Imagine
this, a pool.with goals at both ends, a plastic coated lead puck on the
bottom, two teams of 6 players in the water, with 4 substitutes on the
side.
Players wearing mask, snorkel and fins and holding a foot
long stick. They hold their breath, submerge and try and get the puck
in the goal.
It's different, challenging, low impact, high and low intensity, and
definetly a good work out.
Connecticut Clubs
New to the Sport?
Contact us. It won't cost anything, but your time.We'll provide all the
equipment, start you off with the basic skills and give you plenty of
encouragement. If your not afraid of the water and have determination,
you can learn this game at any age.
Got a pool and need help in starting a club? Contact me, Jamie
203-426-8824.
The club will
provide equipment to interested new players. For
more
information
contact Jeff at
860-526-3968. SECONN plays at
several loctions see Club table above.
Wateford
Sponsored by the Watertown Parks & Recreation, 860-945-5246
Back to Top Connecticut
Underwater Hockey Tournament September 22, 2001
Saturday - A
division Round Robin
CT 0 Vortex 6+6=12, We got our act together the second half.
CT 0 Team Canada 3+1=4, We never got past half
way, we did a good walll game though.
CT 0 Rimouski 2+1=3, We got it in their corner a couple of
times.
CT 0 CAMO &+7=14, In the last minute of the game we had
it in their corner, we were 2 ft from their goal 2 times. Pat
just couldn't finish it off with only two defenders.
We ended up at the bottom of A as expected.
Sunday - Finals
CT 1+0=0 Ottawa 2+2=4, Top
of B, Ottawa against Bottom of A, CT. Pregame negitation: Ottawa
wanted to play B and we
wanted to lose in A so we could leave early. They still gave us a
good
game. CT 0 Rimouski
3+4=7, Rob had one shot that went behind the goal. Andrew decided to
sit this one out.
End result 5th place in A division. 2007
Montreal
Team: dwight, joe,
rob, pat, jamie, Lenni(MA) jeff, Chris(MA), Timmy(MA), andy,
chris Sorry no team picture this time.
Saturday - A division Camo B 1=6=7 , CT 1+0=1. Timmy
had us try 1-3-2 positioning. LPPDC( little fish... in French,
Christopher's team from Quebec) 2+2=4,
CT 0+2=2. Moved Chris(MA) to back line this game. Ottawa A 1+3=4, CT 0. Timmy had
us try 3-3 positioning Flush 2000( a Quebec team) 2+2=4,
CT 1+0 = 0 JFK A 2+2=4, CT 0
Sunday Last of the round robin games. Shaft a hodge podge of 7 very
good guys, 2+2=4, CT 1+0=1
Finals First playoff game to determine
who goes on to fight for 8th place. Aftershock an Ontario team that
also had a no win record. We seeded 8t
because we had fewer goals against us. Aftershock 2+1=3, CT 1+1=2 We got 9th out of 9 in A. B
division had 5 teams. maybe Tom did better
in B.
Best showing at Montreal ever. We
kept scores to 4 or below except for
first game. Even scored several goals and had only 2 shut out games.
Truly amazing compared to every other year. 2007 US Nationals, Minneapolis
Hall of Shame Bailout: Jeff
for scheduling a vacation a year in advance and not first checking when
Nationals is. Evan for going in to the Peace Corp. Chris for rather
working and moving to NH. Dany's friend Jose, in and out in a week.
We went with a lot fewer that
previous years so we didn't expect to end up other than in the middle.
Michal showed up like last year and got a couple of practices in just
before going. We had Andys brothers coming with Carol Roses
permission, but a few weeks before the tournament Greg over ruled
her.
Next time we'll follow "don't ask - don't tell" eligibility
requirements. We stayed at the Radisson right by the pool. nice
place,
but expensive breakfasts.
Friday 4 buckets of 5 teams. First
game
was a loss to Cincinnati 9-1. Second game was a loss to MN Loons 6-0
this one was filmed. Third game against Texas we won 5-1. Fourth
game
We took it easy and several we late for the start. We should have
played 1 person at a time against the kids or formed a big circle and
just passed around it. Anyway Andy fought hard to give Roger Bacon a
goal by fouling and knocking off masks so RB only lost 5-1. We seeded into the 3rd place
grouping for Saturday.
Saturday 5 buckets of 4 teams. We were
in
the 3rd bucket. Lost to University of FL 1+3=4
to 2+0=2. We were up at half time but since we didn't have the subs we
couldn't keep up with them. beat San Fransisco 2+3=5 to
1+1.
They played a lot like U of FL but they didn't work the wall as well. Next was San Diego. They also
played a lot like U of FL. And again they beat us 2+3=5 to 1+1=0. This ended the round robin, we
almost left for the day figuring the final started on Sunday. We played the 2nd place team
in
the 4th bucket, which was U of I. We easily beat them 3+4=7 to 1+2=3.
