Playoff Update

After losing the first game of the best of 3 series in Chamonix, last night as we were facing elimination, we came out with an 8-5 win! The game went back and forth the entire way though, with our largest lead 2-0. Every time we scored a goal, Chamonix would respond with a goal to tie it, mostly on our defensive mistakes.

I am just about to take my pregame nap, but thought it would be nice to write a little update here. Back to back games for the first time this season, winner goes on to play Rouen in the 2nd round, while the loser will be dealing with exit meetings with their staff and a few pints of beer at the bar to say goodbye to teammates.

I don't plan on saying my goodbyes for another few weeks!

EP-EP-EPINAL!!!!!!!!!!

Coupe de France Trip

Yesterday was the Coupe de France final in Paris-Bercy with Grenoble winning 6-1 over Dijon. At the game there were about 13,000 fans and a real treat for the players to have the opportunity to play in front of so many people. This was my second trip the Bercy for the final, both unfortunately as a spectator and not as a player. I made the trip again this year with the Mauffreys, and thanks to Sophie, we were VIPs. So in between periods were had the luxury of entering the VIP section, where they had many desserts, chocolate fondue, crepes, champagne etc... Typical (really good) french stuff.

On a personal note, there was something special that took place before the game. That was the announcement of the two All Star teams. Every year a Team of best French players is chosen from the league as well as a Team of the best Imports. I was lucky enough to see my picture on the big screen before the game as being selected First Team All Star for Team Etrangers (Imports) which had a large content of Canadian players. Last year they played the All Star game in Chamonix, but this year for some reason there will be no game, just the two team rosters. In any case, I am very honored to have been selected to the All Star team by the Ligue Magnus and Team France Coaches. I also have to congratulate Jan Plch our captain here in Epinal, for being selected 2nd Line right wing for Team Etrangers, and our other teammate Guillaume Chassard for being selected as 3rd line right wing on Team France. This marks the first time 3 players from Epinal have been chosen for the All Star Teams. This is a credit to our entire team and coaching staff, as we have put together a great season and our success as a team, has a direct correlation on these 3 selections.

Below is the link to the two teams.

http://www.hockeyfrance.com/actualites-ffhg/lm-joueurs-etoiles-126-778-1.html

Tomorrow we will start our journey into what we hope to be a long playoff run, as we travel to Chamonix for Game 1 in the best of 3 series. Game 2 will be Friday in Epinal, and Game 3 (if necessary) will be played Saturday in Epinal.

The winner of the series has the privilege of playing Rouen in the 2nd round, best of 5 series.

Regular Season Finale

Right now I am sitting at the table in my house having my pasta and getting ready to head out to our final regular season game. We are playing at home against Angers, one of the top teams in the league and a team that just over a month ago, eliminated us from La Coupe de France play. Our final game of the regular season was originally scheduled for this Saturday in Dijon, but since they are playing in the Coupe de France Final against Genoble, that game was played last week, as we skated to a 7-3 victory.

I team has been playing pretty well all year, as we try to go 14-12 tonight, and finish with a winning record for the first time in the club's history. We could have made it easier on ourselves had we won last Saturday in Tours, but we ended up losing in overtime. After being down 2-0 and 3-1, we showed the "never quit" attitude and kept battling, tying the game up with less than 3 minutes to play. A breakdown in overtime cost our team, as 2 Tour players skated in 2 on 0 and a nifty pass across the crease gave them an open net and an overtime win.

This was my second time playing in Tours and from what I remembered from last year, they have blue ice. I was pretty amazed by it last time so this year I brought my camera to take a few pictures. Good thing we only play there once a year because it does get a bit confusing out there when you are not used to the blue ice, as it is very hard to find the blue line and many of our defensmen, including myself were backing in too far, not knowing we had crossed the blue line already.

Nice rink here in Tours, notice the blue ice and the white circles and goal crease. This rink was modeled after the blue ice from SEGA Genesis' NHL '94 rinks video game.


You must be wondering how I could have a problem knowing where the blue line was, since it is so clearly outlined in white paint.

On a side note, since I had my camera with my, I decided to bring this topic to the forefront. Why are there no toilet seats in public washrooms in France? If someone could please answer this for me it would be greatly appreciated. We have seen this over and over again, and when I saw a Tour player being interviewed after the game, and he was holding a toilet seat in his hand, I thought enough is enough.

Typical "Non-Toilet Seated Toilet" in Tours. Why???

Home and Home

After spending a week in Canada with my family in Windsor, Ontario, I am right back into the rhythm here in Epinal. Since I could not make it home at Christmas time, it had been since last May since I saw my whole family and most importantly my dog Coco. My time home was spent mostly just hanging out with my 2 brothers and my 3 nephews and niece. My mother and I had a successful trip to the Hugo Boss outlet where I was able to find a sweater regularly marked at $400 on sale for $50! Anyways, not really the highlight of the trip but noteworthy nevertheless.

