Kim Ewanovich Blog#12

Hello,
This week was a very busy but good week for me because i started training with Toulon again. It seems the practices, work outs, running and goalie training with the Toulon team have finally paid off. I feel like saturday was the best game i have played i have in a long time. And with the help of my team also coming to play the full game (as we are known to stop playing with 20 min left) we won a very important match 25-21 against a team in 3rd place dropping them to 5th and giving us 3 points. Since my team had been on a loosing streak the last few games we took full advantage of the win and had a girls night out to celebrate.
This week we will have practices and a exhibition match, because we don't play a game this weekend we are training hard and focusing on the next important game in 2 weeks.
Seems like i brought a little bit of Canada back with me because it snowed here this week and the people here were saying it was the most snow they had seen in La Crau for 10 years. It was kinda funny to see cars driving 5km per hr because there was 1/2 cm of snow on the ground and players from the club amazed at how much snow there was and both Tord and i just sat there and laughed at them. Then they blamed us for the snow saying we brought it back with us after Christmas. haha
Bisous
Kimberley

Kim Ewanovich Blog#11

Happy New Year!!!!
Hello everybody, i hope santa treated you all well and you enjoyed the holidays and mild weather while it lasted.
As most of you know the national team played two games vs USA just before Christmas, one game was held in Lake Placid and the other in Montreal. The first game we won by 5 and the second we lost by 5 but because USA had scored more goals against us when they won then they qualified for the Pan Am Games. There is still another chance that Canada can qualify but we would need to go to another tournament in the next few months and play against some other teams. I'm not sure if that is what CTHF has decided we will do, or if we will just concentrate on the next Pan Am Games told be held in Toronto in 2015 (i think).
After Montreal i went home for 2 week to see family and friends and had a crazy two weeks with little sleep. Between meeting with friends and trying to plan my wedding i was very busy but i enjoyed every minuet of it. I also had a chance to drop into a youth woman's practice to see upcoming AB talent and i was impressed. I still find it weird not to know everybody playing handball in AB anymore but i'm glad to see the program growing with so much young talent.
My flights back to France were kinda short but my layovers were long, with 8 hrs in Montreal and 7 hrs in Zurich i was very excited to get home and lay in a bed. I only trained with my club this week because my car was broken and i had no way to get into Toulon (long story) but with jet leg and everything else my body still felt tiered by game day.
Saturday we played against a team at home that was just under us by 3 points. The game started off strong with us up 4-1 but they came back with the half time score being 8-7 for us. Second half we came out fighting and we gained a good lead of 12-7 but the lead was not good enough because with 10 min left the score was tied 12-12. We ended up loosing the game 14-19. I saved 2 out of 4 penalty shots as well as i had about a 50% saving average. The coach told me in the 2nd half alone they had 11 fast break opportunities, 8 of which they scored on. So it was a really hard game for me to play so well in and only have them score 19 goals (8 from fast breaks) but we still loose by 5 because we couldn't score, kept hitting the post, and turning over the ball.
These next few weeks for us will be very difficult as we are still waiting for 2 important players to return from injuries. They are not yet sure when they can start playing again but the whole team hopes that it will be soon.
This week i will start practicing again with the Toulon team so i'm looking forward to that. :)
Kimberley