Combine this with the grind of January and trying to make playoffs. This tends to create to a lot of grumpy coaches and athletes. This time the trip coincided with mid term exams. There was lots of pressure from all directions. It is so easy to get lost in the day to day grind that we forget what is going on. I personally was jolted out of my mood when an old teammate from hockey brought his son and daughter to our practice.
Kevin Shoults and I have played hockey together or against each other since we were 8 or 9 years old. When ever we run into each it is great to see him. We have a lot of past and share a lot of fun times. His daughter who is 13 is really hooked on volleyball. She spent the Friday practice shagging and watching the girls go through the paces. I invited them to come to our pre game meal. It was neat to see how she looked at the team. You could tell she wanted to be where they are one day.
We also ran into one of our alumni Erin Henning was in Saskatoon on a buyers trip for her work. Thanks to Facebook we noticed that she was there. When she cam to the hotel and Erin Visch-Krahn saw her it was amassing. They played together for 3 years the connection they have will always be there. The two of them spent the next two hours catching up on life and reminiscing about fun thing that happened at University. Very few of the stories were about volleyball.
During our pre game meeting we talked about enjoying this time. They are playing volleyball in the best league in Canada, with some great people. At that moment e wry thing seemed so tense but 5 years from now in hindsight it was such a great time. We always talk about good things that happen in our matches, but their are so much more positive things are teammates do for us. A couple of the firs ran out of gas on a trip they called Meaghan she drove out with a can of gas and everything was fixed. Meaghan never thought twice that is just what teammates do. A few years back one of the athlete had strep throat go bionic and ended up in the hospital for two weeks. The team created a list and everyone signed up so she was never alone. We need to take time and appreciate our teammates and have fun playing together. Teammates can really help control the mood on the team. We refer to this as our team self talk. What we say as a team to each other becomes our reality. Sometimes during the grind we forget about how cool this is.
We won both games in Sask. That was our first road sweep in 2 years. We had a lot of fun doing it together.
The second part of that story is we arrived back at 5 am. At 8:30 am we had U-14 try outs, the 6 athletes slept 2.5 hr then came to run the try outs. They were impressive still full of energy and wiser great role models for these athletes. I took them out for lunch to thank them for their commitment and had a blast. I started sharing stories of tHings teammates did to each other. Funny things that happened with them.
I want to say thanks to all my past teammates. You really help define who I am. Yes even you Dan Stankey.
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