Day 1 in Malmo

I made it through my first full day here in Malmo and the jet lag is finally starting to go away.  I suppose getting 10 hours of sleep last night helped!  The tournament is being played at 2 rinks - the main arena is where the World Juniors took place a few years ago and the secondary arena will host one game a day.  Our main locker room where we can store our equipment is at the secondary arena so we headed there early in the morning with gear in tow.  After doing all of our head shots and several group photos we warmed up and did the GPS test.  This is the first time I've ever done the GPS test and let me tell you, there is a reason they call it that.  Backwards around these cones, forwards around these, drop a puck here, pick up a puck there, it was very confusing.  You could clearly tell who had done it before and those of us that were rookies and struggling to figure out where to go next!  Following the GPS test we had some fun and played iceball.  Iceball is a version of handball on skates that we play at all of the referee development camps.  Since we are in Sweden we did the blonds vs the brunettes and it ended in a 1-1 tie.  It was a lot of fun and great to skate without having to think about where you were going next!

Following our skate we came back to the hotel for our big meeting.  At this meeting we reviewed some rule changes as well as some procedural items for this tournament.  One cool thing that I don't think I mentioned is we are making history here as this is the first IIHF Women's World Championship to use the 4 official system as opposed to the 3 official system you saw at the Olympics.  It makes so much sense as the players are so fast there is no way one person can keep up and have great sight lines.  We have had the 4 official system in college hockey for a number of years now and there are just so many advantages.  The only challenge is making sure you and your partner are on the same page in terms of a standard, which is something we talked a lot about today.  Another big change this year is the IIHF will be using the hybrid icing that you see in NCAA hockey and now the NHL.  This adds a new challenge for us linesmen but it makes the game significantly more exciting.

After our meeting we had the rest of the day free.  Although the weather wasn't great (drizzling and in the mid 40's) a bunch of us went for a little walk around town.  Malmo is very cute, lots of cobblestone streets with big squares where there was a ton of activity going on.  The city has flags up everywhere for the tournament so I'm hoping we get a good turnout at the games.  During our walk we were able to find a grocery store where I was able to get some much needed diet coke, or coca cola light as they call it here in Europe! Follwing our walk I took a quick nap then had dinner with the group.  Dinner was some sort of mystery meat that none of us (including the Swede's) were really sure what it was but it did the trick.  After dinner we all hung out for a bit before heading up to our rooms to get ready for bed.  Games start tomorrow so everyone is both anxious and excited at the same time.  There are 4 great games on the schedule tomorrow, Sweden vs Japan, Germany vs Switzerland, USA vs Canada and Russia vs Finland.  IIHF rules prevent me from saying which game I will be working but they post the assignments here so feel free to take a look!   I'm excited for games to begin, this is what I've been working towards all season!  More to come tomorrow!