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
2009
US Nationals, Minneapolis
Pictures June 26-28
There were only 4 Barnacles and Ed from RI this year. So were
recruited
Eric and Michael from Framingham, and Rob from Capecod. We picked up
two completely unknowns to us, Emile and John of U of FL Gainesville
UWH fame. Although they were quite new to UWH, Dave Wile[sic] taught
them well.
Kendal did a slightly modified
version of the bracketing/round robin
format that they have been doing for several years. The purpose was to
make the round robin games competitively closer for all teams. Kendal
ranked the teams top to bottom. The top 12 were evenly distributed in
to 2 groups of 6, and the bottom 11 in to 2 groups of 6 and 5.
The
first round robin lasted Friday and one game on Saturday. The teams
then went into another round robin with brackets of 4 teams with the
highest bracket populating the highest 4 teams and the next lowest in
the next lowest bracket and so on. After those round robins came cross
over games between the 2 lowest in the upper half and the 2 highest in
the lower half. Finals were divided into the top 8 in to A division,
the next 8 into and the rest in to C.
We ranked us in the middle at 11
just above NJ so we were at the
dividing line between the upper and lower halves. We could have gone in
to the lower half if we wanted, but at the time we had a full team of
10 and also felt that we would get better experience losing to the
stronger teams than winning against the weaker teams. The advantage of
going in the lower half is that you expend less energy through the
round robins. A week later I found out that Ed wasn't going to make it,
he was the first to buy a plane ticket and on Thursday night Michael
dropped out due to a family illness.
We played "pat's old man"
strategy. This has the backs rotating 30
degrees and the forwards rotating perpendicular off the side wall. This
gives the opposition space to rundown down the side wall and get
trapped. If they swing it around the forwards are lined up to stop
that. We added one thing and that was to always chip the puck forward
to the open space up the wall where a forward will soon arrive. When
teh rotation gets to the far end it shoots toward the goal and avoids
the corner. The rotations maintain different angles to the walls. The
forwards angle shallow toward the goal and the backs are perpendicular.
As expected we lost all games until the very end of the tournament. The
first round robin had teams that just crushed us, but in each game we
actually got the puck near their goals and came very close to scoring,
which is pretty impressive considering the team composition.
Friday One disadvantage of playing in
the upper half is that there were a lot of head shots. And to make it
worse CT 0 St. Paul 3+1=4 CT 0 San Diego 5+2=7 CT 0 U of FL
3+3=6 CT 0 LA 6+4=10
Saturday CT 1+0=1 3 Corners
5+3=8 Timmy'- Seattle and ... Second round robin CT 1+1=2 MN Loons 0+3 this
one was real close if we had held off their
last goal for a few minutes we could have guaranteed us position 9 to
12. CT 1+0=1 NJ 1+3=4
This one was awful. NJ scored two goals on
advantage pucks where Andy swam way too much before being challenged.
Better reffing would have also helped since it was a very physical
game. This is the one where Dany knocked my mask off just like Leo did
last year and scored a goal, I'll have to learn that trick. We seeded 4th in B
John managed to memorized a clean
version of "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" which became our victory song on
Sunday.
Sunday CT 0 San Francisco
6+4=10 We sure didn't have much bottom time this game. CT 2+4=6 Chicago
3+0=3 We expected this win. CT 1+2=3 NJ
1+0=0 This was the perfect wall game. We
had 3 on the
bottom surrounding the puck almost always. They just couldn't get it
off the wall
This was the trip were we
learned that some times it's not that important to
score a goal.
Practice drills used leading up to this tournament were
1. Deep End Drill. This is a half court game. The defensive team takes
the puck
to the wall and passes it to the next player down the object is to keep
the
passes going down the wall even while the other team is doing the
opposite of
taking it off the wall and scoring. We did it for several months, but
really
didn't it down right.
2. For the last month we did the "Inside-Outside game". This is a
game of keep away with a twist. The Inside team scores points for
having the
puck cross one or more designated center lane markers. The Outside
scores when
the puck is put in a corner. The Outside team goes clockwise from one
corner to
the next without skipping.
Team
Eight guys came which is a pretty small number compared to what we
usually do.
So the strategy needed to be very efficient since we were substitute
limited
and 25 to 10 years older than the other teams. So we decide to play the
wall
game to their corner. For teams much more fit than just keep it there.
18 teams attended this year. First time showing from NJ which at it's
nucleus is
really just exCT guys that finally decided that it's easier to find a
pool
close to home than to spend 3 hours in a car driving through I-95
traffic.
Friday first round robin
We lost to Minnesota
4+4=8 to 1+0=1. They had a few extra A players on their team. They had
a
relatively easy time taking the puck from us off the wall and keeping
it in the
center.
Easy win over MSU 0+1= 1 to some thing too big to count. Andy worked
hard to
give them that one goal. We used this game to practice corner game.
West Palm handily beat us 3+2=5 to 1+0=1. We did keep it in their
corner most
of the game, but holes in our defense let them make breakout that we
couldn't
catch. We had elected to set up for goals only when for Pat to bring
the puck
out of the corner, and everyone else would push it back into the
corner. WP
caught on.to that very fast.
