, and Tissi @Club Jil in Zurich

Swissies trying to dance 

Lambo outside of the club

Dancing @Flamingo

Conti was not happy about driving back at 6am and about practice at 10am 

Tips sneakily putting the seat warmer on Yoan's seat haha!

To top off the weekend, after getting 1 and a half hours of sleep after the night in Zurich and after a 2 hour practice, our owner had a Sheissfest at his favorite bar in town at 2pm! After practice I went to the gym to ride the bike, stretch, and get in the sauna and hot tub to loosen up my hamstring. Then we all went to Freistoss for the Sheissfest. It started off slow, like usual, with just a beer. Then our owner Walter asks all of us what we want, a jäger bomb or a car bomb. I always get the car bomb, because I actually like them. Once the bartender brings out a jäger bomb or car bomb for each one of us, he also brings us a shot of Braulio to go with it. Someone says a toast and we all go in a circle and take the car bomb or jäger bomb and then immediately have a Braulio shot....this goes on for about 8 rounds. And in the middle of all of this we order more beers and ordered a ton of chicken wings, onion rings, french fries and jalepeño poppers (only the healthiest food for football players in Switzerland). Most of the imports were there and we all had a great time hanging out and joking around.

Import players from left to right: James Canetti, Steve Valentino, Marko Glavic, Mark de Swart, Greg Conti, Tissi Robinson, and Me!

Big week ahead of us! We have our first real challenge of the season. Eurobowl game #1 against the Helsinki Wolverines on Saturday, April 21st at 6pm in Chur. Hopefully my hamstring will be healthy so I can play!!

Bern Grizzlies week

While we were playing the Bienna Jets the past weekend we heard some of the players from the Bern Grizzlies (our next opponent) talking a little trash about our team and our Swiss players in the stands. This talk was not taken lightly, and our coach as well as all of us players were extremely irritated. Our coach made a point to remember what they said and to use it as motivation for our game the upcoming week.

After the long bus ride home from Biel, Switzerland--which included a stop at a Burger King, we made it back to Chur and we all went out to celebrate. On monday I got back into my normal routine which includes: waking up around 10am, cooking a quick breakfast, go to the gym with my teammates, take a sauna, take a shower, go to our sponsor lunch at Restaurant Ticino in Old Town Chur, go shopping for some food for the week, and hang out the rest of the day and relax. Tuesday was an abnormally busy day which started off with meetings at 9am to go over our opponent for the week, lift at 11, go to lunch, then have more meetings at 7pm and have practice at 8pm.

Later that night we heard some terrible news--one of our Swiss teammates passed away. He was a 25 year old linebacker that I had just started to get to know. He was one of my roommates in camp and he played the same position as me so we were always around each other in practice. It was shocking news that none of us were expecting. He was a great kid with a great future ahead of him, and he will truly be missed. This brought our team closer together. We rallied together on wednesday and hung out and reminisced about our times with our teammate and our friend.

The rest of the week was extremely emotional. Everyone was still in shock and we didn't know how to handle it except by staying close as a team and as friends. His death gave us even more motivation to play as hard as we could on saturday against the Bern Grizzlies.

Saturday 4/7/2012: Game #3 against the Bern Grizzlies--

Pre game at our home field--@Stadion Ringstrasse

Before the game, the locker room was packed with emotion. We were all putting stickers on our helmets to remind us of our teammate, as well as wearing bands around our arms to remember him. Moments before the game started, the entire team walked out behind a man playing the bagpipe to pay respect to our fallen teammate. The announcer spoke about our teammate in Swiss German so I could not understand, but the music that was playing and the emotion on the field was unforgettable.

Walking onto the field in memory of our fallen teammate.

Honoring our teammate who passed away

The game started off with a bang. My roommate Steve Valentino (from Dayton University in Ohio) scored on the opening kickoff and we never looked back.

Stevie Val puttin in work on the field!

