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!!!

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!

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

Gastro Attack

Lying in my bed right now as I write this email, I strongly believe I am on the road to recovery. After playing Tuesday night at home against Villard in Coupe de la Ligue action, I got home and was severely ill. I do not want to get into too much detail but it was a Gastro Terrorist Attack in my stomach, with all the screaming and explosions. Suffering from severe dehydration from the game the night before and the planned attacks on my intestines, I was in the hospital early Wednesday morning with an intravenous. I returned home, feeling a bit better, but still under attack "down below" and with severe cramps and further dehydration, I was forced to return again that day for the same treatment and some blood work.

With Wednesday also being team picture day, I was able to find enough energy to make it down the 4 flights of stairs from my apartment and get to the rink. I will be the guy sitting in the front row whose face blends into the white on the jerseys. Heading home that night I was awake every two hours but awoke feeling a little better. I began eating Thursday with rice and carrots and started getting some strength back (so I thought). Then about 4pm things started to turn for the worse, I had a temperature of 39 and cramps so strong I honestly thought I was going to give birth to something. So you guessed it, back to the hospital Thursday night, more blood work because of my high temperature and I think they noticed my dry lips and pale face and thought I could go for a 3rd intravenous of 1L.
Oh, and they also requested a sample. Yes a sample of that, yes it was a very uncomfortable procedure. Did they get their sample? Damn right they got it!!!

Anyways, I awoke Friday feeling better, started thinking about the game in Epinal and how I had marked on the calender the day the schedule came out. I was going to do anything to play in that game. It was understood that I would not be making the trip with the team Friday night and if there was a miracle, maybe I could drive up on Saturday. Well, lets just say I forced the issue, I ate lots of food, gained a bit of strength and someone convinced my team to let me come. We only had 4 defensemen playing so I thought I could be a spare every once in a while and play some power play for us. Well that is what happened, but after losing 10 pounds in 3 days, competing for the World's Worst tan against Frosty the snowman, lets just say I was not at my best. I played probably about 6-7 minutes in the game, made a few mistakes, took an elbowing penalty (which is French for Body Checking) but was on the ice for 2 of our power play goals.

Not a performance to remember but certainly a game I will never forget. The Supporters in Epinal, which was home to me the past 2 seasons gave me a very warm welcome. They sang my name for minutes at a time, they even chanted Gervais Gervais when I took my penalty haha. That was the only thing they could cheer about. After the game was very special, I shook hands with many of my old teammates, wished them well for the season and when exiting the ice the fans again were chanting my name. I was about to enter the room once more but I was called back onto the ice once again to salute everyone and thank them for the 2 great seasons we had together.

A special night for sure, we got the victory 3-1, Briancon's first win in Epinal in 3 years so I was glad to be a part of that too. Now I will have to take a step back and really try to get back to 100%, because any energy I had was all from emotion last night and getting my strength and weight back will be the next step as we have a very big game next Saturday against Grenoble.

Happy Birthday André

I must start off with a Happy Birthday to my big brother André, who turns 35 today! He is the reason that I play hockey in the first place and was my role model growing up. Tonight we play our first regular season game so I will try to have a very solid game and a convincing victory for ya bro!

It is early here in Briancon, I set my alarm for 9am, as we have a morning skate at 10:45, before leaving for our game at 2pm. Considering it is the first regular season game though, I have been up since 7am. I watched a few NHL pre season highlights on TSN, ate my breakfast, and might make a protein shake before leaving for the rink. I figure the earlier I can wake up, the more fuel I can put in my body to give me energy for the practice this morning and the game tonight. If this works, I might wake up at 6am next Tuesday and start dominating some French Toast.

Tonight we will look to play a more complete game and get off to a strong start. Defense remains our priority but as the coach has been preaching: "the best defense is when we have the puck."

Quick Fix

So some people have been giving me a hard time about not updating my blog (F.P.) as of late so this should serve as a quick fix to that problem. The main reason for not updating was mainly that I was not too motivated to write about our 1-0 loss to Grenoble in the Match des Champions. They scored on the power play in the first period and with strong goaltending, they cruised to the 1-0 victory.

On Tuesday we faced off against Gap in the first official game in Coupe de la Ligue action. Again, the team did not respond well in the first period and went into the dressing room after 20 minutes of play tied 0-0. With a power play of our own, I was able to get us on the board early with a nice pass from Damien Raux. We went up 2-0 with a great individual effort from "Speedy" Rohat, blowing past the Gap defense, toe dragging and ripping one top right corner or as the french say "lucarne" I wouldn't bother going on the translator on that one because the translation will come up "attic window."

Continuing on, Gap tied it 2-2 before our Captain Edo Terglav potted a rebound on a scramble in front of the net and then added an empty netter to secure the win for us.

We did not seem to have the legs or the jump that we wanted in these last 2 games so we took Wednesday off, making it an optional off ice workout "musculation." Though we have a pretty motivated group so we still had about 12 guys show up. 10 of the 12 did a solid workout, whereas the other 2 had more of what we call a "sauna focus." I think they did 3 sets of the sauna x 10 minutes, super setting that with a 15 second cold shower. Whatever works guys!!!

Hopefully the optional day will give us a bit more juice for our first league game on Saturday in St. Gervais against Mont Blanc.

Shootout Loss in Final

After a few days rest, we were back at work today as we hit the ice this morning and finished the day with a post practice workout. This was our first day back on the ice since returning home from our tournament in Slovenia. Reflecting on the weekend tournament, we were very pleased with the organization and especially the level of competition.

Our first game we faced off against the reigning champs from Klagenfurt of the Austrian Elite League. This team had the likes of former NHLers Jeff Shantz, Mike Craig and Sean Brown in their lineup and after getting over the fact I was battling in the corners with guys who have been at the top (NHL) our team settled in and played a solid game. Going down 1-0 early, we responded off a faceoff win and I was fortunate enough to one time a shot from just inside the blueline. It was very hot that day and the fog on the ice must have helped provide a screen, preventing their goalie from seeing the puck clearly.

After tying it 1-1, we did not trail for the rest of the game and were leading 4-3 late in the 3rd period when we started scrambling and allowing KAC to tie the game. With no Overtime in this tournament format, we went straight to a shootout. I could not really see how Joni Lindlof scored because the fog was so thick, but I think he went 5 hole, opening the door for Ramon Sopko to win the game for us with a save. He stopped the next shot and in fact made all 3 of the saves from KAC's shooters giving us the win.

I feel I am giving lots of detail here so I will try to sum it all up quickly so my readers don't lose interest. Our next game was against Langenthal from the Swiss B League. A very good skating team, very defensive minded. We played a solid game and was 4-2, improving our record to 2-0 sending us to the finals against Austria's Jesenice. Their fans were pretty crazy so it made for a good atmosphere in the championship game.

The final game was very defensive, we scored the first goal of the game on the PP in the second period but it was quickly equalized on a 5 on 3 PP. The game finished deadlocked at 1-1 and again, we headed for a shootout. This time, after 11 shooters, we came out on the losing end. But what a game and what a tournament.

We faced some really good teams and keep coming together as a group as well. One thing that has been implemented as well is that for team meals, we must sit at a different place every time and avoid having too many players from the same nationality together. This way we will get away from the groups within the group or as some put it "team within the team." Guys make jokes about it but you still see a French guy get up and go sit next to a Swede or Slovak etc... In the early stages of team building, it is a good way to get to know everybody as well.

Our final exhibition game is at home on Saturday against Villard de lans. Then the real games begin!