On Saturday, I took the ice with the Tecumseh Eagles "Team White." Coached by my older brother Andre, this is his 5 year old son Julien's hockey team. As Team White had been recently plagued with injuries (or just kids not showing up) they were forced to look to their farm team for players. On December 7th, 3 year old Sebastien Gervais was activated from "Team Parent and Tot" and was called up to Team White, skating along side his brother Julien, 2 years his senior. Now a regular member of the team, wearing #14, Sebastien equaled his brother's output with a 2 goal performance in Sunday's game versus Team Yellow. Speculation has the 3 year old remaining with the club until the end of the season, though he remains active in the Parent and Tot skates, as his future is still uncertain.

Some of the motivation for the young Gervais brothers could have been the presence of their cousin Calder Johnson, who resides in Hamilton with parents Andrew and Elise (my sister). Calder, the 5 year old boy genius whose expertise is in the Solar System and Dinosaurs, was happy to see his cousins perform so well in the game but couldn't help to notice the elder Gervais spending the majority of his time on the attack and conserving his energy while his team was defending. One of the youngest fans in the rink, but maybe the biggest was Calder's 2 year old sister Cisely, who was pretty focused for the majority of the game, with only a few lapses when she was more concerned with kicking my seat than watching the game, but other than that, she is a die hard hockey fan with a student of the game.

Alright enough about that stuff, back here in France, we have an exhibition game scheduled for Saturday night in Strasbourg then we travel to Dijon on Tuesday night. I hate mustard!!!

Home Ice (dis) Advantage?

What a difference we have in this league in terms of the rinks (Patinoire). After playing in Grenoble on Saturday night, in front of 3500 fans, there is a huge gap in professionalism in our league. I don't like to pick on Neuilly, who is currently fighting for their lives to stay in our league, but when comparing Grenoble to Neuilly, it is night and day. Since I have dedicated an entire blog entry to our basement dwellers I will not give further descriptions on their facilities however, I will tell you about Grenoble.

From my impressions upon arriving in Grenoble, it seemed like a North American city, with a shopping mall and many new modern looking buildings and a nice fancy ice rink. With a sellout crowd every game of 3500 fans, NHL quality ice, VIP boxes and a giant inflatable burning wolf the team skates out of before the game, all you can say is that this place is "PRO."  What an advantage this must be for them. Well from a personal standpoint, I think the opposite. As a player, when I see Grenoble on the schedule, I think "oh great, they have such a nice rink and so many fans, this is going to be great to play there." But on the other end of the spectrum, if a player from Grenoble sees on the schedule, next week they play in Epinal, they think "Shit, that rink is crap, horrible dressing rooms, and the ice is like playing on a pond, this is going to be a tough game." 

Grenoble still sits near the top of the standings every year, and already with the Coupe de la Ligue title, and heading to the finals in La Coupe de France next month, they manage to win games by only 1 goal, maybe 2 with an empty netter. Before handing us a 3-2 loss in their building, their last five home games before that (winning all of them) 3 of them were against teams well below them in the standings like  like Dijon, Strasbourg, Amiens. Normally these games should not be 1 goal games because the difference in our team and the others mentioned should not be a 1 goal difference with a team like Grenoble. But it is the fact that every player loves to play in Grenoble and every player brings their best game for that rink. It is the NHL of France, where the rink is first class, security guards are in suits with walkie talkies and the media room for post game interviews is like a TSN studio.

After the game I was called up for a TV interview along with a radio interview with a website that covers our league, and for a minute I thought I was a pretty big deal, haha. But I was wearing a Team Canada t-shirt and a Montreal Canadiens backwards hat. I should have dressed better for this right?  But then I think about a NHLer like Ryan Smyth (my favorite player), who is just dripping in sweat and tosses on a team hat and does the interview like that, so if he can do it like that, then I must be doing something right!

When asked if I wanted to do the interview in English I thought about it for a second but then said "No, let's do it in French" so if you are interested in hearing me blab on in French I have posted the link below. And to sum the game up, we got scored on the the first minute of the game, were trailing 2-1 in the third period when I hit the post from a shot in the slot. And only about 20 seconds later Grenoble goes down and scores to make it 3-1.  With under 5 minutes left, Jan Plch hit me with a pass in the slot, I faked the shot and made a move around the defender, then snapped a shot glove side to make it 3-2. But that was a close as we would get.

Though we were badly out shot, we stuck around and were always in the game.  For our new players, it was a great experience for them to play in such a nice rink and for our veterans, it was great for us too because if you could pick 1 rink in the whole league you would want to play in, it would be there. Only going home with a victory would make it better. So close, but really, so far away.

http://hockeyhebdo.com/interview_fiche.php?interview=149

3 in a Row, go for 1 more, Go for it...

We have had a successful week and half now, after winning both games in the Alpes then finally putting Neuilly away with a win on Saturday night. The game got off to a bit of a strange start. Before I tell you about this, I must say, that in all my years of hockey, as a player and avid fan and student of the game, I have never seen anything like this happen...

So with the game only 2 minutes old, we are killing a penalty when Michal Petrak is sent in on a breakaway. Mike has a bit of a reputation for diving or embellishing, or in France we sometimes call it "Cinéma" or "Simulation."  So he is sent in alone and gets a little tug on the arm, affecting his shot enough to warrant a penalty shot, but not something that should send him flying into the end boards like a kamikaze fighter jet from WWII. 

