Blue Devils: 40 - Basel Gladiators: 24

So Sunday afternoon Mike and I played our first game as professional athletes, and I don't think it could have gone any better. The weather was pretty great, about 55 degrees and partly cloudy. The mountains in the background of our field were covered with a very light fog, creating a really cool atmosphere for a football game.

Mike catching his first professional TD

We played the Basel Gladiators, a team located in north-central Switzerland, right on the border with southeastern France. They got the ball first and struck quickly, scoring on the fourth play of the game to take an 8-0 lead. After we had a long kick return to the opponents 10 yard line, the scoring began. On fourth and goal from the 23 on our first drive, we scored on a TD pass to one of our Austrian wide receivers. We would end up scoring on all 5 of our first half drives to take a 33-14 lead into the half.

Rolling out left. I don't remember what happened on
this play, but we'll just say it was a completion.

The scoring slowed considerably in the second half, as the Gladiators did a nice job of keeping our offense off the field. We scored only 7 second half points, but they scored only 10, making the final score 40-24 in favor of the Blue Devils. To go out and get a win in my first professional game was pretty fantastic. To have the offense play well on top of that made it just a bit sweeter. The defensive stats have not been completed yet, but the offensive stats from the game are listed below (sorry for the poor picture quality):

Mike pointing to his adoring fans after catching
his 2nd TD of the day

To be able to play well against the competition gave both myself and our team a great boost of confidence heading into the rest of the season. The Gladiators are the same team that knocked the Blue Devils out of the playoffs in last year's semi-final game. To open this season with a win versus the same opponent lifted everyone's spirits and only increased our expectations for the remainder of the season. Next Sunday we travel to Basel, to play another team from the same town; the Basel Mean Machine.

I hope all is well back in the States, and I know the IC Blueboys start their spring football practice on April 3. That will be the start of what will hopefully be a very successful 2011 campaign for the Blueboys as they look to bring home something I could never accomplish in my time there; a MWC championship. Best wishes, and check back next week for a report on our next game.

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp

Milan, Italy

I hope this post finds everyone well back at home in the States. Our first game is this coming Sunday against a team from Basel, Switzerland. I have a similar feeling before this game that I had before our first game every year in college. I know we have tremendous players and incredible potential, but you're just always unsure how everything will fit together. We have some very good athletes and a lot of speed, which I think will pan out well for us as a team. I am looking forward to discovering what the level of play is here and how our team can do against the rest of the Swiss teams in our league. For anyone who may be interested, I did a radio interview with WBBA out of Pittsfield earlier this week. It will air on Sunday March 27th around 5:15 CT. I was told that it would be streamed online as well. I called in via Skype (a wonderful program, by the way) and had a long 20 minute or so interview. I'm not sure if they will air the whole thing or not. But, if you feel so inclined, please feel free to tune in then.

A picture of the cabin on the train.
Two of us shared one of these cabins.
It made for a pretty comfortable ride. 

This past weekend 6 of the import players took a train from Hohenems to Milan, Italy. It was a pretty incredible weekend. We left early Saturday morning and reached Innsbruck, Austria by about 9:20 am. After a twenty minute layover there, we hopped another train headed for Verona, Italy. About 3 1/2 hours later we reached the city where we would have a six hour stop before our train left for Milan. We simply hopped off the train and started walking towards the center of town, and the scenery was pretty fantastic.

The main street in Verona, headed towards the Coliseum.

Arches leading to town square
in Verona 

As we walked through the streets of the old town, we knew we were headed for an old Roman built coliseum. We had done a little bit of research on Verona before we left, knowing we would have six hours to kill there. The main street heading through Verona was pretty cool. Lined with trees on both sides, the street headed towards the Coliseum built by the Romans. Shops, restaurants, hotels, and bars filled both sides of the street, with the occasional individual selling trinkets, clothes, or food from a personal tent set up on the street. As we neared the center of town, a cool archway that spanned the street greeted us to the town square.

Once we passed through the arches we came upon a cool little town square with brick roads and mainly pedestrian traffic. The only traffic allowed through this part of town was people who live in or around the square, so walkers pretty much owned this land space. Also, the view across the other side of the square was pretty fantastic...the coliseum built by the Romans in the 1st century AD. It was the third largest coliseum that the Romans built in their time period, and it was pretty impressive/awe inspiring to see a building of such magnitude that was so old The FIRST CENTURY AD. That is 1600 years older than the United States of America. It was unbelievable. $4.50 got us into the coliseum for a self-guided tour. We met a girl inside who was from New Jersey and was studying abroad in Italy. She accompanied us for a while before we went separate ways. We asked her if it would be worth our time to visit the spot in Verona were Juliet's balcony is (for those of you who read regularly, you may remember that I mentioned in my last post that Verona was the setting for Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet"). Her response "Six guys in Italy, if I were you guys I might skip that one." Alas, we took her advice, and instead went for pizza...in Italy...pretty cool. Below are a couple of pictures of the coliseum (still used to hold concerts and other events today, hence the construction of the stage happening in the pictures).

