This past weekend was so much fun as my assistant coach and I took my U12 boys soccer team to Edmonton for a soccer tournament. I knew the games would be extremely tough, but that is what I wanted. That way we could come back to Saskatoon and be able to play that much better against the Saskatoon teams.
We started off the trip by meeting at Galaxyland in West Edmonton Mall where all the boys spent the afternoon going on all the rides. They had a blast! I only arrived around suppertime so I didn't go on any, but the truth is I wouldn't have anyway...not unless I wanted to throw up again like the last time I had been at West Ed. We had a great meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory (all 25 of us) and then headed back to the hotel for a quick team meeting and some sleep.
Saturday we played our first game against the Strikers. They were the defending provincial champs from last year. Before I get into the score, I need to let you know that the rules in Alberta are different than in Saskatchewan. To keep it short, in Alberta the walls are live, they have a 3 line pass rule, you can pass the ball back to the keeper, they have blue cards, they run the clock right down to the buzzer, and it's stop time in the last 2 minutes of the 2nd half. Essentially it is exactly like hockey! Needless to say it was going to take some getting used to. So we lost our first game 5-0 which would come back to haunt us. That score doesn't show the game well as we scored on ourselves once, they managed to get a last second shot and score, and the referee called a goal against us when the ball was on the line but the other team complained and said it was a goal so the referee called it a goal. We just couldn't score.
Game number 2 happened 2 hours later. We came out fired up and dominated the other team...but again we had trouble scoring even though we were peppering their keeper with shots. But we finally managed to put one away and then Corentin kicked in an empty netter in the dying seconds of the game to give us a 2-0 victory!
Mike (my assistant coach) and I went and did a little shopping after that and when we got back to our room we had a little surprise. Our entire room was filled with streamers, toilet paper, mini pylons and soccer balls. There was also a big sign on our door saying that Mike and I were #1. It was pretty funny and they did a lot of work to do it all (along with the help of some of the moms). We went to our managers room for supper and Mike and I pretended we hadn't been to our room yet so all the boys were keeping quiet as if nothing had happened...they did a really good job of it! But they were nice enough to come clean it up for us later on.
We then went laser tagging and that was a blast. We had a little mishap with them, but I'll write an entire post on the laser tag itself later on.
On Sunday we had our final game. If we won or tied we would get2nd place (there was no final, just top teams after the round robin win). The other team scored right away and we played most of the game down 1-0. Finally in the 2nd half we put one away and tied it up. Then Corentin (who scored all of our goals on the weekend) scored another one and we were up 2-1. With about 5 minutes left a heartbreaker happened and our goalie let the ball slide underneath him and slowly roll into the net. 2-2. I didn't see how they scored their 3rd goal as the referee was yelling something and I thought he was talking to me. When I looked back at our goal I saw them shoot and score. So with 1:30 left we were down 3-2. Our guys played extremely hard but we couldn't score. The biggest play came with about 45 seconds left and Corentin was running down the field with the ball. He was in the crease and tried to shoot the ball when he was taken down and totally fell flat out...no call. That's when I lost it! My voice was hoarse after all that screaming I did after that. I couldn't believe this referee was robbing us like that. We lost 3-2.
That made a 3 way tie in our pool for 2nd place. This is where I realized that as a tournament coordinator you need to have everything specifically written out in the rules. Due to the 3-way tie it went to goal differential...but is goal differential just between the 3 teams that are tied, or does it include the games against the team that got first place? Most Saskatchewan tournaments decide goal differential with only the goals scored in the games between the tied teams...not so in Alberta. Due to our 5-0 loss we ended up in 4th place, where as if it would have been the other way around we would have taken 2nd place.
Overall it was a great weekend and a lot of fun! I was very impressed that my boys could handle themselves against the Edmonton teams and if we would play them in Saskatoon it wouldn't even be a contest as we would slaughter them. But it was so much fun and the boys had a great time which is what was really important. I need to keep reminding myself...these boys are only 12 years old!
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