      

Our offense could not be stopped all game and our defense shut them out in the first half. Unfortunately for me, I tweaked my hamstring when I got a quarterback sack in the 2nd quarter so I didn't play the rest of the game. We took out most of our imports in the 2nd half and we won the game 56-3. Everyone dedicated the game to our teammate who passed away. We have all decided to dedicate the season to him and that we really want to win the Swiss Championship and the Eurobowl for him. After the game, our honorary captain, Rich Andersag, carried the Graubünden flag up and down the sideline for the fans. Rich (our defensive end) only speaks Romansch, which is a language similar to Latin, and the rest of our team and coaches speak either English or German, so it isn't easy for him to always know and understand the plays. But no matter what, he always shows up to practice and he always plays as hard as he can. He's a great guy and he deserved to be a captain for this game.

Rich Andersag

Of course after the game we had our typical post-game Sheissfest. Because of my injury I didn't participate in the Sheissfest, but I still went and had a couple beers. 

Our DB coach Dani, Mario and me celebrating at Freisto's

Our owner Walter getting a little too into it

Love the clover indent in the foam

After a long night we all slept in and rested for most of Easter Sunday. Easter in a foreign country doesn't compare to Easter back in the good ol' U.S.A. First off, it was snowing this morning in Switzerland, and Easter is usually a very nice spring day. Days like today make me miss home, but we all tried to make the best out of the day. Unfortunately my hamstring was still hurting, so I didn't do much besides sit at home and ice my leg. Almost everything was closed in town, so we all walked down to the Kebab restaurant which is almost always open. Everyone had the durum kebab, which is kebab meet, tomatoes, and lettuce wrapped in a tortilla with 3 different sauces--it's very delicious, but usually it's best at the end of a night of drinking. 

Our boy Cheri--he owns all of the kebab restaurants in Chur and he has awesome signs like this at all of his restaurants.

The Duke lovin his Mega Durum. @Arkadash Kebab Restaurant

A snowy Easter Sunday in Chur

Tomorrow is Easter Monday in Switzerland, so everything will be closed again--very frustrating. We have the next 5 days off, so that will be very good for me to rehab my hamstring. We have our teammates funeral on tuesday so that will be another emotional day--it will actually be the first funeral I have ever been to. We might head up to Munich for a night or two just to get out of town for a while.

Happy Easter everyone!

First month in Switzerland

After spending about 5 weeks in Chur, Switzerland I have already experienced countless new things in my life. I came to Switzerland to play American Football professionally for the Calanda Broncos and for the possibility to win the Eurobowl Championship. I also came here to travel around Europe and see things that I've never seen before.

The 2012 Calanda Broncos Imports from left to right: James Canetti (from San Pedro, California, went to a D2 College in South Carolina, has an Italian passport),  Me, Greg Conti (from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, went to Bucknell University, has an Italian passport), Sasha Glavic (from Toronto, Canada, went to a University in Canada, played in the CFL, and has a Swiss passport), Steve Valentino (my roommate, from Cleveland, Ohio, went to Dayton University, is 1 of the other 3 American imports), Tissi Robinson (from Germany, played at Foothill JC in San Jose, has a German passport, plays Corner and Wide Receiver), Mark de Swart (from Calgary, Canada, went to a University in Canada, has a Netherlands passport, plays Middle Linebacker), Marko Glavic (from Toronto, Canada, played at Lafayette University, has a Swiss passport, plays Quarterback), Iiro Luoto (from Finland, played on the practice squad for the New York Jets, and plays offensive tackle). Missing imports include: Zeee Germans, DJ Wolfe--RB from University of Oklahoma, and Yoan--Tight End from France)

During my first week here, me and a few of the other guys took the Gondola in Chur to the top of one of the mountains to check out the views and grab a beer.

Top of the Gondola ride in Chur.

View of Chur, Switzerland

Restaurant where we grabbed a beer at the top of the Gondola.

Best beer I've had in Switzerland at the top of the Gondola ride in Chur.

I have already traveled all around Switzerland. Obviously I've spent most of my time in Chur, but I have also visited many other places in Switzerland. The first major trip I made was a snowboarding trip to Arosa. 2 other players and I took a train from Chur to Arosa that took about an hour--then we shredded some gnarly Swiss pow pow all day. It was an awesome day on the mountain and the snow was fantastic.

On top of Arosa for a beer and some relaxation. 

Marko, Me, and Mark aka "The Duke"

Shredding some Swiss powder in Arosa

Train ride up to Arosa.