We beat Champaign 0+1=1 to 1+2=3. The
puck was
in their corner a lot. They had one breakaway where they thought they
had a
goal but the referees didn't call it. Joe confirmed that it didn't go
in. So
Jamie played it off the ramp and took the puck back to their corner. On
CT
scoring our third goal one of the Champaign
guys went bezerk on a ref. He was thrown out for the rest of the game.
Last
game on Friday stopped with 2 minutes to go because of lighting.
Saturday last of first round robin
We tied Charleston
3+0=3 to 1+2=3, strategy still being practiced. Jamie and Pat
successfully
scored a penalty goal ,
Seeding for next round robin:
Since our win-loss- tie record was the same as Charlestons they looked at goals
scored
against. They move up a level, we moved down. This is more supporting
evidence
of focusing on defense.
Saturday round robin
GMU lost to CT handily 1+0=1 to 2+2=4. Their lone goal was on a break
away. Champaign
was
charged up and taught us a lesson 3+1=4 to CT 1+0=1. We didn't have out
act
together at all.
LA trounced us 4+6=1- to 0+0=0. The puck got in their corner once and
Jamie did
a perfect pass at 45 degrees outward, only there was no CT to receive
it, only
LA. The high point
was Pat successfully defended a penalty goal, that's a win! They are a
bunch of
extremely fit ex college swimmers that now have excellent flicks and
good puck
handling so we'll have fit something in our strategy to deal with them.
Sunday finals
We seeded 12 overall, 4 in B division.
First game was against GMU. We got their early and did laps for warm up
it paid
off. GMU lost 1+1=2 to 3+4=7. Were still in the top half of B.
Next came NJ. We lost 1+1=2 to 1+0=1. The refs were not very good they
missed a
lot of easy calls, yet they called lots of other fouls, but never sent
repeat
offended to the penalty box. Better refs would have turned this game.
The
candidates for Most Valuable Play are 1. The "stick of Andy and the
hand
of God", which combined to break
Christoph’s stick.
and 2. Another successfully defended penalty goal by Pat.
We played Champaign for a third time to determine 3rd place in B. Pat
had the
earliest fight from Gainesville at 4:45 and the game started on time at
2:30 so
there was enough time to play given that the airport is 5 minutes
away.. It was
a very close game. The game was tied at half time 1-1. With 7 minutes
to go
there was a 30 minute lighting break. Regulation time stopped still
tied 1-1.
So it went in to sudden death overtime, which lasted about ten minutes.
The
puck was in their corner much of the time although they had several
breakouts
that were successfully stopped. CT brought it back to the corner and
patiently
waited for the opportunity, which eventually came. Champaign lost 1+0+0=1 to 1+0+1=2.
Final standing 3rd in B division or 11th out of 18. A pretty good
showing for
the 8 oldest guys there.
P.S. It's good that we lost to NJ because with the lighting delays we
would have either missed our flight or miss the Finals game.
So the current refined version of Pats Old Man strategy that is:
1.Get the puck to their corner via the wall. Use the wall since we
can't out
swim them in open water.
2. Keep the puck in their corner while resting up.
3. Try for goals from 45 degrees out, don't go up the wall.
4. If goal fails on the first attempt take it back to the corner.
5. Stay calm the goal will come, read their positioning and act when
they make
a mistake is make. 2008
Quebec
Picture April 27
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 Renes team, the Dinosaurs,
scored 2+2=4, We should have done better since thay only had 6 players. Last game on Saturday we lost
to the Bagel Hounds 2+2=4 to 0 . We did a decient game since the Bagel
Hounds beat the Dinosaurs by much more. We managed to keep the puck in
their shallow end corner for much of the second half after taking
advantage of an advantage puck from a pass to Jamies mask.
Big Dinner at the Buffet, then
Rene gave us a tour of the night life downtown.
Toms tardyness finally caught
up with him. We forgot to assign someone to look after him. So the fact
that Tom flew up meant that he didn't have an assigned car. So When we
got to the pool on Sunday some realized that he was forgotten. Oh well.
Only one game Sunday. against
LaCammora. We held them to 5+5=10. Not bad considering we usually do
worst on the second day. Maybe it was that Chris decided to play. We
had 13 players and no one even noticed.
Probably the biggest reason
that we didn't do better is that we forgot to practice Pat's Old Man
UWH Stratigy in the months leading up to the tournament. When we
scrimaged against our sparring partner, the non travel Barnacles, it's
easy to play the typical 2-1-2-1 forward passing strategy because they
collectively are a B grade team. We need to devise drills that focus on
curling when running into opposition, keeping control of the puck, and
cycling back.
Returning home US immigrations
didn't like the fat that we didn't bring passports. Especially Pat. We
had to go inside and get grilled. We won't forget them next year.
8th out of 16, Bottom of A
division. Best showing by CT.
Excellent performance by all
that attended.
High Points:
Day 1
Getting lost going to the
pool.
Losing to Club Puck 4-2
Day 2
Getting lost going to the
pool.
Tying Cape Cod 4-4.
Eating chocolate covered
cheesecake pops at "Taste of Chicago".
