Here is a letter that Prisca Mossiman (defense for Team Switzerland)
posted to the women-in-hockey mailing list, just after the 1996 
European A Championship.

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Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 12:58:41 CET
From: s_mosima@kl.unibe.ch
To: women-in-hockey@plaidworks.com
Subject: European Championship in Yaroslavl (Russia)

Hi all,

My name is Prisca Mosimann. I'm 21 years old and come from
Switzerland.  I play ice hockey for the "SC Lyss Damen", a team 
that competes in the highest Swiss division (National League A)
and recently won the Swiss Championship Title for the third time.

This past season five players from Lyss were
selected for the Swiss National Team:
     Ramona Fuhrer (17),
     Mireille Noethiger (23),
     Doris Wyss (23),
     Gilliane Jeannottat (23),
     and me.
  (Actually there were  6 players from Lyss selected for the
  European Championship! Tiia Reima who played for the last two
  years for Lyss made the Finnish National Team.  Along with
  her team she won the bronze medal.)

I would like to tell you a little bit about what the Swiss Team
experienced at the European Championship about two weeks ago in Russia.


EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP POOL A 1996 IN YAROSLAVL (RUSSIA)

The European Championship started on March 23th and was held in
Yaroslavl a town four hours (by car) away from Moskow. The Swiss Team
went two days early and tried to settle as well as possible. The
journey to Yaroslavl took us almost a whole day. We flew from Zuerich
to Frankfurt (Germany) and then further to Moskow.  The passport
control was very tiring.  They checked all our passports and visas very
carefully. We waited for at least 1.5 hour until the last person of our
team could pass.  An old bus was already waiting for us at the airport.
A 4.5 hours long bus ride was awaiting us. It was already dark outside
so we couldn't see a lot of the capital city (Moskow). Before some of
the players fell asleep we celebrated our assistant coach's birthday
and sang some songs.

When we arrived in Yaroslavl we immediately moved into our rooms and
went to bed.  We lived in a huge hotel. All the teams, except the
Russians, lived in the same building. Each team inhabited another floor
so that we didn't get in each other's way. :-) The only place we met
from time to time was the big dining room.

The second day in Yaroslavl we had our first practice. We got a nice
dressing room and took a look at the rink first. The rink was quite
big. There was enough space for about 5000 spectators.

The first ice session didn't end up well for us. The captain of our
team had a collision with the boards and broke the bone in her calf.
That was hard for her and of course also for us. We knew that we lost
our best player (During the preparation games she scored 45% of our
goals). Well, she had to fly back immediately and the tournament
started without her.

The opening ceremony was the nicest I've ever experienced. Five players
of each team were standing on the ice while children were skating
around with flowers and presents. Several people gave a short speech
before about 5000 people, welcoming the teams. It was great!

The tournament did not go well for Switzerland. We only won against
Germany. The games against Russia and Norway were very close, we
missed luck!

Our results:   GER - SUI   2:3
               SUI - RUS   3:4
               SWE - SUI   6:3
               SUI - FIN   0:8
               SUI - NOR   2:3

Of course we'd have liked to be placed better (we come in 5th) but, 
at least we were able to qualify for the World Championship 1997 
in Kitchener (Canada).

I'm glad that I could go to Russia. It was good for me to get an
impression of how people live there. Well, we didn't see much of the
country but we spent a few days in one of Russia's biggest cities. We
saw many nice churches but also noticed old, decayed buildings. The
people seemed to me very serious. The shops were special too. I didn't
see any shop windows, so it was hard to tell where the shops were.

Sweden won the EC, I guess that was a big surprise for everybody. I
will allow them the title but I personally think that Finland was the
strongest team.

Greetings from Switzerland!

Prisca

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