HPK ~ first home game

Here in Finland there is the Finnish Cup and then the Championship. The Finnish Cup is a tournament that goes on during the beginning of the championship season, where we play the Cup games every few weeks. If you lose in the Finnish Cup you are done and do not play anymore games, so you play till you lose, just like in regular tournaments. The Championship is just like a regular volleyball season. We had our first regular season home game last night against the team that won the championship last year. Unfortunately we lost in 3 :( but we had a huge huge crowd. After the game someone told us that there was probably 1000 people at the game, which is alot for a volleyball game. But the crowd was awesome and really into the game! There was one section of guys, all ages, wearing bright orange shirts right behind our bench cheering for us and heckling the other team. It is fun to play when you have a crowd that is into the game, and they promised us they would be back for more games.

Our team name is HPK and our team colors are black and orange. I really like playing in our gym, its not to big but not to small. Here are a few pictures from the game last night. Here we are waiting for them to introduce us by name. The next picture is my friend translating everything for me during the opening ceremony of the new club team because this was our first home game with this new club.

the team getting together and cheering before we start the game, you can see the guys in the orange shirts right behind our bench, they were loud and i have no idea what they were saying!

here are a few during the game and of me hitting the ball.