Creaming champaign ~5~0 (they
beat Cape Cod 5-4). Shut them down completely.
Day 3
Getting lost going to the
pool.
Finals for 7th place against
Minnesota, Force them to call 2 timeouts. Matched them point for point
and tied 4-4 at end of regulation time.
Lost 6-4 at end of overtime.
Watching Tom show his stuff on
Touhy
PS Larry, something is wrong
with the logo on the shirts. Pat and I were sitting together on the
plane and a guy asked us if we were on a soccer team.
We did well, but without Patrick we
knew going in that winning anything would be very difficult. So we did
our best and represented CT well. Has anybody heard from Patrick ? Is
everything OK with him and his family ? How was your European
Vacation ? -- Tom
It was all Pat’s
fault…he ditched us on Friday morning and we just didn’t have the
heart to play anymore. -- chris
You tell em
Chris ! We were offered a Female substitute in place of Pat. Skill
level not even close, but MUCH BETTER LOOKING ! After a
short deliberation, we decided to let her join our team. We had
another offer from some guy who just started playing. We all felt
bad, but we had to tell him no Thank You. Beginner skills and Pat
was much better looking. Unlike Cousin Larry, when we
passed Gwen ( From Guelph ) the puck near the goal, she
scored. She also took Mike, Chris, Dave and myself out to a local Pub
after the banquet. She was a classy lady and a lot of fun to hang out
with ! We thanked her for helping us out and told her she can join
our team anytime ! Thank you Gwen ! -- Tom
Friday
morning we found out that Pat wouldn't be able to make the tournament.
This had a huge impact on our moral, we lost our team captain and best
player. In the pool our tempo was off and our performance abysmal. It
was worse than losing to the Amazons in 2003. -- Dave (No longer
known as Superdave)
Man...I have never seen the moral of the team so low. It crushed us when Pat bailed. -- Jeff
This is a good
tournament to go to, Since they video tape all the
games. You just need to make sure you get your tape in the VCR. So
after analysing the weekend events, where we need improvement is
keeping
control of the puck. It is too easily lost to the opposition. Best tournament performance to
date. All losses were kept in the single
digits.and even scored against previously unscored against team. Pats "New and Improved UWH strategy
worked. Now all we need to do is learn some stick handling.
Scores below are given as first period+second period=final, if known.
Saturday
Won 4+6=11 to 0 over Quebextreme.
Lost 9 to 0 to Canada1, half their worlds team.
Won 1+2=3 to 0 over the Canadian National womens team.
lost 4+5=9 to 0 to JFK A..
These results put us in A for Sunday.
Lost 3+1=4 to 0 Vortex, best showing against this team , Played this
game almost to the level for the Montreal JFK A game.
Lost 4+4=8 to 0 against Canada2 , the other half of the worlds team. On
the first point Mike held off the whole team all by himself while the
rest of us watched from the goal. Mike,
Mike, Mike,
Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike,Mike,Mike,Mike,Mike. At the end of the first half
Pat
instructed the refees where to place a puck on a penalty shot, and then
showed the canadians how to successfully defend one. Pat,
Pat, Pat,
Pat, Pat,
Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat,Pat,Pat,Pat.
At the start second half Chris got our only penalty, because we
were
all playing with the wrong color stick.
Lost the last game to Ottawa 4+2=6 to 0+2=2 Andy wants to take
credit
for the mad swim that quickly lead to our first goal. and the
advantage puck that lead to the second, Andy,
Andy, Andy,
Andy, Andy, Andy, Andy, Andy.
So we were 6 out of 6 in A, or 6 out of 10 overall. Not a bad showing
considering if we had played the National women team in Montreal we
would have lost to them.
Final results: Division A :
1 Canada 1
2 JFK A
3 Canada 2
4 Vortex
Vortex loss 6-2 in the bronze metal
5 Ottawa
6 Connecticut
Division B
1
Girls National Canadian Girls won 11-0 against
JFK B in the B division
2
JFK B
3
Amazones
4
QuébeXtrème
At 6PM on Saturday the
Barnacles set a new standard of performance.
The match was against the JFK
team, which is the favored team of the tournament.
Rene's team the Dinosaurs had
lost to them 0-1 earlier, and the Dinosaurs had beaten us 12-0 earlier.
JFK is basically a team of
about 10 Rene's.
We held them to 2 points
defending the deep end and an additional goal in the shallow end.
We also got within a foot of
their goal once. A goal against them would have been a real upset.
We had them quite frustrated.
It was truly amazing.
Even though the score was 3-0
it was surely a victory for us.
What we did was played relaxed and agressivly shut down their passing
game by marking their passing options.
Sunday games
8:25 CT 2+0=2 Rimouski 0+2=0
10:55 Platy off for 6th place, Rimouski 2+0=2 CT 0
Final
results 1st- Dinosaurs(CAMO et amis),
-- Rene won 3 to 1 2nd- JFK
3rd- Ottawa Eager Beavers --
Lost 1-0 double overtime to the Dinosaurs 4th- Vortex
5th-Bagel Hounds(Southern
Ontario and friends)
6th- Les Raies de Rimouski
7th- Connecticut
Barnacles
-- Best game was loosing 3-0 to JFK
B Division
1st- Charlie's Devils (JFK
filles,
comprised of many members of former national teams) 2-1 last game 2nd- National Women
3rd- Ottawa B 4th- Quebextreme
5th- Amazones 6th- University of Guelph Up
in Smoke
10th out of 18 (2nd place B division).
