DAY 4
We left the hotel early for our team practice which was at 10am at the Cup venue, the Bunker. The Bunker is a huge warehouse outside the centre of the city. The floor is really nice to skate on being smooth concrete. It feels really fast - we are so used to sticky sports hall floors. After the practice we came back to the hotel to rest, eat and get ready for the final seeding game against Australia. Back at the venue, having seen Australia to beat Germany 136-53, we knew it was going to be a tough game. I received some crazy star passes from our jammers and a few massive blocks from the Aussies. It was fun. The bout finished at 9pm and as it had been a long day with so much excitement, I just could not go to sleep. My legs seemed to have their own mind, kicking and tensing up as I was struggling calm down. Those star passes kept creeping back and my heart would pound as it did then... Eventually, I fell a sleep sometime after 2am, but woke up at 5am. So I started Day 5 with 3 hours of sleep and stiff legs.
DAY 5
Again we left for the venue quite early and watched some bouts before we had to start getting ready for the Germany match. Our bout against Germany was evenly matched and we felt it could have been either way, but Germany did beat us at the end 104-80. A very special Welcome Ceremony took place in the afternoon. All teams sang their national anthem front of the crowd. We opted to sing a cappella, without the backing track, and it was truly amazing, loud and very proud! The ceremony made the Cup feel like a real thing, not just a derby tournament, but a World Cup, skaters competing for the own country... oh so emotional... New Zealand performed a haka and it was WOW! After the ceremony we were told that our next opponent would be Ireland. We liked this outcome! If we'd beaten Germany, we would have bouted New Zealand on Saturday morning and we all liked the idea of playing Ireland more (just because some of our girls have special bond with Ireland - of course we like the Kiwis too!).That Ireland game was so cool. You can read about it on DNN: http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2011/12/world_cup_10_finland_upends_7_ireland_148_134
As it was an Elimination game, this means that we now won't end lower than 8th place and are competing for the 5th. I cannot describe how we felt after the win... speechless and full of derby love for everybody!