After spending time in Verona, we hopped the train headed for Milan around 7 pm. While on the train we were playing cards and perhaps being a little loud, someone poked their head in our cabin and said "You guys speak English?" The guy turned out to be our age, and a native Italian, but he lived in Milan. We invited him in and he played cards with us until we reached Milan, and then he took us out in Milan when we arrived. It was nice to have someone who knew the city take us out and show us where to go.

The next morning we awoke and headed toward the central train station in Milan, a sort of hub for happenings around the city. Four of the guys decided to go to a soccer game that was being held that day at a very famous stadium (Inter Milan was playing for any of you soccer fans out there). Mike and I decided to take a bus around the city for the day and try to see as many sights as we could. There were some pretty unbelievable things to see around the city, but one thing stood out without question: The Duomo. The main cathedral of Milan, and the third largest church in the world. Built in 1384, the structure was magnificent, and the plazza that surrounded the building was full of people. The following is a video taken from the square in front of the church.

To continue on and tell/show you everything we saw in Milan (i.e. seeing the church that holds Da Vinci's painting of "The Last Supper", old fortresses, walking into and feeling completely uncomfortable in a Luis Vuitton store, etc.) would take much too long for my impatient self. I can tell you that it was a great experience, and it was awesome to simply say "I think I will go to Italy for the weekend". It's awesome to live in a part of the world where so many different places and cultures are within your grasp. I'm truly beginning to love this place.

But that's all for now. Again, I hope everything/everyone is great back at home, and I will post again soon with results from our first game.

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp

Quick Update

Hello all, sorry for the long delay between posts. Things have been very busy here as we try to figure out the living situations for all of our import players. There are two players from Florida State, a player from Southern Methodist University, one from Valdosta State in Georgia, myself and Michael from IC, and possibly one other American player coming from the University of Buffalo. On top of these imports, there are three from Finalnd and one from Sweden. That is a lot of players to put into different apartments throughout town, and getting the living situation figured out is a bit of a task, but we've almost completed the task.

Practices are going well. Our defense looks very, very strong. Offensively, we still have some work that needs to be done, but I think we have the potential to be very good on the outsides and put up a lot of points. Our first game is March 27th, and from then on we play nearly every weekend. More football updates to come.

This weekend six of the imports will be traveling via train to Milan, Italy. We will leave Austria early Saturday morning and return Monday afternoon. On our way to Milan, we have a six hour layover in Verona, Italy (the setting of Romeo and Juliet for any of you literature buffs out there.

I will write again next week, and will have pictures of Italy to show you. For now, I will leave a couple of pictures of Lindau, Germany at the bottom of this post. Lindau is an island on Lake Constance that is only about a 30 minute train ride from my house. It is a nice town with a cool harbor and a nice view of both the Swiss and Austrian Alps.

Hope all is well in the States.
Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp

Lighthouse at the Port of Lindau

Churches in the center of Lindau

Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Yesterday afternoon the four Americans from the team took a trip to Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It was about a 30 minute drive to reach the capital of the 6th smallest nation in the world. Liechtenstein is the second richest country in the world by GDP per capita. In 2008, the per capita GDP was over $139,000 per person. We crossed the border into Liechtenstein via a border stop in Feldkirch, Austria, and it was very easy to tell that this was a very rich country. The roads instantly became a little wider and a little more nicely paved. We asked the guards at the border to stamp our passports for us, and they said we needed to go to the tourist office in Vaduz and they would do it there. Upon our arrival at the tourist office, we were charged 2 euros for the stamp, perhaps one reason they have such a great economy...charging tourists for their passport stamps.

View from the car as we came into Liechtenstein.

The views in Liechtenstein were pretty spectacular. It was a little cloudy and slightly foggy, so I hope to go back sometime later in the spring when the clouds lift. Despite the somewhat poor conditions, the views were still pretty impressive...

Vaduz Castle

The Alps cover the entire country (which is actually only 15 miles long, north to south and 5 1/2 miles wide, east to west). The first thing that one notices when entering Vaduz is the impressively imposing castle that sits atop the city with a bird's eye view of everything below. The castle is still occupied by the royal family of Liechtenstein, and is closed to the public. We walked near it and notice a gardener outside working around the courtyard of the castle. We asked him if there was any chance that he could let us inside the courtyard just for a quick look, but had no luck with that. I'm sure the royal family would have appreciated him doing his job.


After walking around the city for a while, we found a nice vineyard that is owned by the royal family and is open to the public. We walked in and were told a little about the vineyard (the man seemed to be very proud that it was the largest vineyard in the entire country, a fact that didn't seem all that impressive to me given the size of Liechtenstein). The best thing about the vineyard was the view it provided from outside of its front doors. Two photos of those views are below...

View from the vineyard in the opposite direction of the castle

View from the vineyard of the castle sitting atop Vaduz

I really enjoyed Liechtenstein, and am excited to return later in the spring when the weather is better and the views will be even more spectacular.

This week both Mike and Coach Mader (our head coach) arrived in Austria, and we had our first full team practice on Thursday. Things are going to start slow as we begin to install Coach Mader's offensive scheme. I couldn't be any more excited though. We have some explosive weapons on the outside, and I think we have a good chance to put up some great numbers offensively. We are 3 weeks from our first game, and the clock is ticking. I'm very excited, and will be keeping things updated the best that I can.

Hope all is well in the states, and check back soon.

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch