A player who lives about 3 hrs away asked to practice with us on Wed. She wants to get on the ice before she goes back to play in Russia. The Swedish Olympic women's team coaches told me that they have two professional women's teams in Russia. They each have a budget of about 3 million dollars and are owned by 2 multi millionaires who bring in girl's from all over the world for their teams. They pay them pretty well and the 2 rich guys bet with each other on who will win. So if the imports don't produce they are gone. This girl is very good and she played there last year.
The teams play tournaments and ex games vs other Euoupen teams.
Link to the team i am coaching is http://www.strathmorerockies.com/
TomM
Well we finally played a game. It was an exhibition game against the U18 boy's midget team in the city we play in. I guess they had a combination of the A and B team players. Anyway we won 9-2 and played very well. I think we should play teams about the midget AA level. The Olympic women's team is playing in the Provincial midget AAA league and I think they are 8-2 now and won the pre season tournament.
Our league starts next Sunday with a home game vs the Edmonton Chimos.
So we are now up to 10 forwards, 2 who can also play D and 2 D. We had 2 affiliate D in the game yesterday but they can only play for us on days their team isn't playing. We also have 3 good goalies. They all played one period yesterday.
I was going to use the 2-2-1 but the players read the game so well that I decided to go with the 2-1-2 with a pinch on a wide rim when the first checker can make contact and a 1-2-2 with a swing when they have complete control and toe caps up ice. We simply play 1-2-3-4-5.
On defense it is one on and a box behind with a low box in the slot. We use the diamond 1-3-1 on both the 5-3 and 5-4 power play and on the pk I want them to press down to start and be aggressive. The pk forecheck is a tandem I which defends from inside to outside.
We need to work on our controlled breakout the pk forecheck doing things more quickly on the pp.
Our puck support creating 2-1's was terrific and the midget boy's were confused in their coverage. They attacked us one at a time trying to go end to end and probably had only 6 scoring chances the whole game.
So if we can come up with 2 or 3 more D who are done their college careers we will be very strong.
TomM
We played our first game vs Edmonton.
Period 1; shots 11-11 score 0-0
Period 2: shots us 16 them 6 score 1-2 for Edmonton.
Period 3 shots: us 17 them 3 score 0-0.
The team played well but their goalie stoned us with some terrific saves.
We need to work on our PP and Pk and go to the net more without the puck. Aso our D must get the puck between the dots on the breakout and not be pushed to the outside.
Good all around first game. Wrong score but almost everything else was raally positive.
We play them 12 times and I am sure if we outshoot them 44-20 we will win more than we lose.
TomM
5 posts :: Page 1 of 1
I haven't done any entries for awhile. We started with about 8 players and things were looking pretty grim. The team hasn't done that well the first 3 seasons and some players thought the league had folded and signed with recreational league teams.
We have had 2 practices a week and no games yet but things are REALLY looking up on the players side. Originally we had two players who have graduated from Dartmouth College in the NCAA; a goalie and a defenseman. Another who is ineligilbe and had a tryout with the Canada U22 team joined us and now 2 more are moving here from the eastern USA to join the team.
The Oval Extreme, who always win the league lost their sponsorship and have suspended operations for this season. About 8 of their players are with the Olympic team but one goalie and 3 forwards have joined our team and they are all very good.
Four players from last years team have returned and some more players from Canadian universities and colleges have joined us. So we now have 3 goalies and about 16 skaters and are pretty good.
Next week we will practice and have a specialty team scrimmage with a sports school and then a college team.
So we have gone from worrying whether we would be able to field a competitive team to thinking we have a chance to win the league and play for the Canadian Championship the Clarkson Cup. Our regular season starts Nov. 1
We need to play some boy's teams. The Canadian Olympic Women's team just went undefeated in a midget AAA tournament vs the best male teams in the Province. I think we will try to play bantam AAA to start and see where we are.