Sunday We got a second chance at San
Diego, but still lost 1+0 = 1 to 1+3=4.
We did a walk through outside to work on the corner to the goal play.
That really worked well and got everyone on the same page.
And San Fransisco got a
2nd shot at us, but they still lost, 0+2=2 to 2+2=4
Final Results
Team
Division
1
Club Puck
A
2
Colorado
A
3
Orphans
A
4
Minnesota Loons
A
5
Matt Blair's Amazing Six
Pack
A
6
Los
Angeles- Drunken Starlets
A
7
Chicago 1
A
8
WashingtonDC Bottom Feeders
A
9
San Diego -Evil
B
10
U of Florida
B
11
Connecticut-
CT Barnacles
B
12
San
FranciscoSea Lions
B
13
U of Illinois,
Champaign
B
14
Texas
B
15
Loon a Sticks
B
16
MSU
B
17
Roger Bacon Varsity
C
18
Chicago 2
C
19
Roger Bacon JV
C
20
Dallas
C
Preperation Drills: Deep end
drill, swim and pass, YouTube What worked: walk throughts.
corner stratigy. What to work on: when to
pass when to stall.
We missed you guys at the tournament. We kicked ass, took names and won the tournament! Two in a row, wow, Nationals would make it three in a row! --Jeff
Hey
Jeff,
Let’s not
get carried
away here. They weren’t exactly top notch teams in MASS. You had a
better
team last year and the Canadian team was really good. I went out to get
some
lunch during the exhibition game, but I can’t imagine that if you took
the best from the other four teams and played against our team the
score wouldn’t
be any different than the other games we played. There were four good B
teams
at best, and we didn’t have Jamie, Andy D., Dany, Rudy or Evan. It was
nice to play in a Tournament again, but the hill was more challenging
than the
teams were.
I
was glad
to see cousin Larry
score in the first game, he didn’t score again but could have, Joe,
Steve
and Keith scored quite often and played well, as Skander did as well.
Cousin
Larry and Skander just need to work on getting down faster on the rush,
Rob and
Dwight were throwing the puck to the left side several times and nobody
was
there to receive it. All in all it was a good learning experience for
the RI
guys and Skander and a warm-up for those of you going to the Nationals.
--Tom
At the Umass tournament
Framingham lost to Chris's team[UMASS] because they didn't have enough
players and were tired.
--Super Dave
I
think the key point we should come away with is that Framingham got
frustrated, lost composure and their game fell apart. We played to
this weakness very successfully. Let's not forget that any decent uwh
team is going to try the same on us. So if you get fouled, robbed
of a goal or what ever, shrug it off, stay calm and play OUR game.
--SuperDave
Game Schedule
Framingham 6 MIT 2
Cape Cod 0 CT 8
UML 5 Framingham 7
MIT 7 Cape Cod 1
UML 0 CT 9
Framingham 5 Cape Cod 1
MIT 0 CT 6
Cape Cod 1 UML 6
CT 5 Framingham 3
UML 6 MIT 0
In the playoffs UML
shutdown Framingham whiners. I believe the score was 6 to 0. We
were all rooting for UML. Pat and
I were refs this game. The one real whiner on Framingham got kicked out
of the
game for head butting.
CT Played UML in the
final game and we
beat them 8 to 1.
--Jeff
Jamie, this is as best as
I can remember.
First game CT
12 Cape Cod 0
2nd game
CT 9 UML 0
3rd
game CT 8 MIT 0
4th
game CT 5 Fram
3 This was a tough one to watch. Rob and I sat this one out. We were
down at
the half 3 – 2, and managed to get it going defensively going down hill
and scored enough to win. It was a struggle but they held on for the
win.
Playoffs
We played Framingham first and they
didn’t like our style of bringing
it up the hill and keeping it there
once we got up there because with a 6 – 0 lead they felt that we were
rough and unsportsmanlike for
doing that. I guess they were expecting a closer
game like the first one, but with Rob and I in this time, there big loudmouth
didn’t score and got rather pushy in the pool. I took it off of him in
the deep end and he gave me a full body shove, and when I did it again
going up
the hill, he stabbed me in the ribs with his stick. He sent me an email
via
Chris who ran the Tournament, what a WHINER! If I can figure out how to
forward
it to the Barnacles sight, I
will. We ended up beating them 8 or 9 to zip and
they didn’t like our bury the puck in the corner style at all. Very
poor
sports and they were asking for players in the locker room when I
arrived and
they thought that it was unfair for us to have 12 players and they only
had
seven. I remember going to several Tournaments short-handed and not
asking for
or complaining about lack of bodies. Send him some cheese to go along
with that
WHINE or WINE if you will.
The final was
against UML and we
beat them rather easily 7 – 1, blame me for giving up the lone goal, I
thought SuperDave could handle
the puck against one guy and I was a bit slow
getting down to cover his back and gave up the goal. Sorry about that
Dave. I
don’t know if they played an exhibition game or not and what the
results
were.
