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Tour Diary

Dear Aussie Tour Fan Club:

The team bunked down early last night, with all lights out and everyone sound asleep by about 9:00 p.m.

Breakfast was a cozy affair in the manager's lounge: O.J., cereal, yogurts,oranges, bananas and jam on toasted wonderbread (at least it looked and tastedlike wonderbread).

Patrick then expertly led the convoy on a scenic tour of the country side (Green Hawks veterens will know what that means), causing the team to arrive "just in time" for the 8:30 a.m. practice.

The coach and manager of our opposition were at the pitch to scout out what they would be dealing with later in the day, and their young lads then arrived to practice after us. A very good squad that would easily embarrass any B.C. U-15 team!

After the practice our fearless resident guide, a.k.a. Gary Fraser, again accompanied by his daughter Kelly and young son Michael, took us over the the Hockey Store, where the boys managed to do real justice to their parents' lines of credit by kitting themselves out with the latest and greatest composite carbon howitzers, fancy grips and protective gloves. An impressive store.

The boys then hit Queen Street (Auckland's version of Robson Street) while management took in the Maui war dancers at the Auckland Museum.

At 4:30 we played the North Harbour U-15 regional team. The Hawks opened strong, but about 10 minutes into the game suffered a defensive breakdown that resulted in a penalty stroke being awarded against us. Fortunately Jeff Thom pulled off a brilliant save that really fired up the Canadian side. Hamish and Fraser each scored to finish the first half 2 - 0 for Hawks.

The Hawks, being older but not actually much bigger than the Kiwis, controlled much of the game. However, we failed to score on any of our short corners and turned the ball over more than we should have. Hamish put us ahead 3 - 0 in the second half, but towards the end of the game another defensive breakdown resulted in a second penalty stroke against us. This time the Kiwi manager's son Josh, a very able right winger, made no mistakes, putting the ball low to the side back board. Final score: 3 - 1. We are still very much a collection of individuals but some team chemistry is certainly developing.

After the game the Kiwis layed on a fantastic home made buffet feast at the club house. It was a seriously "wicked" display of down-under hospitality. Andrew was totally prepared, offering up a signed flag, Hawks hats (thank you Celia), t-shirts, hoodies, signed thank you cards and pins (thank you Steve Thom). If these lads ever come to Vancouver we absolutely have to lay it on thick for them!

Back at the North Shore Vacation Park, the boys are unwinding in the swimming pool. It has finally started to rain, but we live in the hope of another sunny day tomorrow. I fully expect the boys to crash early again tonight - indeed I think Andrew has already turned in for the night!

So far this has been a brilliant tour. We are having a good time.

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

Another fabulous day down under.  Great weather (warm and mainly sunny, with cloudy periods and the occasional light shower).

In the early morning hours Andrew and I picked up Elliott while Elisabeth ran the laundry operation.  After a leisurely breakfast Gary Fraser and family  arrived again.  We drove down town, where 14 of the boys spend the day in  Auckland proper.  Management plus Antoni took the ferry to Waiheke Island for a 1 hour whirl wind tour.  On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at another store jammed full of field hockey gear – but fear not, the spending was more measured this time!

We played the North Harbour boys again at 4:30, and both teams played better than yesterday.  The game was nicely spread out with lots of end to end hockey.  Andrew deployed our boys effectively with a high striker.  By half time Hawks led 3 - 0.  The game ended 4 - 0 for Hawks (Liam 2, Hamish 1 and Connor 1).  It has been a good start to the tour, with the team chemistry building up nicely.  We are packing up now (9:50 p.m.) and the alarms are set for 5:00 a.m. tomorrow morning in order to catch the early flight to Melbourne. 

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

Another fabulous day down under.  Great weather (warm and mainly sunny, with cloudy periods and the occasional light shower). In the early morning hours Andrew and I picked up Elliott while Elisabeth ran the laundry operation.  After a leisurely breakfast Gary Fraser and family arrived again.  We drove down town, where 14 of the boys spend the day in Auckland proper.  Management plus Antoni took the ferry to Waiheke Island for a 1 hour whirl wind tour.  On the way  back to the hotel we stopped in at another store jammed full of field  hockey gear - but fear not, the spending was more measured this time!