Train ride up to Arosa.

Relaxation at it's finest at the top of Arosa.

The next trip was a bus ride to Tenero, Switzerland for a weekend of pre-season camp with the team. Tenero is right on the border of Southern Switzerland and Northern Italy. It was a beautiful place with mountains and palm trees surrounding us and Lago Maggiore was only a few hundred yards away from our practice fields. It was a great weekend to bond with my teammates and grow closer as a team.

Lake Maggiore--5 minute walk from our practice field at camp

View from the balcony from our room at camp in Tenero, Switzerland 

Practice Field at camp in Tenero, Switzerland

After a week full of practices, meetings, and working out, 4 of us took an epic road trip to Prague, Czech Republic. Prague was an amazing city with unique architecture and very friendly people. We spent 3 days and 3 nights there and visited basically everything we wanted to see. We stayed in a hotel called Archibald City which was in Wenceslas Square--right near the big museum. We were walking distance from Old Town Square--which was where we spent most of our time, as well as the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle, although the Prague Castle was more of a hike rather than a walk. Prague seemed like a magical city with so much to do and so many people--it would be a great place to live or spend a football season with the Prague Panthers ;). We had some amazing Czech beer--my favorite was the Budviser Budvar. We went on 2 pub crawls on friday and saturday night which were both awesome. And we ate some typical Czech cuisine (goulash with potato pancakes), as well as some KFC (4 or 5 times) because Prague is famous for having so many KFC's throughout the city....+ there aren't any KFC's in Switzerland--all we have here is McDonalds and Burger King.

Old Town Square--Prague

Old Town Square

Church at the Prague Castle

View from the top of the Prague Castle

On the Charles Bridge, Prague

Wenceslas Square--Prague, Czech Republic

After Prague I drove us to Munich to visit our German teammates that live in the city. Luckily, our owner gave us a fairly new Audi A4 Hatchback--so I was flying on the autobahn. At one point, I got us up to 240 kilometers per hour--which is equal to around 150 miles per hour. It was a really cool rush to drive that fast. Once we got to Munich we met up with our friends Rob and Pascal, and they showed us around the city and eventually took us to a "Starkbeirfest" which in english is translated to Dark Beer Fest. This was one of the coolest things that I've ever done. Everyone was dressed in there lederhosen and there dirndls, besides us tourists obviously. It was at a huge building with big wooden benches and tables everywhere and everyone was sitting in very tight quarters--or standing and dancing in tight quarters. It was a packed place, but the Germans said that it was nothing compared to Oktoberfest which goes on from mid september to the beginning of october. Although it wasn't Oktoberfest, it was still a lot of fun. We all ordered food and beers--the beers were in huge mugs and the beer was delicious even though it was around 10% alcohol by volume. Apparently they have these Starkbeirfests for 3 weeks leading up to Easter--I was told that the Monks used to drink this back in the day when they would fast before Easter. I guess this beer helped fill them up since they weren't allowed to eat anything. After a long day/night of dancing on benches, drinking beer, laughing, and saying "Prost" about 100 times to a bunch of random Germans, which is the German word for cheers, we were spent.

Our car for 6 months--drove that from Prague to Munich, got up to 240 kilometers per hour on the autobahn in Germany

Church in Munich

Starkbeirfest in Munich

With zeeee Germans (Rob Zernicki--Defensive End, on the left with his girlfriend and Pascal Maier--Wide Receiver, next to me on the right)

Me and Rob at the Starkbeirfest. "Prost!"

We made the 2 and a half hour drive back to Chur just in time for our sponsor lunch at Restaurant Ticino at 1pm. After the lunch, some of the players and I had a pre-season press conference. The press conference was all translated from Swiss German to English, back to Swiss German. It was an interesting process, but we all did the best we could to understand each other. Here is the link to the article about us, although it is written in German:

http://www.suedostschweiz.ch/sport/die-calanda-broncos-greifen-auf-allen-ebenen?prev=printmail%2F623798

The next week I went to Zurich with 3 other guys on the team and we stayed with one of our teammates who lives in the city. It was a really nice day, so we walked down to the lake and had a beer, then we hung out around town the rest of the night and ate dinner at our teammates apartment.