But in a way that's what he was, because he drew a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct for the embellishment and therefore was sitting in the penalty box and unable to take his penalty shot. After last Tuesday's shootout win in Morzine, our coach went with the hot hand and picked me to take the penalty shot. I wasn't even on the ice, so not sure if that was allowed but the officials didn't think to take the numbers of the players on the ice because nothing like this has ever happened before. Maybe never in the game of hockey???Moving on....so I jumped over the boards and without thinking, took off down the ice, grabbed the puck and was looking 5 hole like I shot in Morzine. I gave a head fake and the 5 hole closed up pretty quickly so a quick fake to the backhand to get the goalie moving, then I slid the puck into the open side on my forehand. A great start for us as we are 7-2 when we score the first goal of the game.

The game stayed close the whole way through, trading goals back and forth on bad defensive errors, and even scoring into our own net. Since we won and this player made up for his mistake by scoring his second goal of the game shortly afterwards, I have to mention how Ilpo Salmivirta, in his first game back from injury, threw the puck into our own net. We were on the power play when Neuilly blocked my shot and came 2 on 1 down the ice against me. The shot was taken and goaltender Stan Petrik made the save but the puck flew up in the air, and with nobody around him, Ilpo attempted to catch the puck but from what I understand, baseball is not a very popular sport in the Scandinavian countries and our Finnish Flash tossed it right into the net.

But like I said, he got it back, ripping a one timer top corner and we sailed to a 6-4 victory. Now with Grenoble in our sights, as we will make the trip out there on Saturday, we have a week to prepare. We had a team workout this morning, focusing more on some core, agility and quickness, then a few of us went to the gym in the town for an additional workout, more focused on upper body (chest/back) and a hard core/abs complex to finish off.  The team is rolling with 3 wins in a row, and we will look for our 4th. Like the old commercials said "It's 3 in a row, go for one more, go for it, CONNECT FOUR!!!" 

Shootout Win

As we now look ahead to tomorrow's game against Neuilly, I would first like to recap what happened on Tuesday night in Morzine. Like on Saturday against Mont Blanc, we departed from the rink here in Epinal at 9:30am. We stopped again at the same restaurant in Switzerland to have our pre game meal before continuing.  

What a difference it makes visiting Morzine in January as opposed to October like we did last year.  Now, the prime ski season, the village was filled with tourists, most speaking English and hailing from England or Ireland. Since we had so much time before the game, we walked around for a while and a few of the guys even stopped for a coffee at the Dixie Bar (Irish Pub).  Most of the people spoke English and even the servers struggled when one of our French players tried ordering a coffee. Though in France, in that place, French was a foreign language. After spending 15 euro for 7 saucissons in St. Gervais, it was only fitting to continue with the trend and add some great cheese to the mix. Here I spent roughly 20 euro on 750g of Comté and 500g of Tomme de Savoie!  I must maintain some control here as I could get pretty fat if I don't eat this stuff in moderation.

Since we eat around 1pm, I usually pack a few sandwiches to hold me over until after the game, but this time it was not enough and I found myself very very hungry at the rink. And to make things even worse, as I was warming up in the stands, doing some stair runs, there was a group of about 35 kids on a field trip, sitting together in a section, waiting for the game to start. No big deal right?  Well I did not mention that they were all eating Croque Monsieurs!!!  I could just see the melted ham and cheese and I actually had to leave the section and continue my pre game warm up elsewhere because I nearly snatched one right of out an unsuspecting French kid's hand. 

In the game, my hunger still very present, was now channeled to wanting to win, instead of wanting to eat as many grilled ham and cheese sandwiches as I could.  We were down 3-1 in the third period but we still believed we could win.  We got an early power play and I was able to get us to within a goal when my wrist shot from the blue line went off the post and off the goalie's back and trickled in. Petrak tied it for us with about 4 minutes left to play in the game off a scramble in front. Then 10 minutes of overtime settled nothing so we were headed for a shootout....

We shot first as our captain Jan Plch was stopped on a shot to the blocker side, then goalie Eero Vare made a huge save, doing the splits to stop the Morzine player. Chassard was our next shooter and he made a great move to his backhand and scored, putting us up 1-0 in the shootout, but their next shooter scored tying it 1-1. I was called upon to shoot 3rd and I made no mistake ripping one 5 hole giving us the lead and putting lots of pressure on Morzine's final shooter. Eero made the stop and our comeback was complete! 

Being in the Alpes again, I thought for sure Tartiflette, it is cold, it is the season, here we go!  But no, it was a steak with a pepper sauce and fries. A pretty good meal, something that you might get at the Keg Steakhouse back home, so I was delighted to eat that.  

Tomorrow night is big though, we have lost 3 times to Neuilly (twice in coupe de la ligue, once in regular season), as they sit at the bottom of the standings, but coming off a close 3-2 loss to Rouen. We have to score a few early and break their spirits to earn the win.

On a side note, yesterday was my sister Elise's 39th Birthday!!! Happy Birthday Lise, love you!!!