I would have written a few days ago but it our team had some time off for a few days so it was nice to get a mental break from everything. But before the break, we had a game in Dijon. Usually we leave the night before the game, sleep in the bus, have a practice in the morning and get hotel rooms for a pre game nap before our match. This time we left in the morning at 9:30am, stopped on the highway to eat, then continued on to Dijon where we arrived with enough time to go for a walk into the city to wake up the legs.
The game started off very well for us, as we got a goal in the first few minutes of the game. I dumped the puck cross corner so Damien Raux could pick it up with some speed, he made a quick pass to Joni Lindlof in the slot and his shot bounced off of Edo Terglav and through the goalie's legs. Joni said he was going stick side and was pretty sure it was going in, then it his Edo's leg and went 5-hole. Either way, it was a big goal to get us on the board.
The next shift out, our North American style of chipping pucks out supporting the puck worked to our advantage as Terglav chipped the puck past the pinching Dijon defender to a streaking Lindlof. Seeing this I jumped up into the play to make it a 3 on 2 with Raux. Lindlof hit me with a pass in the slot and I one timed it 5-hole to put us up 2-0.
I believe what sealed the game for us was when Marc-Andre Bernier scored our 3rd goal shorthanded on a 2 on 1. He came down the right side and with his lethal shot, ripped it blocker side (Jarome Iginla style). We eventually went up 5-0 before winning 7-3 in a game that was sealed in the first period.
The Dijon game is an example of what we have to do against the weaker teams in our league. We know Dijon can be a dangerous team and if we have a slow start and give up a few goals early, that will give them lots of confidence and a belief they can win. But if we can get a few goals early, we should be able to break their spirits and be in command the rest of the way through. Our team has gotten into trouble this year by allowing weaker teams to stay in the game longer and keep us from scoring goals.
We have been working on it in practice and hopefully it was start paying off and the goals will be coming in bunches. It can only start happening at the right time, with La Coupe de France in our sights.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
I can stomach it!
Well, after two days of practice, I am feeling pretty good. I was told by the doctor not to be back on the ice for 8 days but yesterday I just wanted to see how things felt on the ice so I laced up the skates and had the intention of only doing a few drills. As the practice went on, I felt decent and continued for the rest of the practice. Today was even better, less pain in my stomach and I pushed it a bit more in the drills. At times I forgot I was even coming off such a rough hit from Tuesday night.
So with Dijon in our sights tomorrow night, I will be on the bus in the morning as we will play our last game, before the league breaks for the National teams to get together. As soon as I found out that there was no serious damage to my insides, I was pretty determined to be in the lineup for the game on Saturday. Especially important will be some of my friends from Epinal making the 2 hour road trip to watch the game. Hopefully I will be in better form than I was in early October when I returned to "Les Vosges" after suffering a severe gastro! Just to note, I still have not gained back all of the 7kg I lost from that illness. I usually play at 90kg or 200lbs, but I am still hovering around 86kg since then.
On another note, who saw the Habs/Pens game last night? Man, did Montreal ever get robbed. The ref blew the whistle while the puck was in the crease and just as Scott Gomez scored, claiming that Fleury had it covered. I thought French refs were bad.....kidding (just in case you guys are reading).
I used to just watch all of the highlights on TSN every morning to get the scoop on the NHL, but last week I decided to subscribe to ESPN360 online. This gives me every single NHL game, live and on demand, so I can watch it anytime I want. The best part about it though, it is in HIGH DEFINITION. After our home games, I usually can't get to sleep right away, so I take advantage of watching Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry. It makes me feel closer to home. But ya this is great, in the last week I think I have watched about 25 games.
Little off track there, woops. So to sum things up...... I am feeling good, I have been practicing, I will play tomorrow, then watch NHL games all week!!!
So with Dijon in our sights tomorrow night, I will be on the bus in the morning as we will play our last game, before the league breaks for the National teams to get together. As soon as I found out that there was no serious damage to my insides, I was pretty determined to be in the lineup for the game on Saturday. Especially important will be some of my friends from Epinal making the 2 hour road trip to watch the game. Hopefully I will be in better form than I was in early October when I returned to "Les Vosges" after suffering a severe gastro! Just to note, I still have not gained back all of the 7kg I lost from that illness. I usually play at 90kg or 200lbs, but I am still hovering around 86kg since then.