Couldn't get past DC. Lost to them 3 times 7-2, 3-0, 5-2
I think is what it is.
A DIVISION
club puck - huey
club puck - duey
club puck - louey
IDaHo
charleston
champaign
cape cod
houston
B DIVISION
DC-a
Barnacles
I'm not sure if the rest of these in the correct order
FL
Minesota
Virgina Tech
Roger bacon -a
C DIVISION
DC-b
colorado
dallas
Roger Bacon -b
Sunflower
says: the
thing that confuses me still is WHY didn't CT have to play FL first
game
on Sunday - as we thought we would?? seeding got whacked.
CT ended
up playing DC 3 times, without ever facing FL. both FL and CT
played all the other teams in B division, but each other.
it would
have seemed that the SEMIs should have been:
DC vs. MN
- best team record vs. worst
CT vs. FL
- 2 middle records
usually
the best team (DC in this case) gets the "buy" or easier game as a
result of best ranking going into later rounds.
FL took
3rd below CT although our record against every team we BOTH played
was far better?
For
example, FL lost to DC in overtime. FL beat MN 11-1 vs CT winning
by a
few pt spread. FL beat Vtech 8-1 vs. CT winning by a point or
two, etc.
DC has
it's own agenda in this thing I am sure...ha ha.
Jamie says: I don't have the schedule it
in front of me, so I'm doing it from memory.
We ranked 2nd, DC first, both got bye's
So 3 (Minnesota) played
5, winner played 2nd ( barnacles)
4 (FL) played 6, winner
played 1st (DC-a)
Since FL got stuck in C
Division on Saturday the best it could seed for Finals was 4th. You
should have thrown a game and seeded 5th.
Pat sat out the VTech game.
That made a big difference in our showing in that game.
MN was a low scoring game because Gentle Ben and crew spent more time
fouling and trying to irritate us to the point of going in the penalty
box then play hockey.
Your favorite Chief Ref from
last years Saturday night Roger Bacon game was the third water ref in
our final DC game. Remember him? the guy that let the Dallas score
keeper take over. He was calling us on stuff that wasn't happening.
There are some on our team that thinks he has a grudge against us. Next
time, we'll let him know you now play for FL.
PS if you can write up your
airport adventure, I'll stick it on the web page.
Tom says: Mike, I have to agree with Jaime on a lot of this. I have played in a lot of tournaments during my softball and rugby days and that 's the way the format goes. The top two teams get a bye and the other four teams play against each other in a criss cross format . Why we didn't play your team, I don't know. I think it would've been a great game. I'm sorry it didn't appen. As for the other teams we both played, we beat MN 10 - 1 with all the crap from that idiot Gentle " Ben " trying to get us thrown out for retaliating against him, and I was out with a 2 minute penalty for a dangerous play. I had taken the puck from the right corner and as I let it go at the empty goal one of their female players came down head first and it hit her in the lower mid-section. We beat VT 5 - 3 with me sitting out that game. Put me in that game and you can add at least 2 more goals for us and one less for them. We beat Roger " Bend - Over " H.S. 4 - 3, Patrick sat out that game, and it was by far the worst game we played all tournament. As far as D.C. goes, we had the score tied at 2 apiece before they had two breakaways that could have been stopped. We had several advantage pucks at their end, two of which were right in front of their goal. Both times we should have scored, we did once, I know because I put it in, both referee's signaled that it was a goal, but the Dick Head referee who was at least ten feet behind the action said someone from our team pushed it with their glove. We got hosed on that one. It would have been 4 - 3 with over four minutes left. It's too bad, it could've been a much better game without his assistance. It was great to see you again and I hope your trip back to B W I Airport was easier and less time consuming than the way down was ! Right now I would have to give the edge to the Torchia brothers over the Moran's . Sorry about that !
... Until the last game where the team decided they were going to win so easily that they didn't need to do anything so the women beat us (this became clear in the circle (now known as confession))
Examples of our will to win include:
Tom bets his stars and stripes trousers to some bird they wont beat us (long story will be updated later) Patrick after scoring a goal for them in game 1 is so confident he turns up with 2 bats so he can switch sides and start playing for them when we are 10-0 up Patrick gets sent out for a head first entry during which they score (he has now given them 2 goals and 1 game as they only beat us 5-4 Mike not being worried at 2-2 near the end of the first half because we can easily recover Various backs moving up forward eager for the kill, knowing that if they slipped a goal through we could recover
Begs the question of whether there was anyone on our team who actually wanted to win other than Molly who played real well
What really distresses me is through the tournament we played a good team game, no substitution, free puck errors or other give-aways and in the last game we go to pot. We got beat by some good teams but still played well until the last game where we won 6-1 day 1 and chucked it day 2.