2007 GMU March 31- April 1
Pictures
Video of the Final game
FRIDAY Gotta leave a little earlier
than
we did this year to avoid traffic
around NJ. For us leaving Monroe at 3PM we got stuck going real slow
after the GW bridge. Rob missed the turn on to 95 and we did the NJ
parkway, which was a moving parking lot. Jeff didn't do much better as
he got in around 2:30AM after dropping Chris and Evan off.
SATURDAY We seeded well for the round
robin games on Saturday. First game was with the
Michigan
State University Spartans. We won 9-0
and this was a good warm up game. An hour later the University
of
North Carolina Tar Heels put up a bit
more of a fight, but they still lost 6-0. We had 3 hours off to prepare
for
an orphan team Orphan A. Club Pucks
Coach Duck had only seven players so we knew this would be an easy
game. After scoring a few goals, Pat came up with the Andrew strategy,
where Andrew would be the only person to score goals. It worked quite
well as he scored four against Coach Duck all by himself. This turned
out to be a really go work out for the rest of us and will be the
preferred strategy for games like this one was. Next came the hardest game of
the
day against the Beltway Bottom
Feeders. Last time we played them they just beat us at Nationals so we
knew this would be a close game. They came out strong as they always do
but didn't score as early as usual. They managed the first goal, but we
also scored. So at half time it was 1-1. The second half we dominated
and the puck was in their half most of the time and we have it close to
the goal quite a lot. Super Dave even had it in the trough, but when
Dave Sun he can to the surface and yelled "no goal". Well, the ref
didn't call any fouls or award the goal we can confidently say we won
that game even though the score stayed 1-1. Nit picking rule incident #1.
During the first half one of the deck
refs noticed that one of the DC players wasn't wearing a
black cap under his black wrestling ear protectors. When told to get a
cap his response was "I have played 3 games with out a cap so
far." Last came the George Mason
University Patriots, which we easily beat
4-0.
We stuck around for the
University of Florida Gator game against DC. I
knew this would be close, but Chris formerly of Gainesville said UF
didn't have a chance. Well I routed UF on and they did pretty good only
to lose 2-1.
The banquet was held on campus
with pulled pork barbecue and chicken as
the main fare. While Dave Kennedy was setting up his karaoke equipment
the host kept us entertained with announcements. The best we from the
audience and ranged from upcoming tournaments announcements, Rudolf and
NYC activities, and Andy making fun of Coach Duck not being able to
stop four goals from a 67 year old.
The schedule they sent out on
Thursday had a really messed up playoff
times for Sunday. We seeded first and according to the schedule
wouldn't play until 1PM. Luckily Josh showed us the real schedule
showing a 11:35 first game. No wonder one of the DC guy said "wow you
don't play until 1".
SUNDAY Two games today playing Orphan
A
again. Coach Duck asked us how we
wanted them to play us and we requested a wall game. They did it real
well and cam e at us real strong the whole game. No time the Andrew
strategy this time. In circle time we came to the conclusion if we play
like that against DC they would have beat us bad. It was a timely eye
opener.
Second game was against DC as
expected. Rudolf in the spirit of the
game wrote on the backs of Chris, and Evan, Dany and on himself. Just
before the game started the
DC nitpicker complained to the refs. There was a bit of confusion
because the water refs wanted to start the game and others said they
had 5 minutes to wipe it off. The guys got out of the water and started
to clean it off. The game started with about four of us in the water
when the gong went off but the puck quickly went to the wall where
Jamie got called for some a 2 minute penalty. Rob noted much later that
this was a pretty good strategy, since it stopped play and let us get
organized. next time I'll just glove it. In retrospect the current
rules do say something about you can't have temporary marking on your
body except for the C and VC in the shoulders of the captain and vice
captain. It's one of those silly rule that came out of some incident at
worlds. Well it didn't work as DC expected it didn't throw our game off
one bit and the first half ended 1-1. We scored a little past half way
through the second half and managed to hold DC off from scoring. They
did manage to get the puck down in to one of our corners, but by the
amount of time the puck sat in the corner by its self we could tell
they were running out of steam.
RESULTS First time first place
at
end of round robin. First time first place. Kept cool under pressure. On the way to the suave game.
College Division 1st place- University of
Florida
Gators 2nd place- George Mason
Patriots 3rd place- University of
Illinois
Fighting Illini 4th place- University of North
Carolina Tarheels
5th place- Michigan State
Spartans
Open Division 1st place-
Connecticut
2nd place- Beltway
Bottomfeeders 3rd place- Gainseville 4th place- Orphan A 5th place- Orphan B
Sorry there are none we are to lame/ashamed to show our faces.
Andy, Pat, Rob, Chris, Evan,
Dave,
and Massachusets superstars Chris and Timmy
Hall of shame bail out report: Andy 2 weeks before. He didn't
get his schedule OK by his wife. Jamie, the day before. Thanks
to Rudolfs only pass at parctice he spent
a few hours in the hospital emergency room getting two lacerations
stiched up. Good shot Rudolf, right between the eyes.