On another note, who saw the Habs/Pens game last night? Man, did Montreal ever get robbed. The ref blew the whistle while the puck was in the crease and just as Scott Gomez scored, claiming that Fleury had it covered. I thought French refs were bad.....kidding (just in case you guys are reading).
I used to just watch all of the highlights on TSN every morning to get the scoop on the NHL, but last week I decided to subscribe to ESPN360 online. This gives me every single NHL game, live and on demand, so I can watch it anytime I want. The best part about it though, it is in HIGH DEFINITION. After our home games, I usually can't get to sleep right away, so I take advantage of watching Hockey Night in Canada with Don Cherry. It makes me feel closer to home. But ya this is great, in the last week I think I have watched about 25 games.
Little off track there, woops. So to sum things up...... I am feeling good, I have been practicing, I will play tomorrow, then watch NHL games all week!!!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Ca va aller!
It has been a while since I have posted anything and even when I do it seems to be maybe twice a month so I am going to make a big effort to blog more regularly. I will try to write a resume from our games and maybe add another blog during the week at some point as well.
I know many of you are concerned with what happened in the game last night against Rouen. We lost.
Oh ya, and I was taken off the ice on a stretcher.
Yes it is true and at the time it seemed very bad but I can assure everyone that I will be fine and that is was a big scare but it is a good thing that I have abs of steel.
To explain a bit in detail, last night we were playing in the semi-finals of Coupe de la Ligue against Rouen. In the third period down a few goals, we decided to pull our goalie with about 7 minutes to play. We had a faceoff in the offensive zone, but quickly lost possession and the puck was flipped high in the air and began heading for our empty net. Noticing that I was the last guy back, I turned and started skating back to get the puck before it crossed the goal line. I arrived just in time to pull the puck away and I turned into the corner but as I was turning, the puck traveled through the goal crease and the mount of snow next to the post. I lost control of the puck and had to reach back behind the net to get it. As I was changing direction, I lost my balance (so they tell me) and was hit from behind.
My head hit the glass very hard, but the worst part was the immediate pain in my stomach and the fact that I could not breathe whatsoever. For a second I think I lost consciousness after hitting my head but I quickly realized the pain and tore my helmet off as I was gasping for air. I believe it was the top hand on my stick that was driven into my stomach as I was crunched on the boards and I am not sure how much time passed before the medical staff got to the ice but it was probably long enough for a television timeout (if the game were televised). By the time the doctor arrived I had started to find my breath but could not speak to explain the pain I felt, I just held my stomach with my hands. I remember very vividly the doctor's face being within 1 cm of mine, as he told me to breathe easily. I was struggling and now that I think about it, I probably just did not want to breathe in his face, I can't imagine what my breath smelled like from 1cm away.
The medical staff came out with a stretcher and the crowd was whistling like crazy. I saw the stretcher to my left and was adamant on not wanting to go off the ice on a stretcher. I pushed it away with my left hand, but as the doctor's nose hairs grazed against my pale face, he told me this was non negotiable and that I could have hemorrhaging in my intestines and if I got up it could be very dangerous. This doc was tough, if his power wasn't displayed by forcing me onto that stretcher, him going face to face with my dragon breath really showed courage!
As I was being placed on the stretcher, a few of our guys came by and gave me a tap, I remember seeing Carl Malette from Rouen come over as well with some encouraging words just before I was taken to the dressing room. At the time, I could not really digest ( no pun intended) what was happening and the magnitude of it all, but I do believe I heard our crowd chanting "Enculé" as I left the ice. Feel free to hit the Translator on that one. Pretty sure it was directed at the guy who hit me.
I know there were many things written on the internet about what happened and that is why I am trying to clear it up. So for the record, I was NOT transported by helicopter to the hospital in Grenoble. Well from the state I was in, maybe I was, but they must have got me back to Briancon pretty fast. So I think I arrived by ambulance and they quickly did an ultrasound to check for hemorrhaging, which was negative. But in this case negative is a positive. So no internal bleeding, alright, good sign. I might have a bit of a cracked rib issue but I can deal with that.
So after two different ultrasounds and 2 x-rays, there is nothing extremely serious to be concerned with. Good thing for Twist Conditioning and all of that Core Strengthening I have done over the years to help protect my insides! For now I am taking it easy, I still have pain in my stomach and intestines and my abs are pretty seized up for the time being, but I am going to take things slow and just be thankful that it was not worse than this.
