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Tour Diary

The Pre-Tour

Pre-Tour Match vs. Hawks 5

We played our first pre-tour match February 18 against which I believe is Hawks 5, I thought playing for the first time as a team was okay, needed improvement but for the first time as a team the game ended great. I thought that playing early in the morning was tough on us as the first half was terribly slow and quiet. It was so quiet that I didn't no if the team was still there on the field, we made no noise at all to help each other out, but with a little bit of a talking to by Andrew we knew that to play like a team we must communicate.

In the first half we were mostly whacking the hell out of the ball hoping that it will get far enough up the field to get a goal, I did not think that was very much help at all because it always got to the other team and over to our side of the field, its not very helpful to just give the ball away if you no what I mean… but I think we knew that after we did it a couple more times.

The second half was still a little slow but our communication was improving a lot. I thought that Andrew was crazy to put me in sweeper, I have never played there before and I hope in previous games he will not put me there. I think you all saw what I did when the ball came to me; I hit it off the end line on purpose (I thought that when you got the ball you had to hit it out. obviously I was wrong because its in soccer you are suppose to do that.) Oopsies …my mistake! I think that will show Andrew that I'm no good as sweeper because I don't know what to do with the ball when I get it.

Everyone played really well in the end of second half and the third half we started to pass the ball not hitting it to the other team. We couldn't hit the ball because Andrew gave us the death wish that we could only sweep the ball. I thought that worked really well because we had control for pretty much the whole game after that. Only a few times the other team would break through our defence line on a break away, with very little control I thought. Everyone played 100% in the third half; it really showed how much we improved by from the first half to the third half. I think when we get to Holland and play like we did in the third half with improvements; we could possibly have a great season and hopefully get to the finals…what am I saying…we have to get to the finals were not going all the way to Holland for nothing!!

In the end we won 4-2, goals by Jackie, Jen and two by breeze…sorry for the people that got the assists I was to focused in the game to know who the assists where by. But everyone did awesome and I hope to see you all at the next practice! Woot! So excited for Holland… and I want to let you all no that my 16^th birthday will be when we are in Holland so we better win the games on April 10!!! Yeah! Party!!

Peace and cheers to all

Katrina # 10

Pre-Tour Match vs. U18 Hawks

Last Friday, March 3 the Canucks played a terrific game against a U18 team. We played outstandingly. In the first third, we held our own at 0-0. In the second third, they scored twice.  That's when we discovered we could pull it together as a team. We scored two well-executed goals in the third bringing the score up to 2-2. And in the last minutes of the game, the other team scored an unfortunate goal which made the final score 3-2 for them.  GO TEAM!!!

After the game the two teams met at White Spot for dinner.  It was a festive gathering of hungry and tired players, coach, and assorted parents. We munched, photographed using high tech devices (cell phones), and became a little too boisterous. It was a great game and team bonding experience. The experience would have been ideal if someone (no names mentioned) had not booked the turf for a 7:00 practice the next morning. 

Klara Staniszkis  -  Holland Tour 2006

The Tour

Thursday April 6^th – Friday April 7^th 2006

Our adventure begins! We all met at the airport and boarded our flight. Everyone tried to sleep but everyone was too excited. We met "Mark" from Oxford (England) and his buddy Jimmy – they taught us slang! He was very posh, but his shirt was scruffy!

After our flights we arrived at our Christian Youth Hostel, located in the wonderful red-light district – which was a true taste of Amsterdam culture.

We topped for dinner and explored the s hops a bit. Then we explored the even more wonderful blue light district after returning home for the night.

Saturday April 8^th 2006

Our second day of the tour began very early. We all work up at 3:00am due to the time change difficulties. However, we managed to fall back asleep until 7:45am when we woke up for breakfast.

Lots of the team chose #4 thinking that a ham and cheese sandwich is not breakfast food, but that was possibly the worst choice of their lives! The yogurt and muesli was so gross and sour. It looked terrible and tasted worse than it looked.

We left the breakfast psyched to finally go sight seeing, but when we got outside our excitement was washed away by rain – Ahh!! The rain just poured in buckets. Sixteen soaking wet girls all huddled together for warmth. We thought people would think we were a lesbian support group. We went on a canal tour and then to the Ann Frank Museum. We then walked to the pancake house, but to our dismay it didn't open until 12pm so everyone had to stand in the rain for 40 minutes or use the precious heat in the stores while pretending to 'browse' at anything! We finally got into the pancake house. Thinking we would be adventurous by tasting the molasses that was on the table. Not a good call!

