California Dreamin

This is an odd weekend for me as a coach. Here I am in Winnipeg, running regular weekly activities, preparing teams for their upcoming club events. But my focus is split as I also follow the play of Serena as she begins a tough weekend of games at Stanford with her Hawaii team in the NCAA. Then, just down the interstate from Stanford I have 2 boys playing in the Winterfest tournament in LA. Brendan and Carson are both playing with their CA buddies in the SET club. Carson will be a goalie on the team in the 18&u A division and Brendan will exchange bumps and bruises with the teams in the 18&U AA division.

It's hard to explain exactly why Bushido has 3 players/former players active in California this weekend. To help put it in perspective there are 4 categories of play in the boys 18&U age at Winterfest. 78 teams in total in that one age group (24 AA, 24 A, 19 BB and 11B), that is the attraction for the boys. Soooo many games, sooo much variety in skill and style. If every 18&U boys team in Canada played at 1 event it would not even be as big as 1 of the 18&U Categories at Winterfest.

Serena plays in the NCAA because she can play 40 high quality games in a 3 month season, while getting a free education. She plays at Hawaii because, well, it's Hawaii (and they have a great Canadian coach). It is hard to explain the feeling an athlete gets when they are surrounded by 100's of players with similar goals and ambitions in the sport they love. That is quite different than a practice at Pan Am with 6 or 7 players of your age.

That issue of teams, games and sport growth is not one I want to deal with here. I just want to promote a few players who are busy at a high level this week.