As for the culprit, well I am not going to be putting a bounty on his head, I will not even mention his name. I still have not seen the video of the hit so I do not know exactly what happened. I know hockey is a fast sport and sometimes these kinds of things result. Apparently he claimed he did nothing wrong on the ice as my teammates defended me. My only issue is that you take responsibility for your actions. I don't believe he intended to hurt me and had I been facing him it would have been a completely legal check. But the fact of the matter is, he hit me square from behind. I like a good physical game and believe that hitting is a big part of the game of hockey, but injuries occur when we are careless and checking from behind is where we must pay close attention.
Special thanks to Damien Raux who stayed at the hospital for a few hours after the game and was nice enough to stay up until 5am watching the Habs/Sens NHL game with me (Go Habs Go!) And also Bernard Rouillard who is always there for the players and their families.
Ca va aller!!! I'll be back soon :)
I know many of you are concerned with what happened in the game last night against Rouen. We lost.
Oh ya, and I was taken off the ice on a stretcher.
Yes it is true and at the time it seemed very bad but I can assure everyone that I will be fine and that is was a big scare but it is a good thing that I have abs of steel.
To explain a bit in detail, last night we were playing in the semi-finals of Coupe de la Ligue against Rouen. In the third period down a few goals, we decided to pull our goalie with about 7 minutes to play. We had a faceoff in the offensive zone, but quickly lost possession and the puck was flipped high in the air and began heading for our empty net. Noticing that I was the last guy back, I turned and started skating back to get the puck before it crossed the goal line. I arrived just in time to pull the puck away and I turned into the corner but as I was turning, the puck traveled through the goal crease and the mount of snow next to the post. I lost control of the puck and had to reach back behind the net to get it. As I was changing direction, I lost my balance (so they tell me) and was hit from behind.
My head hit the glass very hard, but the worst part was the immediate pain in my stomach and the fact that I could not breathe whatsoever. For a second I think I lost consciousness after hitting my head but I quickly realized the pain and tore my helmet off as I was gasping for air. I believe it was the top hand on my stick that was driven into my stomach as I was crunched on the boards and I am not sure how much time passed before the medical staff got to the ice but it was probably long enough for a television timeout (if the game were televised). By the time the doctor arrived I had started to find my breath but could not speak to explain the pain I felt, I just held my stomach with my hands. I remember very vividly the doctor's face being within 1 cm of mine, as he told me to breathe easily. I was struggling and now that I think about it, I probably just did not want to breathe in his face, I can't imagine what my breath smelled like from 1cm away.
The medical staff came out with a stretcher and the crowd was whistling like crazy. I saw the stretcher to my left and was adamant on not wanting to go off the ice on a stretcher. I pushed it away with my left hand, but as the doctor's nose hairs grazed against my pale face, he told me this was non negotiable and that I could have hemorrhaging in my intestines and if I got up it could be very dangerous. This doc was tough, if his power wasn't displayed by forcing me onto that stretcher, him going face to face with my dragon breath really showed courage!
As I was being placed on the stretcher, a few of our guys came by and gave me a tap, I remember seeing Carl Malette from Rouen come over as well with some encouraging words just before I was taken to the dressing room. At the time, I could not really digest ( no pun intended) what was happening and the magnitude of it all, but I do believe I heard our crowd chanting "Enculé" as I left the ice. Feel free to hit the Translator on that one. Pretty sure it was directed at the guy who hit me.
I know there were many things written on the internet about what happened and that is why I am trying to clear it up. So for the record, I was NOT transported by helicopter to the hospital in Grenoble. Well from the state I was in, maybe I was, but they must have got me back to Briancon pretty fast. So I think I arrived by ambulance and they quickly did an ultrasound to check for hemorrhaging, which was negative. But in this case negative is a positive. So no internal bleeding, alright, good sign. I might have a bit of a cracked rib issue but I can deal with that.
So after two different ultrasounds and 2 x-rays, there is nothing extremely serious to be concerned with. Good thing for Twist Conditioning and all of that Core Strengthening I have done over the years to help protect my insides! For now I am taking it easy, I still have pain in my stomach and intestines and my abs are pretty seized up for the time being, but I am going to take things slow and just be thankful that it was not worse than this.
As for the culprit, well I am not going to be putting a bounty on his head, I will not even mention his name. I still have not seen the video of the hit so I do not know exactly what happened. I know hockey is a fast sport and sometimes these kinds of things result. Apparently he claimed he did nothing wrong on the ice as my teammates defended me. My only issue is that you take responsibility for your actions. I don't believe he intended to hurt me and had I been facing him it would have been a completely legal check. But the fact of the matter is, he hit me square from behind. I like a good physical game and believe that hitting is a big part of the game of hockey, but injuries occur when we are careless and checking from behind is where we must pay close attention.