We played the North Harbour boys again at 4:30, and both teams played  better than yesterday.  The game was nicely spread out with lots of end to end hockey.  Andrew deployed our boys effectively with a high striker.  By half time Hawks led 3 - 0.  The game ended 4 - 0 for Hawks (Liam 2, Hamish 1 and Connor 1).  It has been a good start to  the tour, with the team chemistry building up nicely.  We are packing up now (9:50 p.m.) and the alarms are set for 5:00 a.m. tomorrow morning in order to catch the early flight to Melbourne. Please reply to confirm that you are receiving these updates.

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fans:

You'll be glad to hear that everyone and everything arrived safely in Melbourne.  It was a little dicey last night when Antoni realised that he had left his helmet at the pitch. Elisabeth stepped up to the plate, insisting that she drive him back there immediately.  While the helmet was no where to be seen, a couple of players who were leaving the pitch said their coach had found it and had taken it home.  Elisabeth was able to call the coach and go around to his house to pick it up - at 10:00 p.m.! 

The boys were amazing this morning.  I woke them up at 5:00 a.m., and we were on the road by 5:20!  They really moved fast.

Upon our arrival in Melbourne I must say that my heart sank at the sight of the Elizabeth Hostel.  It is your very basic back packers hostel - the sort of place you might find on Granville Street.  The boys all seem quite happy with the place, however.  They are in two spacious rooms.  Elisabeth, Maria and I, meanwhile, are in a room that looks and feels like a tiny prison cell. Just the place to spend a 20th wedding anniversary!  Nevertheless we did manage a very nice dinner, thank you, at Jelza's on Gertrude Street in the Fitzroy district, and there is a glimmer of hope that Elisabeth will put up with me  for a little while longer!

The boys spent the day in groups on their own exploring Melbourne, and they report that they find it much more exciting than Auckland!  On the "Must See" list is the Melbourne Zoo:  the world's third oldest zoo full of unusual animals.

Well, we will be up early tomorrow morning to shop for the 7:30 a.m. breakfast.  You already know the practice and game schedule from the itinerary.

Basically all is well.  Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

O.K., you can all stand tall and feel proud!  We played Trinity Grammar School today and beat them 4 - 2.  Trinity were a very good team with a number of state players and indeed one U-18 national.  We scored in the first 25 seconds of the first half and again in the first 25 seconds of the second half.  John Smythe scored 3 goals, motivated by the thought that Gord was probably giving Barrie a hard time.  Hamish scored his fourth goal of the tour to keep ahead of John and defend the family honour.  All joking aside, the team is really starting to gell nicely.  It was a very fast back and forth game, with our boys controlling most of it.  We ended with a penalty stroke competition, which our boys also won.

We actually started the day with a practice at the State Hockey Center - a facility to die for.  It was build for the Commonwealth Games and is beautiful.

The boys are having a great time and are representing club and country well (I hope I do not live to regret these words!!!).

It is late.  The hostel is really not that bad now that we are used to it.  People make a place and the people here are great.  Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

We started the day with the now traditional breakfast of cereal, muffins, yogurt, fruit, juice and toast.  Quite pleasant.  Elisabeth and I do the early morning shop, then wake the boys at about 7:00. 

After breakfast the boys and Maria went to train at the State Hockey Center while Elisabeth did laundry (3 hours worth!!!) and Brian and I went to the sports medicine clinic so that he could have a tender leg muscle looked at. The good news is that the boys' rooms now smells a great deal better what with the laundry done, and more importantly Brian will be good to go for the tournament games next week.

It was a blustery day with rain during the game against Ivanhoe.  Ivanhoe was a much weaker team than Trinity, but they held our boys to a 4 - 1 decision (Liam 2, Hamish 1 and Arne 1).  Again the opposing boys and their parents were very nice indeed, happy to be playing a little international competition and releaved that we did not blow them out of the water.  They were very nervous when they heard that we had beaten Trinity, who are apparently near the top of the heap.

Tonight Andrew, Elisabeth, Maria and I will be joining Aaron Guest's dad, Bob, for dinner, followed by Pirate of the Caribbean (Maria's special request). More laundry is under way - good grief.

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

Scotch College is a very nice private boys school on the outskirts of Melbourne.  It is considered one  of the better ones in Australia.  Beautiful grounds with acres of playing fields (including footie fields) but only a sand based field hockey turf.  They were a very good side, but we did beat them 2 - 1 (Liam and John), to conclude the pre-tournament leg of our tour batting 100%!  It feels good.