We came in 6th out of 8 in the
A division beating York &
Ottawa and lost to the other 5 teams. Montreal creamed us
10:0.
Somewhat embarrassing, but typical. We're too embarrassed to post a
team picture. Tom played in B because he
didn't want to lose in A. He got stuck on a
team that didn't win a game. Big Mike who was too out of
shape o play with us jumpe don teh Dinasaur
team and did better than any of us.
Thursday
No travel mishaps getting there this trip and everyone showed up. We
should have eaten in Orlando since when we got to Gainesville we only
found Domino open and they sure don't know how to cook pizza dough.
Friday
The goal was to get in to A division and then cruise through Saturday
not expending too much energy by loosing all the games so we would have
enough for the finals on Sunday. By getting into A we would limit final
ranking to 8th overall. The most challenging team was GMU. We put in
the strongest team for this game since we are evenly matched against
GMU. It was tied 2-2 at half time and we managed 2 point to their 1 the
second half. Next was Bacon the stronger of the Roger Bacon High
School teams. We easily won 6(3+3) to 1(0+1). Last came Chicago which
historically has been a top contended. We won 8(4+4) to 2(1+1). The UWH
gods were with us this year and we started in a weak division. So we
seeded top of the division and moved into the A division for Saturdays
round robin. For a celebration we went to Benegins instead of the
motels Mongolian Sushi Buffet, which I thought would be a real treat.
Too many beef eaters on this team. The 2 for 1 drafts inspired Michal
to drink and be merry, because when it came time to figure out the tip
he wast still calculating 5 minutes after we found out it was included
in the bill.
Saturday
We didn't really expect to win any of these and even soring was quite a
surprise. Pat was pushing a throw the puck forward game plan, which is
quite different from our "old Man Pat" strategy. It worked pretty well
even though they changed the puck from Friday's sticky Oreo puck to the
slippery pink Australian puck, which didn't help our passes any. I'd
say the scores don't indicate how well we did since we had several
missed opportunities in front of the goal where the puck was inches
from going in.
One of the best shots was Rudolfs in the Club Puck game. where he shot
it along the back wall and it barely missing going over the back of the
goal.
Lost to WPB 9(3+6) to 3(2+1).
Lost to Denver 4(3+1) to 1(1+0).
Lost to Charleston A 9(4+5) to 0. We put a weak team against these guys
and they brawled us unnecessarily.
Lost to Club Puck 8(4+4) to 3(1+2).
Lost to Champaign-Minnesota 6(4+2) to 2(1+1).
No 2 for 1 drafts at TGIF, but Andy and crew took care of Rudolf
for
throwing paper in their drinks later that night.
Sunday
Game plan was to place ahead of GMU. We started off against
Champaign-Minnesota and lost 7(4+3) to 2(1+1).
Then lost to Florida 5(3+2) to 2(1+0). Lack of subbing killed us in
this game.
Lost to GMU 5(5+0) to 4(1+3). Rudolf ref'ed their WPB game and
noticed
that they were playing the wall game. So we focused on a counter
strategy. Unfortunately they changed tactics for us since they came out
strong the first half. They lost steam the second half and we gained
momentum. We
had it on their goal several times but couldn't finish it. It was good
that the team recovered and didn't lost composure. Thinking about it
now GMU played a defensive game against a stronger team WPB, against an
equal team they went full out, which is what we usually do when we're
not out smarting ourselves.
So in summary the master plan worked better than expected,
We ended up 8 out of 17 (47th percentile)
We scored goals against every team except the #1 team.
We didn't get too tired on Sunday. (See all that stair climbing real
pays off.)
Final Results
A Division:
1) Charleston A
2) Denver
3) Club Puck
4) Minneapolis/Champaign
5) West Palm
6) FL
7) GMU
8) Connecticut
Consolation Division:
1) Chicago
2) Cincinnati/Houston
3) UF
4) Dallas
5) MSU
6) UNC
7) Roger Bacon A
8) Charleston B
9) Roger Bacon B
Hall of Shame Bail Out Report::
Danny sprains his knee weeks earlier, and shows up at practice the
Thursday before to notify us.
Dwight, the day of the tournament, he calls in sick.
Several of us now know why Larry doesn't like to ride when Cousin Larry
is driving.
A fun time was had by all, 5 teams showed up and we had 4 round robin
games every hour.
We played the first game against Montreal. They blew us out of the
water as expected, 11-0. This was a good warm up game for us and worked
well to our advantage to get the hardest game over with early.
Next was against UMASS Lowell. They put up a good fight but eventually
lost 4+2=6 to 0+1=1.
Next against MIT, a real college team which we played some keep away
against in the deep end,. final score 7-1.
Framing ham was next and we pretty much did the same as with MIT, 7-0.
It would be better to do the zig zag drill with them after getting the
score up a few points.
