International Flavor

Karlsruhe Storm Sevens Tournament a success

The tournament started at 11 am on Saturday on the practice field of the Karlsruhe Storm with the match Karlsruhe versus the Bretten Wardogs.
Throughout the next 10 hours 22 games were played. Although the games were only 20 minutes long and on a 70 yard field the stamina of each player was fully tested.

The tournament favorites the Stuttgart Kickers won all eight of their matches beating the Dresden Braves in final 7:2 under the flood
lights.  The 160 minutes of high intensity Lacrosse for each team in one day was capped off by the player’s party, which lasted until sun-up on Sunday.

The atmosphere of the tournament is what Lacrosse is all about: playing hard, respecting the game and having fun.  The short field and modified rules worked extremely well. The most positive result of the day is the
bitter rivalry between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart is only on the field. When the game is over, the hatchet is buried and the keg tapped.

The tournament’s tenacity award went to Stuttgart’s Eric Heintze (#21). The
Goal-Getter award went to Dresden’s Andreas Stolper (#89) with 15 goals in
eight games.

Results

1. Stuttgart Kickers 8-0

2. Dresden Braves 5-3

3. Bretten Wardogs 2-5

4. Karlsruhe Storm 3-5

5. Kurpfalz Tigers (Mannheim/Heidelberg) 1-5

Duesseldorf Sport-Club 1899 vs. HTHC Hamburg Warriors

The Duesseldorf Antlers hosted the annual playoffs last weekend, in which the eight best German lacrosse teams competed against each other to qualify for the National Championship, the Deutsche Meisterschaft.

Especially the southern league surprised the German lacrosse community by sending two teams, one from Stuttgart , the other one from Munich to the DM. Also the FC Inde Hahn from Aachen (western league) and the host of the famous Berlin Open, the Berlin Lacrosse Club BLAX (eastern league) were able to win their respective game to qualify for the DM.

Now all four teams will have two weeks time to bring their game to perfection until they fight each other on the battle field of lacrosse to win the great trophy of the German lacrosse champion this year.

On April 19^th history was made in Hamburg, Germany, when the Hamburg girls team faced the Hannover girls team in the first ever German girls lacrosse scrimmage. The impetus for a competitive game started with Mareile Kriwall, the head of German women’s lacrosse and a player on both Hannover and the German National Team. With a month to prepare, both teams, fans and proud coaches showed up with great anticipation, and ready to rumble.

We followed the model of the boys teams, who have been playing for 2 years now in Germany, and used a half field, with goals on the ‘sidelines’ – creating a 60×50 meter field. The 11 meter was shortened to 10, the center circle from 9-7, and the midfield was 15 meters from fan to fan. We played 7 v 7 including goalies and no restraining line – though plan to add a restrainer and keep 1 behind for the German Championship exhibition games.

The 20 minute halves overflowed with excitement – most goals were scored on fast breaks and 1v1’s, or 1v none’s, and the first half ended with a score of 10-5 for Hannover. As Hamburg had forgone fitness training in favor of stick skills, Coaches Amy Alvord and Katharina Freier were worried about their girls’ endurance. On the other hand, they had 2 full strings of players while Hannover had no subs.

Over half of the Hamburg team started playing lacrosse only one month earlier – and the huge learning curve that beginners enjoy was evident as they turned the game around just short of 180 degrees in the second half, scoring 5 goals to Hanover’s 1. Final score Hannover 11, Hamburg 10.

by Amy Alvord ~ Hamburg Coach

The FIL announced that Hannover, Germany will host the 2011 Under-19 Women’s World Championship. The DlaxV is very happy that the FIL trusts Germany and the organizing commitee to make the World Cup a fantastic event in summer 2011.

Special thanks go to Anna Blank and Anjulie von Oetinger.

More Inforamtions follow www.dlaxv.de

Dear Lacrosse Fanatics,

The Lacrosse Club Kiel invites all of you to participate in our 14th Kiel Lacrosse Meeting (KLM) taking place here in Kiel on 8th &9th of August. We are likely to prepare 6 -7 fields on our Nordmarksportfeld so that 8 women teams and 16 men teams can compete.