Next we went to the Rembrandt Museum. That was a very cultural experience…aka boring. After that people went their separate ways. Our group went shopping. We were total tourists… we went into every single souvenir shop. Then we went back to the hostel to put on more layers because we were freezing our butts off.

We went for dinner at "oh to go" for a sandwich and a smoothie. After dinner we walked back to the hostel and on our way back we got nearly pick pocketed. At the hostel we met these beauty English guys…no…they weren't drunk… We learned how to peace the correct way, got serenaded and compared phrases. They taught us English…not British! We taught them Canadian 1, 2 free!!! We then called it a night.

Word of the day: brilliant

Word of the day yesterday: posh

Sunday April 9, 2006

We started off our day bright and early with a good awful damn-run (because we actually ran along the damns). We sprinted for about 25 minutes but it seemed like hours. It was so cold out and our legs/lungs were numb! We had freezing showers because we were late getting in (because of the damn-run) and all the hot waster was gone.

We peaced to the bakery and got strawberry whipped cream croissants and walked back to the hostel and on the way back some guy told us not to eat ham because we would get fat like Beyonce.

We had a little miscommunication and went into different groups. We went shopping – it was the best shopping day – everyone got amazing purchases (cheap shoes and clothing). We took a break for lunch at "oh to go" and ate in the damn square.

Our goal for the day was to get five pictures of hot guys. We went on a H.M.H (hot man hunt) we started off strong with a hot group of back packers. One guy even dropped his pants. We carried on and found 2 guys on 2 bikes. We are going to have to finish off our mission in Rotterdam.

After we went back to the hostel we left on a bus for a hockey match but ended up in the wrong city so instead we watched 40 year old men attempt to play soccer. Then we left and want back to Amsterdam for some last minute shopping before the shops closed. We then peaced for dinner at the "oh to go" then we just sate in the hostel and did some emails home and played some board games. 

Monday April 10^, 2006

At seven o'clock Monday morning our team, puffy-eyed and grumpy from itensly celebrating Katrina's birthday the night before, awoke packed and ready to go. Well, for the most part anyways. Managing to squeeze a full 40 minjutes of sleep, we got up and tried to clean our hopelessly trashed room. After packing, we hurried to breakfast to eat the delicious stale toast and sour yogurt which was topped with some dry cereal. We arrived surprised and shocked to see no one but two choices of junice! Wow! What a treat, we hadn't been this excited since we first arrived in the red/blue light district!

After finishing the…I mean, "amazing" breakfast, we headed out to the courtyard to wait for Andrew to pick us up. Saying an emotional goodbye to all of our firens: the girls / guy / a little but of both hookers dancing in the windows, hobos, and just strange people, we began to wait. The, twenty, thirty, forty minutes passed and still there was no sight of Andrew or the parents. We decided that he must have taken a few too many u-turns since he was so late, but nevertheless, we quickly let that one slide when he pulled up in a pimped new car. With the help of Andrew's packing skills, we managed to ram our suitcases into the trunk and decided to leave Amsterdam and make our way, eventually… to Rotterdam.

Thing really started looking up when we managed to loose a car after 4 full minutes of travelling. I mean 4 full minutes of nothing going wrong on this trip. We had to have been making some progress! Well, it turns out that driving wasn't on of our fortes because Big Daddy (Andrew) put more time making u-turns than actually driving in the right direction

Twelve stalls and one dead walkie-talkie later, we agreed to stop in a small town on the ocean to grab a quick bite to eat. Our team must have doubled the population because the town was completely deserted. The only inhabitants turned out to be some old men drinking and smoking in the bar – with thanks to them, I probably have the black lung! Sitting on the benches and watching tumble weeds roll by, we decided we really needed to get to our next destination.

We then made our way to den Haag and stopped to stretch our legs and check out the town. Upon arriving, we found some guys; more like miniature Justin Timberlake's pumped on estrogen pills dancing around and trying to impress up with their soccer abilities. But, after 12 birthday kissed to Katrina, 4 email addresses, and 4 photos, we hopped into the car and continued onto our final destination: Rotterdam.

The estimated 20 minute drive to Rotterdam tuned into about a two hour long drive because our navigator, or FPA, was uh, 'broken.' A more technical term to describe the reason why we almost drove all the way back to Amsterdam was because the map was actually upside down!