I am disgraced to call myself American - hang on I'm not - good job - long live the Queen.
Andy
Toms rebuttal Andy, I scored the first goal, assisted on the second, and scored the third. After every goal I switched with Rob. I barely had time to get comfortable and here comes a breakaway for them and they scored. This happened on 4 of their 5 goals. It also happens that I was out of the pool for 4 of their 5 goals and only one of ours. I played my ass off, that last game with a cold, or didn't you notice me sweating in between games and constantly going to the bathroom. I only got beat on a breakaway once in nine games, fortunately Mike was there to stop it. Every other breakaway, I stopped them and took the puck away. We lost because we played poorly as a team and didn't do the things we talked about. Like the forwards passing the puck back in front of the goal when they get stopped. I was way out of position those last 2 + minutes of the game. I was up in the corner with you,Jamie and Patrick fighting for the puck. At least 3 times I got it from one of you guys and fought through one or two of the girls looking for a forward to throw it to in front of the goal, but I never saw them. I just kept cycling it back in front of the goal, hoping one of the forwards could put it in. It just didn't happen ! I don't give a shit about my pants. I only wear them a couple a times a year and bring them to Canada to piss off the Canadians. Every year they have them on sale during Memorial Day and Fourth of July holidays. If I want another pair I will buy them. Just don't tell me I didn't play hard the last game ! Ashamed to be an American ! ! ! Tom
Games
Saturday
I thought we were gong to win the first 3 games based upon previous
years
experiences. We us this game to get subbing correct. No penatilies
called.
ct 1 elfermer 5
.This is the team we beat at montreal in the round robin 3-2 and lost
to 0-3 in the B finals. they were a much improved team
ct 0 rimouski 7
. We were still working on playing positions and getting our game
together. This is team was much better than last year.
ct 4 amazones 1
. Pat gave them this goal by swimming the puck "andy style" towards our
goal.
ct 1 ottawa 9 . Definate A team, we knew we had no chance. This game
everyone
liked to play since there was no pressure to win , just play our best.
ct 0 vortex 8 Same as previous game. Rene helped us on this game.
With out him it would have been much worse. They didn't play a clean
game.
Sunday
ct 0 jfk-a 10
We played this one as well as can be expected. They played a clean game
Finals
ct 0 jfk-b 2
Close game, we just never clicked enough. I think the
tiredness started during this game.
ct 7 QuebecExtreme 0.
Easy game. We were definitely playing sloppy during this game.
ct 4 amazones 5 The amazons play a running game and its
like a swarm
of bees they were much stronger than last year. The scores happen
fast,
first us then them, us, them, 2-2 at half time. Us, them, them 4-3. Pat
goes
in penalty box for 1 minute jumping in head first. they score again
their
up 5-3. Pat gets back in and drives it to the goal 5-4. The girls hold
the
puck in the corner by their goal in the shallow end to waste time. Mike
waits
out side the corner because he's been instructed to never go into
the corners.
Andy can't get around him and can't understand why he won't go in for
the
puck. We needed to play a fast passing game to counteract the
girls swam
of bees running game. We just couldn't do it. The team work fell apart
during
this game, individuals were running the puck for the goal, which they
could
stop. after the game Tom informs us that he had proclaimed to the
girls
that they aren't going to win and even bets his Star & Strips sweat
suit pants to prove it. The girls didn't bet anything if we were going
to
win. He forgets to mention the bet to us until after the game. During
Confession
Time, Rob and Tom said they starting playing as forwards
"cause we need
to score". We played and ugly game. The girls wear Toms pants and are
dancing
around the pool. Tom whacked the hive
.
Results:
A Division
jfk A
vortex quebec A
ottawa
elfemer
rimouski
jfk-b
--------------
dividing line for B
amazones
ct
quebec extreme
Going into we had a decent team that should play
in A. We lost people in
the weeks and days before the tournament. Some reasons were lamer than
others. Pulled muscles, no money, no job ..., you get the idea.
Got there in 4 groups this trips. So circle time wasn't happening.
There is a nice restaurant of I-87 in Elizabethtown, called "Inn at
Elizabethtown" (south side of the main road) with decent home cooked
meals.
Tom and Oliver got there first they went to dinner with Rene at a nice
cheap Thai restaurant around the corner from the Hotel that Oliver
booked for us. Andy best described it "I told myself I wouldn't stay at
places like this anymore".
Tom checked out the competition on Friday night. And came whining back
that we'll get killed in the A division they were beating everyone 20
-0. ALso Les Rais wanted to move into the A division. I let him
handle
it and move us into B since we only had 8 players.
Only the next day did I get the real scores from Friday night. B
division games 15-0, 8-0, 12-0. A division games were 4-1, 11-1, 2-0,
4-0.
Saturday morning started out early. Our first A game was at 8am. Tom
could only leave a message on Jean-Francois answering machine and he
forgot to leave a telephone number. Rob and Make left for the pool half
an our earlier than everyone else.
And, jamie and Justin got there first and walked on the e deck only to
be old we were playing in 5 minutes in the B division. The other team
offered to play less than a full team since there were only 3 of us. We
old to play their full team since we screwed up not them.
