An Interesting Weekend

I was totally premature with my picks from last Friday’s games. First of all, Canada surprised everyone and beat Germany 5 – 4 to finish second in their bracket. This pushed Germany into third place in that bracket and set up an elimination game between Germany and Montenegro. Montenegro was the heavy favorite – especially after seeing Germany lose to Canada. Well – anyone can beat anyone and Germany played a great game and beat Montenegro 9 – 8 in overtime. Both teams had to lay it out on the line and both were physically spent after the game. That was good to see as we were resting up and preparing for our next game.

As it was last year in Beijing, I believe this extra day off in this type of tournament is huge. We resting physically and mentally and at this point everyone is healthy. Although, Ryan Bailey is still recovering from the virus that knocked him down last week. We should be at full power for our game tomorrow night against Germany.

The game is scheduled for 9 pm here in Rome so it should be on back home at 12 noon. Many have emailed and asked if I like the match up with Germany better than Montenegro. I think that we are going to be ready no matter whom we played next. We have had trouble with Montenegro lately. They have beaten us 2 times in the last month and seemed to have been really playing well during the World League finals earlier this month. Germany would appear to be a better match up for us but they present some problems too. The biggest potential problem is they have one of the best and most experienced goalies in the world. Their goalie is 42 years old. He retired after the Olympics last year and is making a comeback here at this tournament. He has been around a long time. In fact, I played against him in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. He was playing for Russia at the time. He is good but in my opinion, Merrill is even better. Either way a great performance by a goalie can make the difference in this type of game.

The Germans are big and physical and they do a lot of grabbing and holding which will slow us down if we play into that style. We need to be mobile, swim and keep them off balance. They don’t have a real strong center game so we should be able to press them out. They do have some of the best outside shooters in the world so we will need to be on top of our game on defense. It should be a very good game and I know that we are all very excited about playing again. I do believe that we are the better team. We need to bring our best game and continue to play with good fundamentals. 6 on 5 and 5 on 6 will be a big key. We need to be aggressive and confident against this goalie.

We had a very good meeting with Peter Haberl our sports psychologist. We talked about Germany and the potential danger of taking them lightly or getting intimidated by the German goalie. It is rewarding to see these guys share their thoughts and concerns with each other. That is the beauty of team. Everyone is there for each other and as we go through these tournaments we lean on each other more and more. It is coming together and we are ready for the next challenge.

Training has been going well. We have a video meeting tonight to go over game film and then one easy pre game loosen out in the middle of the day before we battle. I hope you all can watch the game and cheer loud as we attempt to get back to the final four with a win tomorrow. I am excited and I know the guys are too. Our dream is to become World Champions. William Shakespeare once said “Dreams are but thoughts until their effects be tried.” We will be tested and tried and we will find out this week if we have what it takes to make that dream come true.

See you at the pool.

Coach