Lost 2-3 in overtime. Went into third 1-0 but took 3 penalties in a row and they got 2 goals. We evened it up but couldn't score on our chance. They scored on a 5-5 goal where they won a 1-1 battle in front and got the rebound to score.
Lots of great effort. It was a hard fought series. They made a good adjustment with the pplay. and didn't take stupid penalties like they did all season. We only got 2 power plays to their 5. It was a evenly played game. The best one they played in the series.
I think the key was game one where we dominated and outshot them 41-13 but got shut out. Our confidence went down and theirs up. We only scored 3 goals in three games. Not many for 109 shots on goal after scoring 96 goals in 32 games which is a 3 goal a game average. Defensively we allowed them less than 2 GA (5 GA in 9 periods then a OT GA) a game which is our goal but we fell far short of the 3 GF per game that you need to win.
The team worked really hard and that is all a coach can ask for. You don't always win the games you should and you don't always lose the games you should.
Shot and plus/minus sheet is attached. They outshot us 4-2 in OT.
Video of Game One: http://www.hockeycoachingabcs.com/mediagallery/media.php?f=0&sort=0&s=20130302111133565
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So that is it for the diary of the 2012-13 season.
I just read an article about this weekends CIS National Championship at the University of Toronto.
The U of Calgary is going as the second place team from Canada West. They have an older team with Team Canada captain Hayley Wichenheiser. They also have some former WWHL players who were named to the all star team. Amanda Tapp is a goalie who played for the Oval Extreme and when it folded played for me with the Rockies. Stephanie Ramsay made the first all star team D. She played for the Rockies as well. They recruited one of my forwards last season but she isn't eligible yet as she is still in high school because her parents started her a year later in school due to her late November birthday.
The good news for the Flyers is that two our our defense from last season are playing in the Nationals, one for Queen's and one for St. Francis Xavier. I think that is great.
We were very young this season with 6 skaters and one goalie who were first year, six skaters second year and only 4 skaters and one goalie third year. One already is in university, one F has committed to PEI, another forward has been in discussion with an NCAA school and a really good defenseman is deciding on a university in Halifax. It looks like the goalie is going to do a graduate year in a eastern prep school in the USA.
The sport school here go after our players and 19 or the top 30 are attending these really expensive places. $30-35 000 per year. I don't understand why they want to go to these places. The public system pays the teachers really well here and the standard of education is very high; so it is hard for private schools to match their pay and security . The advantage is extra ice time and going to high profile tournaments.
I am meeting tonight with the executive of our organization to dicscuss how we can increase the ice time for practice and chose our teams earlier so we can go to fall tournaments where the players can be seen by more recuiters.
We played two sports schools at the Notre Dame tournament this year. Lost 0-4 to one (two goals in the last 5 min.) and won 3-2 against the other. Give us 5 of those players who left us to play at these places and we would be as good as anyone. (We lacked natural goal scorers. We usually outplay and outshoot teams but we need a little less Swedish and a little more Finish)
There seems to be status in going to these sports schools but they put a big financial burden on the families. We want to give a comparable program for 1/4 of the cost.
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We finished the season with two exhibition games vs. the Banff Academy which is a sports school The first game was tough. We had not been on the ice for two weeks. I let them just go out and play without structure and we struggle the first two periods. We reviewed the 1-3-1 Pounce Forecheck before the third and played even with them. The second game we only had eleven skaters but they were eleven of our best players. We played well and won 4-3 in a shoot-out.
One player is now committed to play at UPEI and another is going to Dalhousie. A graduating goalie is going to play her graduate year at a prep school in Pennsylvania and I don't know if our top scorer wants to play at university. She has been talked to by Union College but she wasn't at the Banff games so I don't know what happened with that. She is a really solid small player with great skills and a scoring touch. She led the entire league in playoff scoring 2011-12.
It will be a tough sell for us because people in this city have lots of money and they believe they can purchase excellence and the more money the spend the greater the result. They should really be focused on how dedicated their chlld is and how good is the coaching they will get.
Our job as an organization is to stop lamenting about losing players and to offer equal development opportunity at a fraction of the cost and four of the five schools they go to the high school gril's have to move away from home. So they can stay home as well.
'Enjoy the Game'