Because of billing and paying problems in the last years we impose complete team fees for this KLM:

Men: 375 Euro / Team
Women: 300 Euro / Team

This fee will include all costs as well as payments for DLaxV referees (“Sro-Gebuehr”), the players party on Saturday and the welcome party on Friday. Please feel free to contact us, if there are any problems regarding payment, we are happy to assist you.

You have to pay your team fee until 31st June 2009 otherwise we cannot guarantee a reserved slot for you.

Still German lacrosse referees who are in need of prolonging their referee’s licences can contact us for umpiring single games.

We will be offering catering for reasonable prices on field, sanitary equipment is in place as well. You are invited to camp next to the field for a small fee. On Saturday night will be our great lacrosse party again, it is always extreme fun.

Please send applications to clive.werdt@gmx.de including the following information:

• Name of contact person / team

• Mobile number / email-address

• Number of players

• First come/pay, first serve!

We will be listing single players contact data on our homepage as well as the participating teams so that you can organize yourself. More information will follow soon.

Please feel free to check http://www.kieler-lax-meeting.de for news.
Sticks up!

Lacrosse Club Kiel

In March 2009 Meyer & Meyer Verlag published the first book on lacrosse written in German. The book was authored by Dr. Maud Corinna Hietzge who received support from several dinosaurs of the German lacrosse scene.

The book covers fundamentals and essential pieces of information regarding techniques, drills and rules as well as the history of the sport.
It serves as an introduction for parents and other interested individuals and provides novices with a basic understanding of the game. Yet, even old-time lacrosse players will enjoy
reading the book, some of whom may recognize themselves on one of the many pictures.

Sunday morning, 11 o’clock: the HTHC Hamburg Warriors C-Team is ready to play with 10 boys showing up. Despite the low amount of players, we were ready to play against a next beat-able opponent in the league.

The three coaches (Felix Friedheim, Kyle Hawkins and Jim Beardmore) got the team to commit to a hard game.
The defence played a great first half while the offence turned mostly every chance into a counting goal. As a result the score after the first 40 minutes was a close 3-4

against the LC Kiel.

All players of the U20 team played high motivated and fought for each groundball, as the stats confirm.

But the whole second half, the strength of the players got owned by the skilful men team of Kiel, so the final score became 14-4.
Nevertheless, as coach Hawkins always says: Lacrosse is fun!

by Domenic Pfau ~ Player of the HTHC Hamburg Warriors C-Team

This season has been a remarkable season for the 1. Damen.

After losing almost 80 % of the team, the roster included only 4 returning players. The rest of the team was made up of ex-B team players, most of whom had less than 1 year playing experience - 2 had been playing less than a month. It wasn’t a surprise that they ended the fall season 6th place in the league, winning only 3 of their 8 games.

But at the last game of the fall vs. Hannover, you could already see the team finally starting to click, and while the score differential was big, it was the best teamwork we had seen up till then.

When the spring season started, you could hardly tell it was the same team. Their stickwork was greatly improved, the intensity was where an A team’s should be, and making the biggest difference of all, they were playing as one unit - finding connections on and off the field, and finding their hearts and minds working together toward the same goals.

The first game of the spring season against the Bees was clear - the Hamburg A team came ready to play. Within weeks they defeated 3 teams they had lost to in the fall - Goettingen, Berlin and Bielefeld.

This weekend the team faces their biggest challenge yet - Hannover is undefeated for the first time in German lacrosse history, and the Hamburg Warriors are looking to spoil Hannover’s luck.

The Hamburg A team must defeat Hannover if they want a chance to compete in the DM this year - a chance that just a few months ago wasn’t even imaginable.

We wish Hamburg the best of luck this weekend, but even more we wish them great skills, confidence, and the hunger to win every ground ball, every draw, and the fight to the finish.

by Amy Alvord

Since the male youth lacrosse in germany has been growing rapidly over the past years (note: The first boysgame ever was held in Frankfurt on the 5th October 2006), some lacrosse-enthusiatic girls followed and are just about to play their first game on Sunday, 19th of April on the homefield of the HTHC Hamburg Warriors. The competing teams will be of course a squad from Hamburg against the tough girls from Hannover (please see the picture).

We all are very proud of this achievement and everybody is full of pleasant anticipation.

We wish the grils a lot of fun on the field while writing German lacrosse history!