The U15 team is very young (3 out of 8 are U13), inexperienced (2 have only just started playing hockey for the first time ever) and they have had very few practices together since the season started so we needed to be a bit realistic in our first game against a very strong CPAC team (the reining National and Regional champions!).
The coach made three main pre-game requests of all the players – to have fun; to give 100% effort and to ignore the score result.
All in all it was a superb performance, both individually and collectively, and way exceeded expectations. After 10 minutes (out of 40) the score was justifiably still 0-0 and CPAC looked rather surprised! The best goal came in the second half with a brilliant finish into the top of the net by Rodolphe (wow, if he can just find the right net next time then we will crush our opponents 
!). I can rarely recall a game where every player gave +100% effort (I can prove this from the shirts which were all completely drenched and “smelly” – don’t worry, already washed and perfumed!), and fought like lions right to the very end.
So we have lots of potential and lots to work on but if we can maintain this trajectory and dedication then we will make great progress by the end of this season!
I would like to especially thank Francisco for offering to do GK duties without any prior practice – it is a very difficult task and he is a talented outfielder who we really need to play out of goal. I would like to ask everyone to think long and hard if they can help us find someone (11-14 yrs old) who might be interested in trying out being a GK, perhaps a footballer who would like to be in goal but doesn’t have an opportunity?
Lastly, a special thank you to all our supporters and wonderful parents whose off field support is so essential – we really appreciate you (don’t we kids!!!!!!).
Andrew Baird