Special thanks to Damien Raux who stayed at the hospital for a few hours after the game and was nice enough to stay up until 5am watching the Habs/Sens NHL game with me (Go Habs Go!) And also Bernard Rouillard who is always there for the players and their families.
Ca va aller!!! I'll be back soon :)
Monday, November 23, 2009
Team Identity
Well, the month of November has been flying by us here. Tomorrow we are in the 1/8 of Coupe de France action in Villard. Normally we should be the heavy favourites entering the game but with our recent track record of letting the weaker teams stay in the game, more and more teams have hope against us. Last Saturday in Gap is a prime example. This team is much weaker than us and have played in Division 1 the past two seasons. They have a few good players but the most dangerous is that they believe they can beat us. It was so close this time that we only tied it up with 1:40 left in the game, before winning in a shootout.
This has already happened a few times this year and still never costing us a loss, but I believe that last Saturday was a real wake up call and we should see a powerful Briancon team hit the ice tomorrow, winning battles, driving the net hard and just simply outworking the other team. That is our game plan. With our talent, if we start beating teams by work ethic and not just skill, we will be a very dangerous team.
On a side note, Team World lost today's Soccer match vs. Team France. The score was uncertain as the French team, most likely inspired by Thierry Henry's blatant hand ball against Ireland last week, turned a blind eye to many offsides and hand balls of their own as they cruised to a one sided victory.
On a personal note and on going head to head battle, I scored early to make it 2-1 on French goaltender Damien Raux :)
This has already happened a few times this year and still never costing us a loss, but I believe that last Saturday was a real wake up call and we should see a powerful Briancon team hit the ice tomorrow, winning battles, driving the net hard and just simply outworking the other team. That is our game plan. With our talent, if we start beating teams by work ethic and not just skill, we will be a very dangerous team.
On a side note, Team World lost today's Soccer match vs. Team France. The score was uncertain as the French team, most likely inspired by Thierry Henry's blatant hand ball against Ireland last week, turned a blind eye to many offsides and hand balls of their own as they cruised to a one sided victory.
On a personal note and on going head to head battle, I scored early to make it 2-1 on French goaltender Damien Raux :)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Ultimate Frisbee
While we are still waiting for a few of our teammates to get back from their National teams and after 5 days off, we were back in the gym and back on the ice Friday. With 2 training sessions per day for Friday and Saturday we had a day off today and rejoin again tomorrow morning at 9am. As the team's strength and conditioning coach, I am in charge of organizing and running our teams workouts. Since we have been working so hard in the last two days, instead of the scheduled Core Circuit planned in the gym, I think I am going to change things up with a game of Ultimate Frisbee.
This is a very common sport in Vancouver and though I lived there for 5 years, by no means does that give me the title of an experienced player. I believe I played only a handful of times with my Human Kinetics classes, but I am familiar with the rules and will be happy to explain them tomorrow morning in both French and English with my teammates. This will be a nice change of pace for our team, give us a good workout and keep that competitive nature going as we face Chamonix in the 1/4 of the Coupe de la Ligue on Wednesday.
Not sure what the teams are going to be for tomorrow yet but for our soccer games we have usually done France vs. The World. If this is the case, France will be missing Damien Raux who is representing his country but Team World will take a big hit missing the leadership and work ethic from Victor Szelig and Edo Terglav, who are away with Team Hungary and Team Slovenia respectively.
This is all weather dependent as we did have some snow fall today in the Alpes. Stay Tuned!!!
This is a very common sport in Vancouver and though I lived there for 5 years, by no means does that give me the title of an experienced player. I believe I played only a handful of times with my Human Kinetics classes, but I am familiar with the rules and will be happy to explain them tomorrow morning in both French and English with my teammates. This will be a nice change of pace for our team, give us a good workout and keep that competitive nature going as we face Chamonix in the 1/4 of the Coupe de la Ligue on Wednesday.
Not sure what the teams are going to be for tomorrow yet but for our soccer games we have usually done France vs. The World. If this is the case, France will be missing Damien Raux who is representing his country but Team World will take a big hit missing the leadership and work ethic from Victor Szelig and Edo Terglav, who are away with Team Hungary and Team Slovenia respectively.