We seeded second in to the finals, and played MIT again, 6+2=8 to 0+1=1.
The UML guys wanted to forfeit to Montreal so that they could play us
again, we agreed, but first we played Montreal for the finals. They
beat us, but we did pretty good. 5+2=7 to 0.
Rudolf, Pat, Andy and Jamie played an exhibition game before the UML
game, which was right afterwards so we were well warmed up and down
right tired. UML held us to 2 goals going down hill. They scored 3
going down and Rudolf did a fantastic job bringing it up the hill in
assisting in the tying goal close to the end of the second half. We
played 2 minute overtime halfs and we scored going down and they
didn't. Andy gave the best team advice at the begining of the last
overtime period, " Rufolf take it to the wall, play defensive, don't go
up the hill, that's your job. Cousin Larry, don't even think of getting
in the water." Final score 4-3.
The last game of the day was the Montreal Challenge. It was the best of
the 4 teams against Montreal. They did worse that we did they lost 8-0.
This goes to show the effectiveness of Pat's Old Man UWH strategy.
Typical road trip. We peaked on Saturday and suffered from oxygen
deprivation on Sunday.
We arrived all well and good on Friday, even leaving late from NYC
there was only some minor delays getting through NYC and at the merge
on the NJ turnpike.
We started out losing to Charleston 6-1 as expected. then won the next
two games against the college teams of UNC 5-1 and Champaign 6-1. The
best game was against DC and we put it to them 3-0. They were really
frustrated.
Saturday night party, Andrew left the party first at ~8:30 he
didn't show up at the hotel
until after 11. He needs a better navigator.
Andy left after 9 and only got a little lost. He needs only a slightly
better navigator.
We seeded 4th for the open division finals on Sunday, but the
womens
teams wanted to play together so instead we played DC again. DC got
pumped up and scored 2 goals real fast. We recovered and ended the
half down a point at 3-2. The second half was scoreless. In circle time
we learned that SuperDave didn't get in at all the second half. That
cost us a win.
So we battled the Womens Masters team for 5th place and tied 2-2. It
was evident that the offensive conveyor belt stopped working as the
front line bobbed up and down in front of their goal.
Final results from this
weekend's GMU Invitational.
College Division
1st Place-
University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill
2nd Place- George
Mason University
3rd Place-
University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign
4th Place- Michigan
State University
Open Division
1st Place- Florida
Gainesville/Gators
2nd Place-
Charleston Blockade Runners
3rd Place-
Washington DC Beltway Bottom Feeders
4th Place- US
Women's Elite
5th/6th Place-
Connecticut Barnacles (Both teams opted out of overtime)
5th/6th Place- US
Women's Master's (Both teams opted out of overtime)
Back to Top 2005
Montreal
Pictures ( hey Dwight get them
off that phone!) Hall of Shame Bailout:
Jeff and Chris two days before.
Andy a month before
When you let Dwight drive it's always an adventure. We didn't miss any
exits this time, but going there we talked to Dwight. That's not bad,
but he totaly ignored the little red light that says time to fill up.
We made it to a station on fumes.
We went short handed to play in A since Andy and Michael weren't going
this time.
So we had a decent team of 8 and could place mid level in A . Then two
days before Jeff gives a lame excuse about tendinitis and how his
doctor said to take it easy. Of course Chris bailed when daddy bailed.
So 10 minutes from the schedule being sent out we notifies the
organizers that we would prefer to go to B. They weren't happy., but
did oblige us. It turned out that A wasn't that strong this year since
the Canadian Worlds mens tryouts were being run during the tournament.
they has 3 teams of 7 to 8 that basicly removed JFK A and Vortex from
the tournament.
Our strategy worked out by Pat on the ride up was to make two groups of
3, left and right side, and rotate within those groups. We divided the
two groups so that there was a balance between endurance and and skill
level.
Saturday - Round Robin
First game against Guy Unit(JFK B team). We defended deep first and won
easily 1+3=4 to 0.
Second game game against Quebec Extreme We defended shallow first
and
won easily 2+4=4 to 0.
Third game against Alberta U19. We defended deep first and won easily
3+2=5 to 0.
Fourth game against Bare Necessity(Hamilton-Guelph B team). We decided
to try the Zig Zag drill against them in circle time, but they sent two
emisaries before the game that they weren't having fun loosing and
wanted to forfeit the game. They would grab three of their A players so
we could play a "fun" game. It didn't turn out to fun for them. We
defended shallow first and won easily 3+? to 0+1=0. We even did the
change of stick color at start of second half. The ref never called it
and some of them didn't think it was funny.
Sunday - Round Robin
First game against Rais(Roumski). We defended deep first and won easily
3+2=5 to 0.
Second game against Ottawa. We defended deep first and won easily 3+3=6
to 0.
