What a Great Team!

This last Saturday night I attended our U12 boys soccer windup. This was the team I coached in the indoor season and I loved it. The guys were so much fun to coach and they worked really hard. Our season started off a little slow with a number of losses, but we slowly started picking it up and by the end of the season we had beaten Aurora who had only lost to 1 other team all season. That was the highlight of my season right there since around 6 or 7 of those Aurora players are now on the Provinical team I assistant coach with and they had an amazing team. ( Side note: I'm sure I've said it before, but honestly, these kids are amazing soccer players at this level. They have so much skill it is phenomenal! If they were the same size as an adult team they would clean up on them...it makes me fearful of these new youth teams entering the senior men's league)

The windup was a lot of fun. We went out to an acreage owned by the parents of two of the players out in Riverside Estates. What a beautiful area! Unlike the new acreage developments I've seen, this one has been around since around 1968 or so and is very nicely developed...large trees all over, a beutiful little pond with a fountain the backyard, nicely laid out paths winding through the backyard, a large swimming pool right off the backdoor along with a hot tub, a beautiful fire pit area nestled in among some trees in a bit of a valley. Everything about the place was nice and it definately made me want to buy an acreage!

We had a great time eating hamburgers and hotdogs, but then the real fun happened. The boys were playing a game of rugby with a soccer ball. Was it really rugby? No. Actually it was more like "do whatever it takes to get the ball and run it through the other net." Sounds like my kind of game. I got there just as they were about to pick teams. I didn't get picked first (I know, my feelings were hurt!) Fortunately I got picked second and the teams were pretty fair as the other team had the biggest player out there (besides me) and I had to keep him in check. It was an extremely rough game and everyone had bumps, bruises, and scrapes as they were grabbed around the neck and thrown to the ground, tackled into the nearby bushes, tripped while running up the field (I outlawed tripping after one guy was nearly killed). There were a few cut mouths and bleeding lips from being kicked in the face, but overall it was a LOT of fun! And my team WON!

My team and parents were extremely nice to me in the gift they gave me. Two of my players went to Thailand at the end of our season and they bought me a couple cans of Coke for my collection. The first one was from Thailand and it was a collector can for the World Cup with a soccer player on it. The second one was from Korea and I think it is the Korean soccer team on the can. Both cans were extremely cool and not the normal size and shape of our Canadian cans. They also bought me a soccer cd case holder, a soccer ball whistle, and a bobblehead soccer player. Then I also got a really cool Kit Kat bar from Thailand that is actually lemon flavoured cheesecake or something like that. I don't know if I should eat it or not. Finally, they all knew that I really love Coke a lot and like to drink it a lot, so they gave me gift certificates to Sobeys so I could buy all the Coke I wanted! And trust me, I can buy A LOT of coke with the gift certificates they gave me.

I'm really going to miss that team as the players were great and the parents were extremely supportive all season, but I guess we all have to move on. My new U11 Gold boys team has been amazing so far and I love coaching them too! But thanks to everyone associated with my U12 boys Gold team. It was a great season and I'm glad I got to coach you!