This afternoon we went to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to watch the local Hawthorne Hawks footie team take on the West Coast Eagles from Perth.  The local heroes led the entire way until the last 4 minutes of the game, when they capitulated ingeniously!  A tremendous game.

The boys are out on the town for their last night in Melbourne.  We check out tomorrow at 9:00 for the 11:30 flight to Sydney.  A day of rest will be good for the boys before the tournament starts on Monday.

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

O.K., we have arrived in Sydney.  The Sydney Central Youth Hostel has been ranked #1 in the world, and compared to our digs in Melbourne this is a 5 star hotel!!!  Good central location, everything you could ask for, and full of more field hockey players than you would care to count (both boys and girls).  We had a tournament dinner and all the players were mixed up so as to get to know each other.  The Aussie girls seem particularly interested in the Canadian boys while the Aussie boys are rather taken by the US girls.  Maria has met her team of very nice girls  so there is no doubt she will be having a good time. The "staff" (read, parents and coaches) of the other teams are terrific - it promises to be a week of excellent hockey and loads of fun to boot.

It will be early to bed for our boys, as wake up is 5:45 a.m.!  Some of the boys plan to wake up at 4:00 for the World Cup final.  Go France !?!

You can follow the Hockeyfest fun on the tourney website: www.hockeyfest.net  They should be posting pictures and perhaps more each day.

Oh, Elisabeth removed Kevin's stitches - sadly there was no need to shave his head ...

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

O.K. Let's rewind to last night.  Curfew was 10:30 p.m., but I think some of the girls teams were knocking on doors at 11:30 p.m.  My understanding is that our boys told them to go away - they are actually trying to take this tournament seriously!

About 1/3 of the team woke up at 4:00 a.m. to watch the Soccer World Cup.  Hard to argue about this, but not the good night's sleep a coach or manager would have hoped for.

Everyone was at breakfast at 6:20 a.m. sharp, and on the train at 6:43 a.m.  We arrived at the Olympic site at 7:33 and the boys had a good warm up for the first game against the Japanese. 

The Japanese were a very good team and beat our boys fair and square: 4 - 0 (3 - 0 at the half).  The Japanese dominated the entire game and we were barely able to get the ball out of our half.  Indeed, we were never able to carry the ball into their circle and did not get a single shot on their goal.  Having said that, our boys defended well.  Special mention must go to Connor and Kevin.  It should also be noted that the Japanese beat their next opponents 9 - 0 and several observers complimented us for holding them to only 4 goals.  Oh, and I should say that everyone played (Brian is back in form again).

The second game was much better.  It was a good physical game against an Aussie team from the countryside.  We led 1 - 0 (Hamish again!) at the half and had the momentum until Arne was sent off with a bloody cut to his knee.  This seemed to disrupt the flow of our game and while Arne was being patched up the Aussie's won two short corners and scored on the second.  Final score: 1 - 1.  A real shame that left the boys feeling disappointed. 

Sydney is a fantastic city.  It was beautifully warm in the sun during the day, and tonight there was a full moon and lots of stars in the cloudless night sky.  Some of the boys took the ferry over to Manley.  Elisabeth and I strolled down George Street to the harbour for a glass of wine in a cafe overlooking the harbour with all of its action, lights and of course the Sydney Opera House.  We had no idea Sydney was so animated and beautiful. 

Oh, Maria is enjoying her USA team - winless so far but a very nice bunch of girls.  Our boys watched her first game and had fun cheering her on.

Tomorrow is another day.  Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

This will be brief at I am short of time.  The boys did what they had to do today, winning both games against the two weakest teams in the tournament. 

The first game started with lots of chances but only one goal in the first half (John Smythe).  This was a little distrubing, but Andrew chose his words well at the break, and the final score was 6 - 0 (Brian with 2, Neal, Liam and Elliott)

The second game was similar - lots of missed chances.  Also a couple of very silly defensive mistakes cost us 2 goals.  Final score: 4 - 2.  It should have been 8 - 0.  Hamish, John, Arne and Neal scored for the Hawks. 

The tough games will resume tomorrow.  Japan will take first spot, and we want to finish 2nd or 3rd.  Finishing 4th would mean meeting Japan in the semis - not a desirable result!  But it will not be easy finishing top 4, especially if we continue failing to score when we should and if we keep making silly defensive errors.

