Thank You Shae

First, I want to be sure that all the Bushido girls realize that Shae has agreed to stay home from the final CSL weekend this week to play in our Provincial Championships. That is a pretty big sacrifice from a player so intensely competitive and driven to succeed at the highest level.

Another reason Shae is staying home is so that she will not have to travel 3 weekends in a row with the 3rd being a hugely important Youth Nationals in Montreal May 1-3. Staying home now means that she has a short 2 day trip to Regina next week and a long 5 day trip to Montreal the following week.

I mention that because it should help to focus the Cadet and Youth teams on what they are working on the next few weeks, TEAM play. The opportunity to really get in synch will be given to the Cadets on their Regina road trip where we get 3 controlled games in one and a half days. That gives us a game to work on each zone defense with switches between press/drop, press/M for a full 4 quarters regardless of success or score. Then we will see who knows what and in the final Sunday game we can do what we feel most comfortable with or what needs a final tweek before we play BC at nationals (tough first draw, but as much so for them as us).

Girls, is this picture any good or do we redo it?

The teams in Regina will spend all weekend together so there will be some healthy rivalry going on. This will help the boys a lot as they see a challenge (playing better team systems than the girls) and like to rise to it. The boys will also really benefit from having a team psychologist in Regina because they don't fully understand why they play up and down without control. Tom will help them bring that into perspective and it may even sink in enough to be applied at Nationals in BC in late May. That is an event that I am happy is last, it is the most pleasant site to visit and there is an AMAZING coffee roasting house - Viva Java, that is close to the pool/hotel if we are in Richmond again. Wohoo!