Oliver and tom got in the water just as the gam e started. Rob and mike
came on deck in the last moments of the game. I got to get Rob a better
navigator.
First 3 games were easy.
CT 7 bagel hounds 1,
CT 8
Amazones 0,
CT 7
Grenouilles 5
Then came Elfemer. We beat them but they put up a fight. ct 3 Elfemer 2
We then had a large break until the last game, which we easily won.
CT 4 Ottawa-B 2
Dinner was at an all you can eat buffet. That was extremely
inexpensive.
I'd say half the the teams were not there so it didn't have the
same
atmosphere as the Quebec tournament.
Last game of the round robin on Sunday morning was very easy CT 6 or 7
Quebec Extereme 1
There was a bit of confusion of who ranked where cause they used the
same lettering conventions for the round robin as in the finals. Anyway
we knew that Elfermer is who we would play in the finals. First game
was
easy CT 7 Q-E 0.
The final. The game beforehand went in to overtime. This happens a lot
to us. Luckily Andy wasn't flying this time. We defended the deep end
first. They scored 3. No goals in the second half even though Justin
and
Jaime took a penalty against them. A very disappointing performance.
They managed to shut down Justin, our world class player. He didn't
even try to pass the puck, to open players, in all the previous games
he didn't need to he could swim through them. We should have
taped this game. CT 0 Elfermer 3
Oh well at least the pool was warm. never got chilled at all.
Analysis 2 weeks after
Jamie:
4 hour break between games wasn't good.
No passing. We didn't play like the we
practiced in the 2nd to last game.
Justin was trying to do too much on his
own.
Forwards tied to run the puck into the goal
instead of flick it in.
Took to long to get shots off, got to be
quicker.
The puck was in their 1/2 of the pool 75%
of the time and with in 10 feet of the goal 30% of the time.
We had one time out, we should have used
it.
We should have change the line up since
Justin was playing both forward and back We should have planned to
changed something.
We may have been the only team that changed
rankings from the round robin outcome , we were also the only team with
less than 9 players. There might be a correlation there.
Some of you need to learn the rules: We got
called for encroaching on an advantage puck. You guys need to watch the
referee when the play stops, know the hand signals and know where to
position yourselves.
Rob:
1)We were weak on the charge - After deep
meditation on the meaning of
charges I have concluded ;
Need a fresh guy on each charge. We
need a scheme to quickly designate
who is fresh and should strike - even if its a back. Same guy can't do repeated strikes effectivly. I like the idea of having
the striker go nuts
until exhaustion and then subbing out. We gave up a lot on the
charges just out of exhaustion though
maybe that was simply because we only had one
sub.
Uphill striking
Stike in flying wedge formation
If we get it , striker and strong
side wing push it to wall
Center and strong side wing start
pushing it up the wall. This is
where we screw up. Once play breaks right or left, weak side
wing needs to immediately surface - go to wall and hang on surface
forward of puck and go down when a
forward pass opportunity arises. We err in
keeping weak side wing down to fight the puck. Then center and 2 wings
all come up at once, leaving a hole.
B.4) Backs and forwards establish a
conveyor to push puck up hill. Forwards
either help push puck or postion to recieve a pass if pushing is under control by backs.
2) We were too lopsided to the back.
One of Andy, Jamine or Justin should
have played front line. There has to be someone in the front line
strong
enough to run with a pass.
3) Lack of passing is a result of lack of
down time. Faster game tempo
depletes down time ( At least it does mine ) We did lots of passing
against
the weak teams. Passing against good
teams requires cycling and cycling
requires downtime.
4) We would definiteyl benefit if everyone
instantly knew where to go and what to do during advantage/disadvantage
puck.
Final results:
A division
jfk
dinausaurs
igniters
vortex
ottawa A
bagel hounds A
B division
Elfermer
CT
bagel hounds B
Grenouilles
Amazones
Quevec Extereme
ottawa B
Well we did it again. Back to our old ways of
losing tournaments.
We went there with 8 from CT and were going to
pick up Dulani an ex-CT'er and his wife and his friend Ricky an ex-Ohio
State player. All the teams were going to
have
11 players so it would have been a disadvantage to play with less.
After
Saturday morning team rearranging we were
left
us with just ourselves, which some of us thought made for the better.
5 games were played on Saturday. 9 minute
halves
with 2 minutes in-between. Unfortunately we lucked out of playing the
stronger teams, (Charleston and DC), which
would
have been more challenging.
The first game against Roger Bacon High School
B team was easy, something like 8-0. We started this game with only a
few
players wearing their mouth guards.
Luckily the
refs didn't enforce the rule until half-time.
Next up was a hodge-podge of players. Dulani
and
friends ended up on this team called Orphan Annie's. We won something
big (like 6) to 1. I think Dulani scored
the
one goal.
Then came the Hokies from Virginia Tech. I
thought
they would put up a harder fight, but they didn't. We won something big
(like 5) to 0.
Bart's Family a combination of Dallas Forth
Worth
and Champaign put up a good fight. The game could have gone
either
way, But they succumbed 3-0.