Finals
We seeded first and played Ottawa. We defended shallow first and
won
easily 4+4=8 to 0.
in the finals we played Guy Unit. They had a come from behind win over
Alberta so were really pumped. We defended shallow first and won easily
2+5=7 to 0+1=1.
In all the games we had more puck control, passing, down time, and
sheer strength then they did. We took all of Saturdays games easy to
conserve energy.
Well we went in to this thinking that we could place higher than
Minnesota since they beat us in overtime in the finals last year and
several of our players seemed much better than last year. Although Evan
pulled out months prior and Super Dave prefered going to the Ottawa
party(I mean tournament). We started off with a smaller team this time
around.
Mike was working in L.A. for the past few months and still flew out
and we picked up Carolyn from FL to get us to 10. She made a good
decision since she received offers from Houston and Cape Cod (good
going Super Dave, you really convinced her). In the last week Michal
decided to come along. So we arrived with a team of 11.
Thursday
Well before the tournament, they announced that pool time would start
at
3PM Friday. After several of us had booked flights to arrive at around
1:30PM they announced a screw up that they couldn't get the pool from 3
to 6PM. No problem because they said they would schedule around those
teams that would arrive late. When the schedule came out on Thursday we
were scheduled to play Denver at 12PM and Roger Bacon Reserves at 2PM.
It seems that we were the only team that short handed due to the pool
scheduling screw up and Greg basicly said "
The problem was that it was
impossible to adjust everyones schedule when dealing with 21 teams."
Friday
Andy and Carolyn arrived Thursday night and played the Denver game to a
0-19 loss. Tom,
Pat, Jamie, Michal and Dwight's flight arrived early and made a mad
dash to the pool. Luckly the games were running a few minutes late so
they managed to arrive just in time to play the full game and won 12-0.
The next two games would be the most difficult and we would need Mike
to have any chance. The 3rd game at 6:15 was against Sea-tech. Mike was
scheduled to arrive a 4:30, but his flight was canceled and he didn't
arrive until 11PM. They handly beat us 8-0. Jamie tried to negotiate
them to tie us to overcome the loss to Denver hoping that we could
finagle our way in to the 2nd highrest bucket on Saturday.
No deal they were too competative. The third game was against DC. They
beat us 6-0. A much stronger team than the team we tied in Guelph. We
realized we didn't train correctly for this tournament.
Saturday By
only winning one game on Friday we were placed in the 4th bucket on
Saturday. If we had beaten Denver we would have been in the 3rd bucket
and played teams at or just below our level. So in the 4th bucket we
were not really challenged at all. Mike and Chris had stayed up for one
more beer than the rest of us and both woke up feeling sick. Not good
for a long tournament. It looked like we would not do better than last
year. Houston was the first game and we won handly 3+1=4 to 0.
They put up a good fight. Mike stoped playing for the rest of the day,
but Chris felt good enough to keep playing. After an inspiring
lecture by Pat in the next game against Dalloons we won 6+4=10 to
1+0=1. In this one we just played it like a normal game. By now we
decide we neede ot focus on playing our game and sticking to "the
plan". The third game
against Roger Bacon Reserves we decide to take the score to 4 and then
play around and work on moving the puck up the side of the pool since
that is what we need to concentrate on if we wanted to beat the teams
that were playing in the 2nd and 3rd buckets. We beat RBR 6-0. The next
game against MSU we won 6-0. Jamie took the puck back to his goal when
it got too close to theirs, this apparently pissed Andy off, (i'm not
sure why because it's the same thing he did in Quebec a few years
ago.) The last game was against Minnesota-2. We won 6-0 and
managed to use the time for practing as much as we could. We then took
a field trip to the Mall of America for a big steak dinner with Charlie
Brown, Lucy and Snoopy. Rob refed his one of the 1st bucket games and
became convinced that all you need is down time, speed and good puck
handling, stratagy is not needed. Sunday
We ended up in the B division as expected and had three games ahead to
win to take B. Chris woke up with larengitis and decide not to play,
and went shopping back at the mall. The first game against Denver
was close, but we controlled the puck most of the time. Mike was well enough to
play, and had some awesum runs up the pool. Final
score 2+1=3 to 1+1=2. Andy got his revenge. Next game was against
Dalloons. We had already beaten them and Andy had sat that game out so
we knew this would be an easy one. So we did it again 4-0. They put up
a much better fight this time. I guess Andy brings that out in teams.
During this game Dwight and Tom had a subbing spat, which Pat set
straight in Circle time. Going into the last game against Fort Collins
we knew that it would be
close. They had 4-5 world level women that were like a swarm of bees.
At around 2PM Andy let us know that he was leaving for the airport. He
thought his flight was at 6 but it was at 4:45, and the B finals game
was at 3:40. We called Chris and convinced him that he came to play,
not shop, so he arrived just in time for the game. Michal prepared us
by introducing a special play called "MIIKKE SSTTRRIIKE" and it worked
perfectly, although not flawlessly. It's basicly the Montreal Pizza
Play. We did it on the first play and scored. It set them back and they
played defensly for most of the rest of the first half. One of the refs
was quite pumped up and the other
team noticed this and mentioned that we were pulling fins. Ludicrous.
