Kim Ewanovich Blog#2 in Cannes

Hey,
Soo these last few weeks have been kinda crazy and with no internet it makes it hard to keep you all updated.
Up until now my team has been training 4-6 times a week with practices, games, and running (my favourite).
Last Wednesday my team went to a tournament about 4 hrs away. I started the trip off great misreading the french text message and arriving at the meeting point 45 min late!! Luckily i had brought some of my homemade cookies on the trip and soon all was forgotten :)
We arrived at our first game (vs a D1 team, 2 levels above ours) and i was told that the first 2 games would be a half each for the goalies and that i would start the first game. The game went okay seeing as how we were playing a team way above our level and i did okay as well.
We woke up at 8 the next morning, ate breakfast then were off to practice. Right now in the south of France it can be as hot at 40++ degrees outside, so playing inside at anytime of the day is very very hot and sweaty.
The second game was much like the first, i played 2nd half and we lost but again we were playing against a D1 team and had little chance of winning and our goal was just to learn how to play with each other.
Friday morning was the same as the day before, wake up, eat, then practice. That night we played vs a D2 team that had placed 3rd last season, our team was starting to show signs of fatigue but come game time it didn't matter. My team tied the D2 team 26-26 and i played in net the whole game and played well (even if i do say so myself).
On Saturday we played 30 min vs a N1 team and 3 min vs a D2 team because one team dropped out due to too many injuries.
I was told that we will play the N1 team early in our league season so the coach would not play against them in the tournament because the game was not important and he wanted to "save" me so that they wouldn't play against me before the league game. I then played the last 30 min vs the D2 team and we lost but my coach sat 2 of our starters due to injuries. So over all it was a very good, but tiering week.
My coach gave us monday off so we all had some well needed time to rest our bodies. Other then that it's 3 handball practices and 1 running practice this week.
September 10 is our first game and its for the France Cup so we will play against Ajaccio in N3 (the first team i played for when i came to France). The game will be played in Ajaccio so i'm very excited to see some of the players and friends that will come watch the game.
I was told i will be moved into my new apartment (across from the beach) on the 1st so i should have internet after that and will no longer have to go to McDonalds and steal their internet :)
Thats about all for now.
Bisous

Kim Ewanovich Blog#1 in Cannes

Hello
I thought i would just update you a little on how my first few days have gone.
I got to Nice wed night and somebody from tords team was there to pick me up (because my team was training about 30 min away) and he took me to my appartment that i will be staying in for the next month (untill i move into my perma place) and i dropped off my things and he took me to show me where i will be staying next month. After that he took me to the gym to pick up my car, but it wouldnt start and just then 2 mini busses with the girls from my team showed up and pushed my car trying to get it started but with no luck. So the guys from tords team took me back to my place.
Thursday i got up at 11 and walked around a little till i found a supermarket and i bought some food and water, came back home, ate then took a nap. At 530 a girl from my team picked me up and we went to practice (about 30 min away). Practice was really good, we had 20 very good players there and it was a very hard training. After practice all the girls went to a players house and had some drinks and got to know eachother. I havent quite figured out who are the new players but everybody seems to get along well.
Today after sitting up in bed and having every inch of my body hurt i decided to get up and go for a jog hoping it would help. Well i got lost and ened up stopping at a tourist place, she gave me a map and i got lost some more. I wanted to stop and ask for dircetions a little more but its so hot and humid here that i was a sweaty mess.
I eventually found a street name i reconized and after 1.5 hrs of jogging i kinda just ran up to my appartment :)
So now im home about to make something to eat.
I hope everything at home is good.
Congrats on the bronze!! Good job girls :)

Kim

Kim Ewanovich Blog#24

Hello everybody,


I would like to start off by saying i have officially found a team for next season!!! I will be playing the Cannes, who are currently in 3rd place at the N1 level (one level higher then what i am playing now). They made a goal last season to move up to D2 in the next 2 years so last year they brought in 7 new players, and this season they will be bringing in another 4 players (including myself) and a new, very good coach. I practiced with them last thursday and all the girls were really nice, i am very excited for next season and i have a really good feeling about going there.
Telling my team that i wouldn't be back next season was difficult but they understood why i was going to Cannes and thought it was a good decision to make. On saturday we went out to celebrate my birthday with the girls and guys teams and i really had a good time.
These last two games are extremely important to win but my team does not seem to care very much as my practice tonight was cancelled due to lack of players who could make it (for different reasons). We also had our captain (not the one that got pregnant but the one who took over for her) fall and twist her knee last friday at practice so she will be unable to play in the last two games.
This team has had the worst luck with injuries and players quitting this season, that it will make winning these last two games almost impossible but we will see what happens.
The count down till i come home begins 29 more days!!!
Bisous
Kimberley

Kim Ewanovich Blog#23

Bonjour,


This week was a hard one because we were playing against the 1st place team who happen to be the clubs neighbourhood rivals. This game wasn't like any normal game because of the bad history between the clubs and some stuff said by the other team on facebook (oh high school drama!!). Anyways my team came to the game prepared to fight till the end, and we did just that. The half time score was 10-9 for the other team, and like i said this team was in first place (and us close to last place) so people we expecting the score to be a little different then what it was.
We stayed with them all though second half until about 10 min left when we were tied with them and our assistant coach said something to the refs and they got mad and gave him a 2 min, making us play with one less player. The score was 19-19 before the 2 min and then 21-19 for them after the 2 min, and we ended the game down by 2 with the final score 22-20. I'm not saying it was the coaches fault, but the 2 min didn't exactly help the situation...
I probably had one of my best games of the season, saving 22 shots giving me a 50% saving average. Lots of ppl came up to me after the game to say how well i played, but it's hard to be happy about it when your team still lost the game.
Thats about it from this week.
News soon to come about next season, but i can't say much until a contract is finalized.
We now have the next 2 weeks off from games for easter break, my team will only train on friday so i hope to get some extra practices in with the Toulon team.
Bisous
Kimberley

