Friday our first preseason competition will start. We are playing in the Cougar Invitational Tournament in Regina. This will be the first opportunity that our team has to compete. It will give the coaching staff a chance to evaluate the players in game situations.
We have decided to not dress one of our fifth year players this weekend. Claire is coming off a shoulder surgery this summer, and has just started to go full out this past week. We feel the volume that players will get this weekend will only lengthen her recovery time.
Also truth be known I am so competitive, our goal this weekend is to play the younger athletes and let them get some experience at the CIS level. WE will need everyone to play at some point in the season and there are only so many opportunities to get the younger players some minutes. So back to me being competitive, as we get into the tournament sometimes I find myself coaching for the win and play our vet’s way more than I originally planned. So not dressing them eliminates that opportunity for me. Our young players are extremely athletic, but as a coach I understand the older players and know what they bring to the table. So a bit of a comfortable feel to play them.
WE have spent the last two weeks working on systems and basic skills within the systems in order to have some sort of team feel to this tournament. I am a firm believer that if the skill is completed relevant to how it will be used in the match, the better it will transfer to the game. So for example blocking movement is more relevant when they know that they are expected to help on the middle and then get to the outside. Also they will find the most efficient movement for them if the game plan changes and we spread our blockers a bit more and need to move back in to help on the middle.
This tournament features 8 Canada West teams. In our pool is Manitoba Bisons, Thomson River wolf Pack and the host Regina Cougars. Regina is a perennial top ten team and is one of the oldest teams in the league this season, they will have big expectations for the year. Manitoba are always ranked in the top ten in the Nation as well, but they have had a large turn over this year. They will have the same feel to their team as we do with two fifth year players and a couple of 2nd and third plus 6 freshman. Both Kristi Hunter and Tricia Mayba the Bison's fifth years played on the FISU team this summer. with all the trash talking I did in jest this summer about them being Bison's I am sure they will bring their A game.
The other pool consists of University of Alberta Panda’s, Calgary Dino’s, Winnipeg Wesmen and Saskatoon Huskies. Alberta has been at nationals the last two years and return everyone from those teams, except for one player. Calgary also returns a veteran filled team. The quality of the competition is why we want to play our younger players. So they get a true feel of what the league is about and understand the level we need to train at.
Of course every team goes in with the hope of winning the tournament, and the tourney is used to help with national rankings for the start of the year. Instead of setting result goals( medal) our goals is that we want to finish on the positive side of the plus minus. Potential plus points are kills, blocks, aces. Potential minus points are errors (Hit out or into net, being blocked), missed serves, being aced and ball handling errors. For us our goal is more team plus points than team minus points. This will be the first explanation of managing the ball. It will be fun!
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