He was calling
advantage puck against us quite often. It worked to our advantage since
it gave us more time to rest. The score was 2+0=2 to 1+1+2 at the end
of regulation play. In overtime we won 3-2. From the sub box both teams
were tired, only one person on the botton per side at a time.
Andy called while we were at dinner and Pat managed to convince him we
lost 3-2 in the finals, to which andy replied "I'm glad I didn't lose
to a bunch of girls". Even by the next Thursday he still wasn't aware
we had won, even though there was congradulations on the e-mail list
and he had received his medialion trophy. So he may never find out.
What to do better next
year
Positions:
1 for 1 subing in the front. 4 backs the fitest players since there is
only one sub. Used Andy to fill in for who ever was sitting out.
Stratagy: Our 2/3rds defensive zig zag wall game. Their 1/3 go for it. Endurance training 3
months before the tournament.
Practice zig zag wall game months before the tournament. Pratice the pizza play.
Fly in Thursday night - leave no earler than 7PM Sunday night.
Carry Oscillococcinum and take it
when you start to feel a cold/flu coming on.
Practice zig zag wall game in a circle around the pool past their goal,
past our goal during the easy games.
Don't let Dwight order the beer.
Laps before the first game of the day.
Manage the health of the team mates, add it to circle time.
Get into the lowest bucket necessary on Saturday, let the other teams
wear themselves out.
So we ended up at the top
of B or 9th out of 21 which in percentile is higher than last year.
A
Division
1. SeaTech
2. Chicago 1
3. Charleston
4. Club Puck
5. Florida
6. Cincinnati
7. DC
8. Puck-N-Loons (Minnesota-1)
B Division
1. Connecticut
2. Fort Collins
3. Houston
4.
DalLoons
5. Denver
6. Champaign
7. Cape Cod
8 Chicago 2
C.
Division
1. Dallas Fort Worth
2. Michigan State
University
3. Roger Bacon Varsity
4. Loonasticks
5. Roger Bacon Reserves
2005
Quebec
No Pictures the novelity of
Jeffs Digital camera has worn off
. "Spliting up is easy to
do"
Hall of Shame Bail out report:
Danny, well
he hasn't been around for months.
Dwight,
got to stay healthy
We came with
a full team this time and with some new faces that have little to no
tournament play, even so we played in A division.
The first game was against Montreal A, we lost as expected 7+7=14 to 0.
Before circle time Tom had managed to negotate his way on to a B team
and also move Cousin Larry, Andrew, Scott and eventually Andy
there also. We picked up some A grade players in the trade. Cousin
Larry and Tom ended up on Sherbrooke and the other 3 on Ottawa B. the
CT picked up Will, Sebastian, Daniel, and Sebastian from Ottawa
and
Dave, from Quebec.
The A team saga
We followed Wills stratigy of doing a 3-2-1. We had one for one subbing
in the front line, and one sub in the back line. The back line
played much differently than we are used to playing. It took a little
getting use to it. With all the subs in the front they could keep the
pressure on and let the backs player at a slower tempo.
front line: Will, Sebastian, Daniel, Mike, Chris, Pat
backline: Dave, Sebastian, Jamie, Jeff
2nd game was against Vortex, we lost as expected and as it was our
first game together it wasn't too bad, Vortex 2+5=7, CT
2+0=2, 3rd game
against Montreal A Will managed to against then with a brilliant play
agains the deep end wall, Montreal
2+4=6, CT 1+0=0.
4th game against Vortex. We held then to 0-0 at half time and then fell
apart, like all the other games. Vortex 0+3=3, CT 0,. Round robin
ranking after Saturday: Montreal, Vortex, CT(/Ottawa).
The B saga
Andys Ottawa B beat Toms Sherbrooke, with a little dirty play. So much
for sportsmanship. Round
robin ranking after Saturday:Amazones,
Ottawa, Sherbrooke, Rimouski, JFK B, Quebec Extreme
Sunday
A saga continues.
Our first game was an exibition against top team in B, the Amazones.
Last time we played them Tom lost his pants.
It was a pretty easy game. we won 4+2=6 Amazones 0+1=1. By the
end of the day the gracious Amazones had returned the famous trophy
pants.
A Finals:
2nd game of the day against Vortex, lost as usual, Vortex 3+1=4 , CT
0+1=1. Still a 3 point difference.
3rd game against Montreal, lost as usual, Montreal 2+6=8, CT 0.
4th game , last change to get 2nd place, couldn't do it. Vortex 2+4=6,
CT 1+0=1, 3 points again.
This last game was at 1PM so 3 of us were ready to leave.
B saga
continues.