Champaign
placed 2nd at National the month before. Obviously these were not the
same
players. Were were playing this game very
sloppily
and there was noticeable "lack of presence" on the bottom as noted at
circle time.
The most interesting game came next, Roger
Bacon
A. By midday we knew that this would be the toughest game of the day.
Both us and were undefeated up until this
game
and almost all of our games were blowouts and Ii think all of theirs
were
also. The high school kids had really
improved
since we saw them 3 years ago at Nationals in Houston. The first half
ended
0-0. Shortly into the 2nd half the bell
boy (not
the chief ref) ejected Pat and a player from RB-A, while the game
continued
on. We didn't know what had happen
until
much later. A few minutes later an advantage puck was called against us
because
Matt did an illegal substitution, 1 minute
in
the penality box for him.
We had Mike, Ryan, Jamie, Andy and Rob in the
water, Tom as sub and Matt in the penalty box.
The puck was placed about 12 feet from the
our
goal off to the right side. The gong sounded to start play. The gong
sounded
immediately to stop play. The Refs were
indicating:
advantage puck for RB-A, send another player to the penalty box. Ryan
says he got the call for encroachment. He
didn't
get out but Pat sent, Rob went over.
We had Mike, Ryan, Jamie and Andy in the
water,
Tom as sub and Matt and Rob in the penalty box.
The Gong sounded again to start play and
again
immediately to stop play. Advantage puck RB-A. Don't know what happen
again. but this time Mike went to the
penalty
box .
Now were down to Jamie and Andy in the water,
Tom and Ryan as subs and Matt, Rob and Mike in the penalty box.
The
Gong starts play again. Jamie charges the
puck
and gets hit right on the mouth guard. Good Refs, they actually stopped
play,
advantage puck Barnacles. Andy and Jamie
plan
who's to take the puck. Not that it really mattered its still 5 against
2, 12
feet in front of our goal. Mean while Andy
is
thinking "Jamie will take it over to the wall, curl around pass to me
and
i'll
swim it towards their goal and score...".
Which
is what we did except for the scoring part. Eventually the guys in the
penalty
box came back in and it was back to 5 on 5.
RB-A did one last ditch effort to score. with
a break away. The shot to the goal landed an inch from the trough and
Jamie
scooped it off and pushed it a few feet to
the
side. A RB player got to it and put it in. 5 seconds later the final
gong
sounded.
Immediately after the game Mike was loudly
arguing
with the gong boy (argumentative clown from Barts Family)
and
Tom
the Chief Ref . Memorable phrases from
Mike were
"Go away for half and hour ..." , "I like fighting better than I like
hockey" Tom has some good ones such
as
"I'm just talking", "This is the worst refereeing I have ever seen".
No time to figure out what happen now. Got to
get to the party. Great food. Competitive high lights for the night
were
Mike,
Ryan, Matt, Lisa (Andy's wife) and CT
stand in
David Sun, losing to VT in the drink beer/flip a cup contest. CT lost
badly.
When leaving we 3 searched through the
house
3 seperate times. Luckly he appeared just as we were leaving.
Sunday morning breakfast investigation:
Jamie interrogated each player to get
their unbiased
opinion of what happen during the Roger Bacon melt down. Here's what
we came up with:
1. Matt's does an improper substitution.
proper
call by the refs. advantage puck and penalty box was proper. placement
of
puck should have been 5 meters from pool
end.
It most likely was too far in. Refs should have been 3 meters from
puck.
They may have been.
2. 2nd advantage puck was proper
call.
We didn't have 2 subs on deck . Someone should have gotten out. Again
proper
call
by the refs. Puck should have moved along
5 meter
line to center of goal. It wasn't moved to the center and may or may
not
have moved inside of 5 meter mark.
3. 3rd advantage puck, Pat says refs were
too
close to back wall. At most they should have been 2 meters (5-3) off
back
wall, they were less than that. So when we
went
down someone obviously crossed the refs line. Bad call by the refs. Not
totally their fault there was no
noticeable markings
on the pool bottom they just couldn't judge distances.
First game on Sunday was Bart's Family, easily
beat them 6-0.
Next game was Roger Bacon A. We were
running
out of steam and lost 2-0. No melt down this time.
It was double elimination so we had a 2nd
chance
for 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Just couldn't loose again.
In the 3rd game we played the Hokies
again. We
thought would win since they won the party Saturday night and we
easily
beat them on Saturday. Well we ran out of
steam.
If we paid attention during circle time we could have picked up that
some
of our back line was loosing energy fast,
very
fast. We lost 3-1....they were up 3-0, and Mike, Matt Pat made
blistering
run
to score goal towards end...making it 3-1.
Had to be there memorable event: On the ride
home,
Matt, Ryan, Pat, Mike and Tom playing "I am going on a camping
trip..." a car game where you have to
guess pattern
of what you can bring to join trip...round 1 pattern was "any word with
FIVE (5) letters" i.e. truck, money,
watch, etc,
etc...after 2 hours of Matt saying...you can bring FIVES with you, but
you can
not bring FIVE, and finally everyone got
it.