This is all weather dependent as we did have some snow fall today in the Alpes. Stay Tuned!!!
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Coupe De France 1/16
The Coupe de France gets underway for us tonight with a game against Gap, a team we know pretty well from Coupe de la Ligue. This is a single elimination format where it will take 5 wins to reach the finals in front of 14,000 fans in Paris.
Last season, while I was with Epinal, we reached the 1/4 finals, losing to Angers. While Briancon, one of the best teams in the league last year, were ousted in the first round against a much weaker Dijon team.
My main objective this season was to play on a top team and help them to a championship. After attending the Coupe de France Final the last two seasons as a spectator in Paris, I am really hoping to have an opportunity to take part as a player and win the very coveted Coupe de France Title!
Mission Begins: Tonight 20h30 at René Froger!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
A BIg Month
The month of October has been my favourite month for as long as I can remember and as we have hit the half way point now, I would like to take some time to explain my reasons. Obviously a lot has changed since it became (in my opinion) the best month of the year. As a young boy, my reasons were pretty simple as I would look forward to October because my birthday is on the 22nd. Then things started to evolve with the NHL season starting in early October so that was a big thrill as I would wake up early every morning to watch the highlights on TSN's Sports Desk (now Sports Center). Also the new hockey video game would be released in October. NHL 93 was a hit for SEGA and then it evolved into Playstation 1, then PS2, and eventually X BOX 360. Wow, as I read that last sentence out loud I realize that for the past 18 years I have been excited for a hockey video game to be released.
Thanksgiving which just passed was always a highlight for me, mostly because we had a 3 day weekend and more time to play road hockey outside as the weather was just perfect to wear jogging pants and my Stéphane Richer jersey. My best friend growing up, Matt Holland had his birthday on the 17th, followed by his dad's on the 18th, then my dad's on the 20th and two days later my own. So Matt's birthday was always fun, I remember one year we went to a Monster Truck show at the old Pontiac Silverdome, where the Detroit Lions NFL team used to play. Then for my party, I believe for 8 years straight we rented the Optimist Community Center's gym to play floor hockey.
Halloween topped the great month off and pushed us into November, which to me just served as a month of preparation, before the fun began for December. But I will not discuss the details of 2 weeks off from school, Christmas, playing road hockey in the snow outside or more importantly the World Junior Hockey Championships, that is another story to be told at another time.
So here in Briancon, France October is still my favourite month, I love the clothes I get to wear in Autumn, the leaves are changing colours, our hockey team is starting to gel and we are playing more games. It is a great time of the year, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that almost everything is related to hockey. This month in particular we have some of our toughest games of the season. We already played in Epinal, which was great, then we played at home against our rivals Grenoble taking the win 4-0, now this weekend we head to Angers to play one of the top teams in our league, then we play undefeated Morzine and travel to Rouen for our last game of the month, on Halloween.
Looks like I wont be doing any trick or treating this year but on October 31st when we play Rouen, I might try to dress up like Al MacInnis
Thanksgiving which just passed was always a highlight for me, mostly because we had a 3 day weekend and more time to play road hockey outside as the weather was just perfect to wear jogging pants and my Stéphane Richer jersey. My best friend growing up, Matt Holland had his birthday on the 17th, followed by his dad's on the 18th, then my dad's on the 20th and two days later my own. So Matt's birthday was always fun, I remember one year we went to a Monster Truck show at the old Pontiac Silverdome, where the Detroit Lions NFL team used to play. Then for my party, I believe for 8 years straight we rented the Optimist Community Center's gym to play floor hockey.
Halloween topped the great month off and pushed us into November, which to me just served as a month of preparation, before the fun began for December. But I will not discuss the details of 2 weeks off from school, Christmas, playing road hockey in the snow outside or more importantly the World Junior Hockey Championships, that is another story to be told at another time.
So here in Briancon, France October is still my favourite month, I love the clothes I get to wear in Autumn, the leaves are changing colours, our hockey team is starting to gel and we are playing more games. It is a great time of the year, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that almost everything is related to hockey. This month in particular we have some of our toughest games of the season. We already played in Epinal, which was great, then we played at home against our rivals Grenoble taking the win 4-0, now this weekend we head to Angers to play one of the top teams in our league, then we play undefeated Morzine and travel to Rouen for our last game of the month, on Halloween.
Looks like I wont be doing any trick or treating this year but on October 31st when we play Rouen, I might try to dress up like Al MacInnis
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