When we finally reached Rotterdam (after about 13 million detours) we headed out to grab a bite to eat. At least we knew that nothing concerning food could go wrong… Well, to make long story short, Brusers Beer turned into yet another disaster! Our waitress (who was completely unfamiliar with the English language) also did not quite understand how to properly take orders because Emaly got a wrong order twice and Rachael didn't even receive a meal! But, on the bright side, I did improve my Dutch. Apparently ketchup salad translated into grilled chicken salad and one to two ribs actually means four pounds of meat on a plate.

Finally, after two long hours of confusion, hunger, and anger we decided all we really wanted some sleep. After all, something simple as sleeping couldn't go wrong – or could it J

Holly Peck

Tuesday April 11 2006

It was still dark outside when the damn phone rang at 6:30am. Practice was at 9:00 but since we were obviously going to get lost we have to leave at 7:30.

Breakfast was at 7:00am and way better than the food at the hostel. We left the hotel on time and got lost (again) about 20 times on the way to practice.

Practice was a beauty and the facilities were intense. After practice we peaced to the cheese factory. It reeked! Everyone was complaining but it was a cultural experience.

After the factory we 'visited' the windmills. During this we toured inside a windmill and got to the top by climbing 80 flights of Anne Frank stairs. After almost killing ourselves in the windmill we waited in the parking lot for the browsing adults. While they were browsing we were trying to keep amused by knocking on transom trailer doors asking questions. Finally the adults were ready to leave and we headed to the wooden shoe factory. It was a short but sweet tour and at the end most of us bought little mini-wooden shoes but Emaly went full out and bought a wearable pair! We finished buying and out at the cars we presented Andrew's aunt with flowers and a card and thanked her for taking us out on such a great day. Reflecting back on the day most of us agreed the cheese factory was the best regardless of the smell, since it was so interesting.

Next we drove back to the pitch for our game which we have no comment on, except for that they were extremely skilled. After the game we went into the clubhouse and had an awesome time with our opposition. They told us about all the good clubs to go to and promised to call us the following day. By the way, the food was so good – the first real food in about 6 days! Sadly we left the clubhouse and drove back to our hotel.

At the hotel we had a team meeting and discussed the game etc. After the meeting we checked our emails and we had received an email from the soccer guys we met the  other day. They wanted to meet up with us. While on the computer some English guys came to us and started talking to us. One of them went on the internet and starting taking ransom quizzes which were hilarious. Soon their teacher came down and told them it 'retire' to bed so we decided to go as well. We all went to bed and as soon as our heads hit the pillow we were asleep.

Wednesday April 12, 2006

The day started like all the others so far. We got up around 7:30ish, had some breakfast and headed to our practice. Our practice was at Victoria Hockey Club. We were actually able to find the complex without many u-turns this time!

We started practice off with our regular warm up only with music this time. The music must have done something to us because we had a really good energetic practice. After practice people showered and changed for the day ahead of us.

We drove into downtown Rotterdam and parked. Some people want to get cash, others had a hard time cashing traveller's checks and others waited around for everyone to finish. Also at this stop everyone got their laundry done. Thank-god because everyone stank so badly!

Then we parked the cars and did whatever we wanted to . Most people bought lunch; some went to "oh' while others had some very healthy nutritious "Burger King." After eating a groups of people went and played football with some English guys. The others went and shopped.

After spending time in the town we had to concentrate on the game ahead of us. The game was okay, an improvement over our first. I believe we only lost about 6-0ish. Once again we had a very fun dinner/social with the team we played. We came back to the hotel and had a team meeting. There we chatted about the game and did a lottery to decide cars for the next day. Most people stayed up because we had a sleep in day tomorrow.

Thursday April 13 2006

Today's car ride never seemed to end. I gazed out the window at the boring scenery and fell asleep. I woke up five minutes later only to find out we were only five minutes closer. Our cars got switched around, when we heard this we though we were royally screwed but we sucked it up and dealt with it. After a quick cat nap we arrived at our hostel in the middle of nowhere. On a positive note, we only made three u-turns and stalled twice!