Final results:
1. Charleston
2. Roger Bacon A ---- A lost 5-0 in
finals
3. DC --- beat VT in overtime on a
sudden
death point to get 3rd place.
4. Virginia Tech Hokies
5. CT Barnacles
? Bart's Family
? Orphan Annie's
8. Roger Bacon b
Got to bring 10 fit players next time. Every
other
team had 10 or 11 players.
We had truly amazing time this year and set many firsts for a
Connecticut
team. The first of which
was actually rounding up a full teams worth of players. We had an easy
drive up this year no snow
storm. The weather was sunny, but very cold.
When we got to the hotel we hung around waiting for Andy's flight to
arrive. Coach Pat used that
time to do some "position/rotation walk throughs" outside of the bar.
I think this surpassed the
amount of formal instruction that the team had accumulated over last
20 years. We had a great
carbohydrate rich dinner at Le Ville du Spagitti a short cold walk
away.
Going into the tournament they didn't get enough teams that wanted
to
play A division so they
evenly divided the 10 teams into 2 groups of 5. We started off Saturday
tying 3-3 against JFK B a
team from Montreal. We didn't have our act together for this game.
We made a few positional changes
thanks to Mikes keen observations and easily won 3-0 against Rimouski
in the second game. The
third game, we knew would be our toughest of the day. Andy was
determined
to score a goal, but we had to
settle for lost 9-0 against Vortex, we put up a good fight and kept
them to single digits.
Typically they were winning 13 (or higher) -0. They we all A grade
players. It was good experience to see how
they play.
From the 2 groups they took the top 2 teams and moved them into the
A division The other 6 would
fight it out for the B division. If we lost our fourth game we could
stay in B and bring home a
trophy, or win the game and move into A. Ottawa was the 2nd place team
in the other group and only had 5
players. They were younger, but we were on a roll and thought we could
take them on and place
third in the A division if we kept playing our game.
We were definitely getting better and finished off on a winning note
4-1 against Quebec Women B,
despite Andy's assists. The "Quality Circle" we had after each game
was paying off.
The Banquet was at the 18th century Citadel du Quebec again. Half of
us got lost in the maze of
walls, but this time at least we were driving instead of walking in
the cold. Maybe we'll get it
right next time. Tom won a raffle prize and almost had a change to
replace George's infamous missing
purple towel.
Sunday started with loosing to Montriels JFK A 16-0. They played
like
Vortex except they
intentionally fouled. I guess they were practicing for Worlds. We
didn't
do as well in our second
match against Vortex and lost 14-0. Our third game is the one we wanted
to win anyway. We were tied 2-2 at half
time, but fell apart in the second half and lost 7-3 to Ottawa.
So in summary, we played A grade teams for the first time, placed
4th
out of 10 and were the only
team not to get a medal out of the top 7. Oh well, there's always next
year.
Here are the results:
A division
JFK A
Quebec A men (Vortex)
Ottawa
Connecticut
B division
Rimouski (Raies)
JFK B
Quebec A women (Amazones)
Quebec B men
Grenouilles
Quebec B women (Poules)
In typical CT fashion we gave it our best
fielding
the smallest team out of all the teams in the A and B divisions.
It took a while to get there since it snowed
from
the Mass Pike north till an hour south of Quebec. We counted about a
dozen
cars that lost control and were buried in the snow.
We were in the B division and an hour away
from
Quebec we found out that Rene's friend Oliver from Montreal wasn't
going
to show up. This reduced the team down to 7 players.
We had 5 round robin games the first day:
First game against the Quebec women's team we
won something like 6 to 0.
2nd game against the Rimouski we lost 3
to 0.
3rd game against Grenouilles
(frogs)
we won something like 7 to 0
4th game against Quebec B we knew we had
to win to avoid playing a 8 am Sunday morning. So we won something like
6 to 1.
5th game against the Univ. of Montreal/Ottawa
team we won something like 6 to 0. This was a fun game. Rene slept
trough
it and for most of the 2nd half we just kept feeding the puck to
Mike and Ryan in the 6m zone.
After a night on the town we barely managed to
get to the pool on time for our 12:20 quarter final game against Quebec
B. We won pretty easily.
So we made it to the finals, which was
scheduled
for 4 PM against Rimouski. Unfortunately for us the battle for 3rd
place
ran into overtime and delayed the start of our game by 15 minutes. Andy
had to leave at 4:30 to catch a flight and only played the 1st half. We
we down to no subs. the other team had 3.
At half time we were up 3 to 1.
At 8 minutes to go we were up 4 to 3.
At 4 minutes to go it was tied up.
We kept the tie through the 1st overtime period.
We ran out of steam the 2nd overtime period and
lost 6 to 4.
Oh well, at least Scott, Mike and Ryan got
some
good tournament level experience and we all can be proud of our shiny
trophy.
Annually since 1980 Connecticut UWHockey teams have competed for the
coveted Norm Tetrault Memorial Trophy at the state championships. The
trophy
is in memory of Norm Tetrault who was any early leader of the Navy
Underwater
Hockey team.
The
2007 state championships will be held in the spring of 2007 at the
Groton pool (MAYBE)
What we did in the tourney