Drinking a beer at Lake Zurich, in Zurich, Switzerland

In Zurich with Yoan (our French tight end who lives in Singapore), Conti, Tips, me, and Matt Hammer (another Canadian on our team, he lives in Zurich and he plays safety)

On wednesday of that week I went on the train called the "Bernina Express" which is a luxury train with tall windows that travels from Chur, through St. Moritz, all the way down to Tirano, Italy--which is right across the border of Italy. It was a beautiful 4 hour train ride that went through mountains, tunnels, aqueducts, bridges, and went by a few rivers and lakes. Once we got to Tirano we stopped for a quick lunch at a local Italian restaurant. I ordered the spaghetti carbonara and a glass of delicious Italian red wine, Steve got a pizza, and his mom got the spaghetti with meat sauce. After lunch we stopped for some gelato, which I have been hooked on ever since I got to Europe, and we had to get back on the train for the 4 hour ride back.

Bernina Express train

One of the lakes/rivers on the Bernina Express

Bernina Express

Getting closer to Italy--on the Bernina Express

We went over the aqueduct in a corkscrew and then went right through it

You can see Italy from here...notice the vineyards

The Italian restaurant we went to in Tirano, Italy

 By now I have played in 2 games. Our first game was home against the Winterthur Warriors--the final score was 70-0. Then our 2nd game was at the Bienna Jets in Biel, Switzerland--near the French border. We beat them 56-16, and the majority of our import players didn't play in the 2nd half. I had around 10 tackles in the first half and our coaches wanted to get us out of the game to keep us healthy--we were winning 49-0 at halftime.

2nd half of the game @Bienna Jets in Biel, Switzerland--notice the gloves/tape are off and the shades are on.

2nd half of the Bienna game--check out those stands (the small hill on the other side of the field). Check out Felix aka "The Boss" lining up at wide receiver.

Me making a tackle against Winterthur in our 1st game...I don't know what it says at the top of the picture.

I'm back in Chur, and I just had a typical day out here. Wake up in the morning--around 10am, cook some breakfast, go to the gym and workout, hit the sauna, take a shower and then head to our sponsor lunch. For lunch today we had our typical salad with french dressing, along with french and sesame seed bread. For the main course we all got the same thing today--a big piece of pork along with roasted potatoes and green beans with bacon. It was a solid lunch that definitely filled me up. After lunch we all packed into the car and went shopping for food--if you don't cook in Switzerland your money will go fast. If you go out for dinner, you're going to spend 20 francs per meal at the least. After shopping I took a nap and have just been relaxing all day. Just cooked some dinner and I finally brought myself to start a blog.

I've never blogged before, but I figured I would start since I have been emailing my family and friends so much about my experiences in Europe.

Here are some pictures from the many sheissfests that we've had so far. When you play for the Calanda Broncos you learn very quickly what exactly a sheissfest is. The word sheissfest in english is vaguely translated into "Shit-faced". So a sheissfest is the atmosphere you go to when you want to, or sometimes don't want to get really drunk. Our owner loves to drink, and he loves to buy his players drinks as well....Just look at these pictures:

Sheissfest #1 Marko, our quarterback looking over round #1. Our owner loves to take us out to a bar in town and get us very inebriated. So he buys us countless rounds of drinks...and this is just 1 round--for all of us imports. From left to right it goes: Braulio shot, apple vodka shot, jäger bomb, then car bomb to finish it off. He has us take all of these within about a minute span. Let's just say it get's out of hand pretty quickly. And this has been the first time I have been upset at someone for buying me drinks...

Me and Zeee Germans, Pascal and Rob

Post game celebration at Freisto's (our owners favorite sports bar in town). Marko is wearing our owners favorite drink vest--it's a Swiss liquor called Braulio which tastes horrendous.

With Mario and Roman--2 cops in town and our owners 2 best friends.

Iiro the Fin, rocking the bath robe

Our proud owner Walter--very inebriated at this point.

Tips rocking the Braulio vest

This vest was very popular after our game....we were on our way to get a kebab at a restaurant called Arkadash--great late night drunk food.

Import dinner #1--Fantastic.

Our owners pride and joy--his dog Ben. He takes him everywhere with him--even to nice dinners with the team.