Andys's Ottawa team blew their 2nd place ranking by losing to 5th
ranked JFK. The JFK kids and I do mean kids, wipped them, it was
probably all those warm up laps they did at 7:30 before our Amazone
exibhition match. Most of the
B guys
were ready to finish up early. But not Tom and crew, he stayed around
to rally his team to a 3rd place victory and a long bus ride home.
Results: A Division Montreal A
Vortex
CT-Ottawa
B Division we don't really
care
Back to Top 2005
Guelph
Pictures
5th place in A, with some very close games.
Hall of Shame Bail out report:
Dwight, A week before, he really screwed up his calendar
this time, got to get him a spouse to keep track of these trifling
details.
Evan, A week before and bails out of UW hockey for two
years until he graduates.
Round Robin game details: First game was a loss against Hamilton, (1st place), 5-0 in a bath tub hot pool. This was the deep/shallow pool. We played this game conservatively and the score shows. We never really controlled the puck or got it near their goal for long.
Coach Andrew saves the day: Retiree Andrew P demonstrated that age is no impediment when he stopped a goal attempt by three members of the winning team. Tom was swimming back to sub out and the game is following him. When Tom jumped out and Andy jumped in he was the only person between the goal and the three attackers. Undeterred Andrew went down, stole the puck with a sneaky left handed move and returned it to our team at the top of the slope who were sat there waiting for the goal to go be scored. Good job Tom got out really and shows the benefit of bringing in fresh players.
In circle Time Jeff convinced us to go for and skip the consertave game, it since the flat pool plays a much faster game. He was right.
The second game we had a 5-4 loss against London,(4th place). It was very close through out and the deck refs screwed the scoring because we though we had tied 5-5. As Tom recants " They got a last minute goal just before the end of the first half, the first time we played them. The score was screwed up and had us tied with two minutes to go. I'm sure we would've pushed harder for a goal if we knew we were down one."
Third game agains Teams USA (2nd place), we though these guys would clobber us going into it. But we did our typical best showing iwhen the odds are against us. After it was over they were very fustrated. In the end it was a 3-3 tie.
As their performance deteriorated and their lead got closed to 3-2 the whippersnapper wimps from Team USA decided to go hold the puck in the corner for a few minutes at the end of the match because they knew they couldn't beat us in open water, After several of their players had taken it in turn to play this weak game Andy decided enough is enough. So he swam into the corner (against all the rules) and with a cry of remember Quebec (Wildturkey) took possession of the puck, First he rotated right and a very smug whippersnapper shoved the puck back into the corner - and completely overcommitted himself in doing so. So Andy rotated left this time with the Team USA guy stuck in the corner and the next team USA guy is positioning himself to stop Andy going down the wall to the net. Knowing our whole team had two minutes to setup for this, Andy decided someone had to be on the 45 degree Angle and so without looking pushed the puck away from the corner and away from the wall to Jamie. Jamie in his usual style swam through a few of the kids about 5 feet out from the goal and gave the puck to wild turkey. Wild turkey fired the puck into on of the kiddies faces to soften up for his main blow then pounded the puck into the goal. Seems we learnt from letting the chicks hold the puck in the corner in Quebec(2003) near the end of the game.
The last round robin game was 4-1 win against Guelph, (6th place). It was close during teh first half and teh game was in jeporady, but they got more tired faster than we did.
Finals: A 3-2 loss against London. As Mike says "it should be noted that the two losses to London were heartbreakers, could have gone either way, and should have gone our way based on puck possession. I would estimate we held possession like 70-80 percent of the time, and they managed a few weak break away goals. The scores of those two games does not reflect how nasty we played." And Toms comments "Also in the playoffs we got hosed on a horrible call that took away our first goal and a huge momentum swing with us in the lead at that point."
A results: Hamilton Team USA Cinncinatti London CT Guelph
B Results: who cares. Ok, check out the College Royal site if you really want to know.
It started when stopping for
lunch, Pat mentions that he though he left his keys in his truck, So
when we went back, he not only left the keys in the ingitation, the
radio was on and the windows were down. Good start Pat. I asked Pat if
he forgot his pasport, He scuffed it off saying he didn't need it. If
you don't know even though he has a US pasport he has one of those
accents that alerts border guards that he hasn''t spent much time in
the USA.
Tom flew up the night before
and was staying with Rene. We picked him up at pool, where Rene told us
to take him away since he was cramping his style. Went to Peite Marche
friday night, where Dwight order just the right amount of pitchers this
time.
Andys friend Chris wimped out
due to the fear of increades paralysis so we voted and replaced him
with Andrew, our entertainment director.
Note: scores are given in
First Half + Second Half = Total format. First game on Saturday against
Ottawa, we lost 3+2=5 to 1+0=1. Pat broke away in the flat and lead the
single defender away from the goal before pasting it off to Evan who
finished it off. This was our only score all weekend and Evan who
hasn't played since Nationals got it.
Next game against Vortex they
scored 4+4=8 They seemd younger than usual. We held LaCamorra to 6+4=10 ,
still not too bad
