The first game ever

2015, some day

“Which sport would you like to do this year, buddy?”

“Basketball, daddy!”

“Ehm… there are many options here, but basketball is not really the main sport in Denmark…”

25.10.2020

“Guys, are you ready for the game?!?!?!”

“Daddy, it is still 10:00 o’clock, we play at 14:00”

“Yes, you are right. It is not even 10:00, as tonight the time changed… it is 9:00 o’clock…”

Ok, let’s take it easy.

First of all, this is the year of the online protocol: all the scores, fouls etc. will be noted down in an app, instead of on paper. But we hadn’t added our players into the tool yet!!!!!!!

After the first moments of panic, Ed and I got in touch and we added the 8 players. Problem solved…

Right, 8 players. We should have been 10, but in this tough time 2 players decided not to participate, last minute. We would miss them, as we would miss all the others who took the same decision, earlier this week.

Due to COVID-19 restriction, we could not use the locker rooms: simple things like distributing shirts and shorts became difficult.

A shirt with the number and shorts are assigned to every player, who have different sizes of shirt and shorts. For ex: Giulio, S, 164, #23.

How could I distribute the kits in the gym? I could already see the mess with 16 things to distribute without mixing up numbers and sizes.

Moreover, I had no idea about the gym layout and how we could dress up without a locker room, so I decided to match them at home:

I put them in paper bags with the name, to be distributed at the appointment in BLL.

We were going to play two games and I guessed the kids would need some energy boost between them:

Chocolate not in the picture, but in the bag 🙂

Do you know those days in which you ask your kids about something 10-15 times and they always reply: “sure, I’ll do it in a moment”?

Exactly.

“Kids, remember the water bottle”.

Giulio actually took it, filled in and placed it in the kitchen counter.

Time was particularly fast this morning.

Susy drove the horse to the riding center with the trailer and she had the big car. I had to switch it, so that I could go to Aarhus with some more comfort and power.

I left the kids cooking some pasta and I did the car switch.

Pasta is the perfect meal before a game 🙂

When I came back home we were ready to leave.

We met with the other driving parents and with a good car pooling we headed to Aarhus.

Kudos to them, as they drove without knowing if they could enter the gym, due to the new COVID-19 restrictions.

Josie joined us in the car.

Music is always a good energizer before a game, but different ages (well… generations) were in the same car: 11, 14, 16 and senior.

In order to be equally represented, we took turns in deciding the songs: one each, each turn.

It was really fun and actually music preferences were not so far away.

We recently watched

Some of the songs from the movie soundtrack are so cool that they were a good company for our adventure!

Especially the mashup!

We turned into the E45 and a question just came out:

“Kids, what about your water bottles?????”

You know the answer, right?

When we arrived in front of the gym, we found out that the COVID-19 test drive-in tents were there too: quite a hectic situation, but we were lucky to find a free parking lot.

The U15 team was ready and motivated, while walking to the entrance:

Inside, they were even more motivated!! 🙂

We found a way to wear our fantastic new jerseys.

(and here I really have to thank our local sport shop, Sportmaster, for the big effort in providing us with the printed jerseys in a record time!).

While kids got acquainted with the gym, I got ready for the game:

The first game of the day started and it was clear that those two teams have been playing ball for a while. And that while was quite longer than ours 🙂

Kids were looking at them as they were aliens….

So, before starting the warm up, I described the kids the way those teams were playing: strong full court defense and fast offense. And I told them they way we should have played to beat them.

Well, maybe I didn’t use exactly the word “beat”…

But after that, their faces were a little bit more relaxed.

We warmed up and they were focused as they have never been.

Then, some preferred to watch the game:

Others to keep going:

Finally the game ended and we stepped in the main court.

What a team!!!!

When the ref called the 3 mins, we re-grouped at the bench and I started the speech:

“Kids, it’s the first game ever in the BLL b-ball club. The most important thing for today is…. winning!!”

I was kidding of course and they got it, but for half a second the idea that I was serious passed through their minds.

You should have seen their faces!! 🙂 🙂

Playing our first two games was really a fantastic experience: our kids put every bit of energy on the floor and they fought like lions.

We were a mixed team, boys and girls, vs boys only teams.

We didn’t care.

We played our game.

We grabbed rebounds jumping higher than the taller opponents.

We stole balls from the hands of more experienced guys.

We scored from the middle of the paint, among many high hands.

We dribbled with ankle breaking moves.

We also did a coast-to-coast with a final underhand layup.

Oh… what a big couple of games we played!

We didn’t win.

But we did the most important thing for today.

We had fun playing the most beautiful sport in the world.