Hurricanes' Last Game: Kristianstad Lions

Saturday was the highly anticipated season finale against the undefeated Kristianstad Lions.  Kristianstad had been a dominating force in the division early in the season, blowing out most of their opponents, including the Hurricanes 49-6 in our first matchup.  Since the summer break, however, much had changed. The Lions had lost their star running back to compulsory military service in his native Greece and their numbers were down (like most of the Swedish teams) since the break.  Furthermore, they had suffered a couple of injuries to key contributors in their last two games.  George, Shawn, and I had gone to Malmö my first weekend here to see Kristianstad play Limhamn, and, in my opinion, they looked like a very beatable team without their dominating running back.

Kristianstad appeared to be aware of its newfound deficiencies as they had put in a whole new spread option offense (as opposed to the pro and twins I attack they'd used previously) on their bye week, which we saw here for the first time in pre game warm ups.

The Hurricanes, on the other hand, were coming off a dominating shut out performance against Carlshamn.  We were confident in our game plan and felt we could effectively exploit some obvious weaknesses in C4's defensive alignment and, given the aforementioned injuries, contain the Lions offense.  Kristianstad appeared ripe for an upset.

And with support like this, how could we lose?

Warm ups revealed our defense was amped and ready to play.  The offense, who suffered from another week of less than ideal attendance, seemed less confident.  Nevertheless, the game got underway.

Our defense played well the entire game, with the exception of one C4 drive.  We were able to put a lot of pressure on the quarterback and get a lot of stops.

The offense played well, especially early, and was able to open up holes and score late in the first half on the beautifully executed reverse play shown above.  Ultimately though, drive killing penalties and an inability to exploit Kristianstad's aggressive blitzing attack with the pass left us unable to break through in the second half.  Final score: Kristianstad 17, Hässleholm 8.  Local press coverage here.

While disappointing, the effort showed a tremendous amount of growth for the Hurricanes.  The future for the club is really as bright as they want it to be.  They can continue to grow and improve as a team if the guys involved, top to bottom, commit to making themselves and the organization better.  The last two games are a great beginning to next year's campaign.

After the game I met Tyson Guillen, an American from the Sacramento area who is a coach and architect of the Kristianstad Predators American football organization.  From everything I've heard he's done a great job of building a youth program and will have a senior team in the organization for the first time next season.  Tyson is also the head coach of the junior national team and owns his own sporting goods store in Kristianstad.  He has been very helpful to the Hurricanes, particularly Shawn, as they try to launch a pee-wee arm of the organization.

After the game the Contreras's and I enjoyed a post game pizza at Torino before heading home for a quiet Saturday night.