Clint Patterson's Blog

Week 2 / Game 2

On April 10, 2011 in Finland by Clint Patterson

Well this week has been ok. It has been colder these past few days than it was in the beginning. The festival started this week and as you can see from some of the pictures the people were out and about. My week was pretty much the same as far as my schedule. We went to the gym in the mornings and had practice at night. We also had to travel to some kids sports camp in a nearby city to talk to some kids and teach them how to play football. They honestly had no idea. I don't guess that they have ever seen a game on TV or anything. We had a pretty good time doing this though and it was funny to see the kids throw and tackle for the first time ever in their lives. My friend David Corley and I have been emailing and he is telling me how tough it is in Canada and I'm going to call him and see whats going on. If I find anything out I will keep you all posted because many of you know him as well.

We had our first home game this weekend, which was against the Pori Bears. It was neat because they call you out position by position at the beginning of the game. We like ran out of the tunnel onto the field. Its kind of like they do it at the Shrine Bowl game. By the way we have a grass field if you can't tell from the pics. Now this week I did have a belt, but I had a different helmet although it didn't fit well and we had new jerseys...I was #1 this game. The jerseys don't have the patches on them yet, but he said that they will. I got to wear my own cleates this time so obviously they fit and I was glad that I packed my rib pads for this trip too. Thanks to my equipment manager.This was one of the sloppiest games I've been in. We did win 46-0 in the end, but it wasn't a pretty game to watch. The defense was on the field for maybe 4 to 6 plays a drive because the other team's offense wasn't that good. I threw 5 TD passes, but one of them got called back due to holding. I'm not sure the stats and yards, but you can click on the stats link on the homepage to see them when they come out...probably on Wednesday. I had to scramble all day because they were blitzing linebackers and and we couldn't pick them all up and there's no hot read that I know of right now.

Anyways in the 4th quarter I scrambled one time and went downfield and this guy gave me a charlie horse. He put his helmet right into my thigh and it was and still is hurting. I had to limp/hop back to the huddle, but no fear the next play I threw a strike on a skinny post for about a 40 yard TD then I came out and didn't go back in. (and yes I do already have an appointment for a massage) I think we have the potential to win the championship this year, but we have to get everyone on the same page. We weren't hitting on all gears as we say. The starting center is about to leave and go to Italy for his vacation and will miss 3 games so that means I will have to get use to another center. Marlon got MVP of the game. After every game they have both teams line up in the middle of the field, similar to how we did at the state championship in 94, and they call out the MVP and they give you like a present. Since one of our sponsors is "Fenix" (a ketchup company), Marlon got a box of all kind of condiments. One of them was caviar (i think thats how you spell it, its the fish eggs) So anyways that is a neat thing that they do here that we don't do at home. One funny thing that happened at half-time was that I was sitting in the locker room and I was messing around and then I picked my head and looked and one of our recievers was outside smoking a cigarrette. He came back in smiling and said he felt better. I ain't mad at him though cause he caught a hitch and took it to the house the next drive we had the ball. He said that the nicotine helped calm him down and get him in his game.

As you all know (assuming that you have been reading) this week was a big festival here in our city. So even though I could hardly walk I did c-limp down to the river where there were tons of people. I didn't even go until about 1 o'clock in the morning. I probably wouldn't have gone, but I received a phone call from a certain female hinting that I should go. The streets were packed with people and all of the bar/pubs/night clubs had extremely long lines going to them. "Down by the river" there was all kind of food to eat and some of which I've never heard of. I didn't check out the Al Amir tent though because I figured they might catch on to me being American and try to drop bombs over baghdad on me. Speaking of that ...there are 2 stores over here that are named "Baghdad export/import". I'm wondering what they sell, but I don't think that I'll be going into them anytime soon. Well I went down and hung out a little bit. It was kind of like Mrytle Beach at graduation...you know as in the amount of people. I went to the bar called Blanco and stayed for a while. If you could see how some of these people dress you would trip out. A lot of the guys here dress like they are gay, but I was told that this was just fashion and to be open minded. I could feel myself begin to cramp in my legs (and no, this wasn't my attempt at dancing the finnish way) so I had to get on back to the house eventually. So that was that for week 2 and game 2. Everyone says that our opponent this week is like the worst team in the league so we'll see I guess.

Thanks to those of you who sign the message board. It makes me laugh sometimes and gives me something to look forward to when I get in at night.

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