Kim Ewanovich Blog#22

Hello,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnB_S16a2oM

So this last week has had it's ups and downs. For our game this past weekend we brought up 4 players from our 2nd team because they didn't have a game and had them train with us all week. It was nice to have 2 full lines at practice so we could run game like situations with a full offence and defence (although i was still the only goalie).
The trainings seemed to help us in the game because we started off really strong ending the half down two (9-7) with 3 of their 9 goals being from 7m penalty shots. I saved one 7m shot with my face, you can see the save on my fb page or click on the link above. In the 2nd half we got tiered and slopping on offence giving the team fast breaks and easy scoring opportunities and our offence was missing open shots and caused a lot of turnovers. The final score was 14-21, i had a decent game but not good enough...


So the season is winding down to a close, just 3 more games to go and it is very important for my team to win at least one of the next 3 games or we stand a chance of moving down to N3 next season. This will be difficult as our last three games are all against very high ranked teams but we hope to get lucky and win one more game so the team can stay in N2 the next season.


The next season for me is still in the air, i have some clubs interested and we are just now trying to work out the details, so i hope to sign something in the next few weeks.


Weather wise things here are starting to heat up so in between trainings and work out i try to get outside tan a little
Hope everything is good back home.
Kimberley

Kim Ewanovich Blog#21

Bonjour,


This blog will cover the last two weeks as i was unable to write a blog last week.


Last week, my friend AC (from Quebec) came to visit me for a few days which was a great change in pace for me. We went shopping, she practiced with my team, we watched a few intense handball games (2 games ending in a fight, one game ended with players fighting and the other with parents fighting in the stands), after that we went out for a night on the town and met up with a few ppl from the girls and guys team.
Training started again on monday with the goal of preparing the team for our game this past saturday vs Pays d'Apt. In showing up to practice i, (and the rest of the team found out) that our right back slipped in the shower (or something along those lines) and stretched some ligaments in her knee and would be unable to play this coming weekend. Our left back was also unable to play because she had just received scoping on her knee a week earlier. Sooo that left us with 7 players and me, due to our 2nd team and u18 team also having games that day we were unable to pick up any players and we would be going to the away game with 8 players in total.
We lost the game 30-23, i played an okay (not great) game, but just like previous games the fast breaks and 6m shots were what killed us in the end. Shortly after the 2nd half started one of our player went to take a shot and had her arm "ripped off" and she fell screaming of pain in her shoulder and wrist. She came to practice today with her wrist in a brace and her arm in a sling, turns out after she was hit she landed on her wrist (possibly fracturing it) as well as she has a dislocated shoulder. We will know more about the extent of her injuries in the following days but it's safe (and sad) to say she will be out for the next 3-5 weeks. There was also another injury to a player on my team in the last 5 min, so we ended the game with one man less on the court because we had no subs to put on for the hurt players. The 2nd girl that got hurt did not practice today but should be okay to play in the home game this weekend.
This team has had a lot of bad luck this season, and it may not be over. We need to win 2 of the last 4 games to be "safe" from moving down. If this does not happen, and our bad luck continues there is a possibility that we could move down next season.
On the happier side of things, i have a tryout in a few weeks with a D2 team. I will keep you posted with how that goes.
Bisous
Kimberley

Kim Ewanovich Blog#20

Hello from the Zurich airport!!!

So i spent this week visiting where i first started playing in Europe. I moved to Molde, Norway in 2006 and played for the club there for three years. Tord and i arrived in Molde on Monday evening after a day of flying and spent a nice quiet night at home with his family.

The next few days were spent training with my old club and visiting friends. The trainings were good and it was nice to see some of my friends again. We decided to take advantage of the nice Molde weather and go cross country skiing, i wouldn't say i'm a horrible skier but i'm no expert. After about the first hr i was going down a hill (with my skies in the man made grove) the path curved to the right and i tried to slow down but couldn't. The path for my outside left ski faded and my ski slipped off the path and i started falling, my right ski stayed in the grove and in turn i twisted my knee (the one i had surgery on 4 years ago). Sooooo that put a big damper on the whole trip and my training with Molde. :(

I knew after twisting my knee that i had not done any real damage to it (cause lets face it, i'm an expert at it now) so i was not so worried but still took the rest of the week off handball in hopes to start training with my club again tonight.

I had a chance to watch my old team, and the guys team play their games on sunday. In both the girls and the guys games Molde won, scoring over 45 goals in each game and not letting the other team score more then 25.

A week might seem like a long time to visit and catch up with friends but it really wasn't, i didn't get a chance to see some people i would have liked to see but overall i really enjoyed the trip.

AC is coming to visit my starting on friday, so that's what i'm now looking forward to. For those of you that don't know who AC is, she is a good friend on mine that plays on the national team and is currently going to school in Spain. She will be staying with me till tuesday. :)

I don't have a game this weekend but we will start training again tonight to prepare for the game in 2 weeks.

Bisous

Kimberley