The Icelandic Canadian - 01.02.2007, Qupperneq 13

Vol. 60 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
139
The Falcons Visit Iceland
by Dan Johnson
As I was having some cereal one morn-
ing recently, I looked up at the bulletin
board above our kitchen table. Tacked to
the board was a picture I had put there
some time before and had not paid atten-
tion to since. In it were four members of
the Icelandic Women’s National Hockey
Team standing on the blue line in a hockey
rink in Akureyri, following our game
against them in April of 2006 and they were
clapping. Their hair was wet, their faces
were red and fatigued but they were smil-
ing huge grins and standing proudly in
their National sweaters acknowledging
their opponents from Canada. It wasn’t
until this moment that I fully appreciated
the effect that this hockey trip had had on
me and as I stared at that picture, thoughts
about the experiences our group had while
in Iceland fired up at a rapid pace. The
warmth of the people, the sound of the lan-
guage, the long street names, the flattened
mountains and strange landscape, the beau-
tiful athletic facilities, whipped cream, the
coffee and the active independence of the
young people, are but a few of those
thoughts. In an attempt to keep that trip a
matter of record it is with great apprecia-
tion to The Icelandic Canadian that I sub-
mit the following story about a bunch of
teen age girls from Winnipeg going to
Iceland to play hockey.
On Saturday, March 24, 2006, an
Iceland Air 757 came out of the sky and
landed at Keflavik International Airport at
6:45 a.m. local time. On board flight #456
was the Winnipeg Falcons Women’s
Hockey Club; the first Canadian Women’s
Hockey Team to visit Iceland. Attached to
the team were four coaches and ten guests.
The Falcons had arrived in Iceland to begin
a five game exhibition series with teams
from Reykjavik, Akureyri and the
Women’s National Team of Iceland. The
team was met by Steinunn Sigurgeirsdottir,
a player with Akureyris’ Skautafelag
Akureyrar team (SA) and she introduced
our Canadian group to the officials from
Ice Hockey Iceland. We were welcomed
and after a brief chat boarded two vans
with attached trailers for the first step in
what was to be a rich experience for every-
one. Steinunn told us our first stop was
going to be at “some little spa.” She
thought that after such a long trip we might
need something refreshing. When she
directed the drivers to head to the Blue
Lagoon we could not have been happier.
If anything will energize a tired soul
it’s the soothing effects of a spa like the
Blue Lagoon. Just to look at the colours
mellows one’s attitude, but for the coaches
of the Falcons Women’s Team, they could-
n’t get their players into that water fast
enough. The players had not slept much on
the flight as no one wanted to be the first
one to fall asleep. Also, hiding one’s excite-
ment is a tiring process.
After two hours of Blue Lagoon and
fully awake, everyone boarded the vans
and we set off to meet Reykjavik and the
welcoming families who had agreed to bil-
let the entire team. The players were chat-
tering about the landscape, the language,
and who was going to room with whom.
The vans pulled into the parking lot of
the arena in Reykjavik and with Steinunn
directing the new visitors to Iceland, we
entered one of the nicest athletic facilities
we had ever seen. On one side was an
Olympic sized hockey rink and on the
other side was a regulation sized indoor
football soccer pitch teeming with activity.
We gathered in the open area between the
two facilities and were introduced to the
people who were supplying the billets.
Most of the families providing the accom-