The hostel in Boxtel was a lot like a farm. We dropped off our stuff and went to a field hockey store and browsed around some other local stores. All that shopping tired us out and we decided to get some food. Unfortunately we lost a couple troops and had to wait around until they found us. But by now everyone is familiar about how bad we are with directions. So at 8:30 we arrived at the pizza place and cowed down. Late that night we went back to the farm hostel and had a major swearing fest because we couldn't figure out how our sheets worked

In conclusion, we discovered some girls were just not cut out for farm life and although it was quite an experience, we gladly moved onto the next destination the following day.

Friday April 14, 2006

Today was our last day of travelling before we got down to business in Valkenswaard and competed into the 17^th Annual Hockey Tournament. The group woke up bright and early at our Stay Okay Youth Hostel, which happened to be in the middle of a forest beside a small farm. We didn't smell too great considering most of us did not have the luxury of showering due to our time constraints the night before. Regardless, we piled ourselves and our bags back into the cars and sped off to Eindhoven, completing a few 'Schouten-abouts' along the way.

Everyone got a chance to go shopping and stock up on groceries for the last time at "oh" once we reached the central station at Eindhoven so that we had snacks for the tournament.

The rest of the day was spent at Valkenswaard, where we explored the club that was to host the tournament and watched an intense match of men's Dutch club hockey. Unlike Vancouver's facilities, there were two water based turfs, two grass fields and a sand based turf. In addition, there was a central clubhouse and a tent area for daily meals. The staff was friendly and they made sure that we met up with our billets that evening. Meeting our billets was an amazing experience. We had the opportunity to step into another culture and get to know local hospitable people. It has been a busy day, but the tournament and the dance are just around the corner.

Saturday April 15, 2006

Early on Saturday morning everyone wok up in their billets houses to eat breakfast. We all met at the field at 8:3am and we had our first match against a Dutch team and we lost by a score of 6-0. However, things became better at our next match were we played the USA team and tied them 1-1. Brianne scored a terrific goal that boosted the whole team's confidence. For our third game we played the Lithuanian team on the sand based turf and unfortunately we couldn't pull it together and lost by a score of 4-0. Our forth game was played on grass and it was much to our team's advantage and it really did show because we had our first win against the team from Germany. In between our 4^th and 5^th game we had a lunch break and it was good to get something to eat. Our 5^th game was also on a grass field and the team was pumped to play. We tied 0-0 to the HOD2  team, but personally I believe we deserved to win. Our last game was on turf again and we played another Dutch team. Unfortunately we lost but the entire team was excited for the dance later on in the evening.

Later on in the evening after we showered and got ready, the dance started at 8:30pm. Everyone was so excited and Canada defiantly started the party. Everywhere you looked you'd see at least one Canadian girl jumping around and dancing. The music they played was exactly how we predicted it – fast, euro-dancing techno – but everyone was enjoyed themselves and having a good time. Later on in the night everyone sot of split off… but I'll have it at that. At 12:30 everyone was picked up and taken back to their billet houses where everyone got a much needed sleep for another exciting day ahead.

PS: Personally – Canadian guys are way better dancers but European guys are 10 times hotter.

Sunday April 16, 2006

Happy Easter Everyone! So we woke up early for no reason, our first game was at 10:00am but we were there at 8:00am. We decided the couches at the Hostel would be a good napping place. We had better results than on Saturday, one win and four ties. Holly C, Krista and Nicole were our goal scorers.

After our games we went on a mad hunt to find people to trade with. Canada cloths were the it  thing – we had everyone asking for our sweats.

Closing ceremonies were a shocker for us. We got awarded the best sportsmanship (haha) trophy. We were giving it to the umpires during the games but still managed to win the sportsmanship award! The cup was the biggest trophy and it looks like we won first place!

We stayed in the hostel the last night with most of the teams and we decided to pull and all nighter – woo! Red bull became our life support but some went a little overboard with it and crashed. Many of the other teams were up with us, the Irish were drunk, and an Austrian got paid 40 Euros to steak though the hostel wearing only a g-string. The night went on and before we knew it we were leaving. We Said our goodbyes and off we went.

Words of the day: slick, posh

Sentence of the day: 'Hey there big fellow.'

Monday April 17, 2006

Monday was a day of sleeping en route to the airport due to the 5:00am departure from Valkenswaard. We did some last minute shopping, boarded our plan to London and enjoyed our company for the short flight. One last eight hour flight from London to Vancouver was spent chatting and reminiscing about how much fun we had during our stay in Holland. Holland 2006 was a great trip and will always be well remembered!

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