Busy Guy

Sorry it has been a long time for a blog update. Carol has spring break right now and we have been busy with some household renovations that are taking lots of free time.

I heard from Serena in Hawaii yesterday that she may have torn her UCL (in the elbow) from a very hard outside shot from a big 2m defender on the Wahine squad. This girl, Ryan, shoots harder than Monika Eggens if you need that perspective, so maybe 65km/hr. She'll have an MRI this week and get the full report soon.

There have been some additional discussions the past week between Trevor and I concerning my 2008-09 MWPA plans. This is good, the more we talk, the more I hear questions, the more it becomes clear how we can move forward with unity and harmony. One of the things I had not made clear initially was my hope that Neptunes would strengthen their role as a provider of "life long" water polo opportunities and build more adult programs with players graduating from age group programs of both Bushido and Neptunes. This seems to be universally accepted so when both clubs graduate players from Bantam into Cadet they will choose participation with Neptunes or High Performance with Bushido. Then when they graduate from age group they will choose ongoing HP with Bushido ie national team, pro, NCAA or Adult or Masters with Neptunes. All of the players in both Cadet and Open will play in the same MWPA leagues so there is no lack of program opportunity for anyone if this is done right.

I was reading in the paper today about the synchro girls who are participating at Pan Am this week in the Western Divisionals. They have trained 20 hrs/week the past few years to be ready for this national level event. This will be an important program model for our families education next year when we initiate the High Performance Training Centre with Bushido. I certainly don't expect 20 hrs/week but we have to go part way to that frequency to get where we want to go nationally and internationally with water polo. Some of our players are training 6 days/week and twice some days right now so it isn't like they will practice more, just practice with more unity and partnership under a more specific plan.

Later this weekend I hope to look in detail at our Youth Women's National Championship schedule and talk about the double elimination system. Then I will have some comments on what happens if/when we beat Calgary 2 in our first game and jump up a few levels to play Quebec 1 later the same day.