After signing a new coach in senior Head Coach Sam Gooding, and welcoming back familiar face Will Sewell, the Vikings went on their first raid of 2025. Traveling not by longship, but by train and carpooling, the entire Vikings organization traveled to the oldest city in Norway, Tønsberg, to practice, socialize and build team spirit across all different age groups at Camp Yggdrasil.
This is the first time since the Oslo Vikings almost 40 years of existence that the entire club has had a joint camp where players of all different teams have practiced together and built a team culture across age groups. The aim of the camp was to bring the entire club together and give younger players a chance to get to know the senior team, and for the senior players to be more involved with the youth teams.
After a short-ish trip from Oslo to Vestfoldhallen in Tønsberg, players of between the ages of 10 and 40, signed in and found their way to the locker rooms to change and get ready for the first of three on-field practices of the weekend. The first on-field action was testing. Players were split into groups and took turns testing their speed (40 yard dash), agility and short area quickness (20 yard shuttle) and explosiveness (standing broad jump). After tests were complete, players hit the showers and got ready for lunch.
Players and coaches were fortunate enough to have Lotta Begby and (insert name) cooking and serving lunch, dinner and breakfast. Huge shout out to these amazing people for making our lives easier and providing hot food, drinks and hot coffee.
After lunch the u14’s did their own thing while seniors and u17’s watched a presentation from Alexander Olsen-Syversen with Antidoping Norge, a former professional hockey player. Olsen-Syversen won a national championship with Stavanger Oilers and along with presenting facts and statistics, and general knowledge about doping and antidoping-work, he shared some stories about life as a professional athlete and how one can encounter banned substances. The Vikings arrange for the presentation as part of our commitment to being a clean club (Rent Idrettslag), and players affiliated with the Vikings above the age of 18 are required to finish the Clean Athlete course (Ren Utøver).
After the presentation with Antidpoing Norge, all players had a team meeting. Coach Sam Gooding briefly explained the structure of the second practice of the day before the team was split up into offense and defense. A brief talkthrough of offensive and defensive schemes later players got changed and ready for warm up.
After practice, dinner was served and players made sleeping arrangements wherever they saw fit on the premises. Some interesting choices of where to sleep were made (we will get back to this in a second) and the stage was set for a team building activity. The team building consisted of a quiz with questions about Oslo Vikings history and some fun facts from the NFL. Players were split into seven teams and group four, with the creative group name “Group 4”, won. Players were then permitted some free time before lights out at 23.00.
On sunday february 9th, players woke up to breakfast being served before splitting into groups for separate practices. Juniors (u14 and u17) were up first. During pre-practice team meeting junior players and senior players were paired up, and during practice all senior players coached and shared tips with the juniors they were paired up with. After the junior practice was over, seniors had their own team meeting and subsequent practice.
Camp Yggdrasil provided an opportunity for players and coaches to form bonds across teams and ages, and to build a team culture from the ground up. Thank you to all participants, and to everyone involved in making Camp Yggdrasil the first of many successful full club camps.
As promised, here are some fun sleeping arrangements players or coaches made. Before camp players were warned about the relatively low temperature in Vestfoldhallen. Players and coaches could set up shop wherever they saw fit as long as they stayed inside. After walking around to look for a good place to sleep, these are my favorite choices players or coaches made with their sleeping arrangements.
- On a treadmill in the gym area
- On the field, inside a soccer goal
- On top of the step-overs wedged underneath a soccer goal to keep steady
- On a little stage for everyone to see
- In a meeting room after surrounding their inflatable mattress by chairs to create privacy
- In a equipment room