Hoops

Through a guy at work I finally have found my way into a fairly regular 2x week basketball game. Wednesday's we play at a sports club called Västertorpshallen (which tangentially has this scultpture -4th down in the list - in the parking lot) and Sundays at the Stockholm Police Station. The Police Station is also the jail (jail is the temporary one and prison is the long term one I think right?) and I am terrified that one day I will get off the elevator on the wrong floor and end up in a game where losing means hurting more than my pride.

Both games are indoor and the surface in both gyms is one of those plastic sport-court types that leave you 20% less sore in the knees the next day (cusioned impact for running and jumping) but make court burns 400% more painful and slower to heal. Sport Court also kills dribbling, its like bouncing a ball in a swamp.

Decent fiberglass backboards but non-breakaway (??!?!) rims like they use outdoors back home.

The International lane lines are confusing and I think I spend an inordinate amout of time in the key because the bastard is so wide you can't escape in under 3 minutes. The worst though is the baseline to rim distance. I don't know if this is common on International courts, I Googled the dimensions and it should be the same distance from the rim to the baseline but for whatever reason seems to be much further apart. Playing with my back to the basket, I have had to post up a bit higher than what I feel like I should because if not, I end up buried behind the backboard. The first time I played I literally did a jumping spinning thing and planted the ball firmly into the bottom edge of the backboard. Embarassing to say the least. The upside is that I like driving baseline and this affords loads of room to manuver down there.

To add to that, there are also Team Handball (love the Wiki) lines laid out in crazy triangles, circles, elippsssess (seems like too many s's there but elipses are like that). Team Handball is nuts, if you ever get a chance to watch a match you won't be disappointed. Ok, you will be dissapointed if you are interested in graceful displays of athleticism or raw, bone-crushing contact. But if you like anti-graceful displays (3 dribbles, jump and throw for a guy 6'6" is horrific to watch) with WWF violence (they don't hit, they kinda push and shove in a way you can't call aggressive...maybe just a bit rude), you might be ok.

The quality is not bad, maybe slightly below average for a sweaty, old-man game back home. The guys I play with are a team in a league but its the off-season right now so they are just training. As they have played together alot over the years, they are very good moving the ball. Lots of backdoor cuts and always, always 1 too many passes inside. Infirmity limits fast breaks and the pace is a bit slow overall. They play games to 5 (all buckets count for 1) and rotate in the odd man to the losing squad.

On fouls or out of bounds situations they don't check to the top of the key but immediatly throw it in from the sideline/baseline like in soccer. I still get caught standing on that sometimes.

There is a Cuban who is a very cool guy (but an awful ballplayer) and the rest are Swedes. The Swedes love their running hook shots. Fast breaks, 15', 19', anything to not go straight at the bucket it doesn't matter. As in their normal social life, they are a bit indirect and I have had great success simply driving straight to it like a proper American. The shoot very little outside 15', a ocuple guys seem to be good distance shooters but rarely avail themselves, don't know why.

They are not very physical players and I think I could do well in a real game.