The players have a dinner together with the other teams at the Hostel while the coaches and managers (Elisabeth is THE manager of our team, of course) will be going out together.  It should be fun.

Check out the tournament web site - there should be some pictures and commentary (I haven't actually taken a look myself yet).

Everyone is happy and healthy and getting lots of playing time.  Andrew does a good job of keeping the subs rolling.

Hope all is well in Vancouver. 

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

O.K.  This was a good day.  We won the first game against Western 4 - 0: John 2, Connor 1 off a penalty corner, and Hudson 1.  Special mention to Antoni for keeping the Western team off the score board with some fabulous saves.

We won the second game against the Sydney Barbarians 3 - 2: John 1 off a penalty corner, Brian 1 and Hamish 1, with special mention to John for setting up Hamish's goal.

With 4 wins, one tie and one loss (everyone lost to Japan), we believe that we are tied for second place with Sutherland.  Sutherland have 4 wins, one tie with the same Hunter team that we tied, and one loss to Japan (0 - 4: the same score that we suffered playing the Japanese).  We play Sutherland tomorrow.  If we  win we finish 2nd, and if we lose we finish 3rd.  Either way we play Sutherland again in the semi tomorrow afternoon.  Goal differential will matter if we tie Sutherland in the semi final - and we have not figured that out yet. 

Sutherland played Japan today and had several good scoring chances.  They are considered by some here to be one of the best club teams in Sydney.  They will be the most difficult team to beat after the Japanese.  So stay tuned and on the edge of your seats!

It will be an early night for our boys as breakfast is at 6:45 a.m., with departure for the train at 7:15.  Andrew and three of the boys went off to the Sydney Opera House to watch Romeo and Juliette.  The rest of the boys are staying at home, doing laundry and chilling out (go ahead, pinch me!)

The weather is decidedly colder now.  After Maria's second game (4:30) Elisabeth, Maria and I took the ferry back to the city from the Olympic site.  It's a 45 minute ride down the river.  The sun set and the city lights came on as we approached the city.  Quite spectacular.

Bye for now.

Patrick

Dear Fans:

I have less than 2 minutes on this computer.  We made it to the final: 0 - 0 and then strokes.  Antoni was in goal and saved two strokes to win the game.  I'll list the stroke takers later.  It was the best game the boys have played on this tour.  A real nail biter.

It was all the more interesting since we lost to the same team 7 - 2 in the morning pool game.  Hamish scored twice.  Sutherland did not see the semi game coming!  Great coaching.

Patrick

Dear Aussie Tour 2006 Fan Club:

Well, it is all over.   The boys put on a good show against Japan in the tournament final.  Japan scored at about the 5 minute mark.  Thereafter the game was back and forth, with pressure by both sides.  Towards the end of the first half the Japanese scored again.  Andrew gave a great half time talk to the boys, who were still pumped up and giving it everything they had.  Hawks pressed well in the second half, and as the clock started to tick down the Hawks players pushed hard into the Japanese end.  We had a number of good scoring chances and a penalty corner.  Unfortunately the Japanese broke out of the press and came down to score a third goal with about 4 minutes left.  Final score: 0 - 3.  A fine effort by the boys and a good end to a terrific tournament and tour!  Final tally for the tour: 9 wins, 2 ties and 3 losses (two against a national side!)  Very respectable for a club team!

Tonight all the teams will be partying together at the end of tournament dinner/dance.  There has been a lot of trading of tournament clothing - most of our boys will likely return home wearing Japanese jackets or training shirts. Lots of new friends have been made as well.  Andrew, Elisabeth and I have really enjoyed the tour.  The boys have been great.  Club and country have been well represented!

Oh, and Maria's team won the Trophy final!

We will be seeing as much of Sydney as we can over the weekend.  Quite a few of the boys are keen to try surfing at Manly and Bondi Beaches.  Others want to hit the zoo and the aquarium.  The weather is cooler now, with a heavy cloud cover but not much rain.  On Sunday night we'll all go out for dinner together as a team, and then it will be an early start on Monday for the long flight home.  Everyone is happy, healthy and a little tired.  See you back in Vancouver on Monday.

Bye for now.

Patrick

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