The Flight
I arrived at the Ottawa airport a little early, so I figured I would check out the maple leaf lounge since I’ve been a long time Aeroplan member and Star Alliance silver. I walked in and it was like a traveler’s heaven! Leather Lazy boy type seating everywhere, self-serve all you can eat buffet, self serve all you can drink and so much more! I have to ask myself; why I have not taken advantage of this place for the last 9 years? I can now say that this will become a weekly routine of mine before games.
I got to enjoy the lounge a little longer than expected because my plan for my flight to Edmonton has been circling us above for the last 25 minutes. We randomly got hit with a massive snowstorm out of nowhere so I can assume this will become a long travel day.
Since I was taking advantage of my elite status with Air Canada, I gave them a call to see if I could use one of my upgrades and to my luck there was a seat available. I will be flying to Edmonton up in the first class cabin, which will at least make this long voyage as comfortable as possible.
Game Day
This morning we start shoot around at 10 am, and get to the Rexall Place nice and early. We always go through a good long warm up at morning shoot around before we go to work. When were on the road we give Mitch Belisle warm up duty, which means he leads us through our warm up routine and stretching. We get a good pace going to get the sticks warm and leg’s moving before we go into the game plan. We spend some extra time fine-tuning before tonight’s game, and the boys are focused to get a W.
After shoot around we all go to The Spaghetti Factory for team lunch. Every chance we get to eat as a team is great because it lets us have some fun and use our time together to bond. In the NLL we don’t get as much time as other professional leagues to be together as a team. In this league you really have to use every opportunity you get to come together. Every time I eat at the Spaghetti Factory I get the same thing, their Traditional Lasagna and its always just as good as the last.
We head back to the hotel to lie down for a couple hours before we have to head back to the arena for game time. Andrew Suitor and I lay back and put on the Patriots and Ravens game and catch a little nap.
Game Time
We get to the arena, and as always we start to go thought our game day routine. I have to thank the Rush as they got our team a travel container of coffee, which is not always provided by teams. When it is like this game I am super thankful as it’s a huge part of my game day routine (I know it sounds so petty but we as athletes are creators of habit and do not like to stray from that habit)
The game started off at a high tempo end-to-end game with neither goalie really letting in anything. We were able to get on the scoreboard first which is always a battle every team wants to win. We were able to score two goals early but that would be it for the majority of the first half. Unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for Edmonton, they were able to get some momentum and really go on a run. Our offence was generating some decent chances but their goalie stood strong and we went in to the half down by a lot. This was familiar territory as last year we had some struggles like this and were not able to recover from it. The difference this time was that our Captain and coaches were not accepting our effort and demanded more. Our coaches held each one of us accountable for what had gone wrong in the first half and really sparked something before we came out of the locker room to start the second half.
The energy to start the second half was great, but unfortunately the result was still much the same. Edmonton continued to score and we did not. The difference in the 3rd quart was the quality of the shots we were taking was much better than before. Our defense was playing great and Higgins came in and starting standing on his head. Anytime your back end is playing like ours it gives an offence confidence and that is exactly. We were able to sore a couple of goals at the end of the 3rd quarter, which truly brought some life and belief into our team. In the 4th quarter our back end continued to play unbelievably well and our offence started to click. We were able to start finding the back of the net and brought the game right back into reach. We tied the game up at 10 and then Miles did exactly what he did his entire collegiate career and come up with an unbelievable no look over the shoulder goal. Once we were able to get the lead we refused to let it go and continued to score.
It is always great to get a win in this league, but the way we won really showed the character on this team. Not a single player gave up at any point of that game and we truly came together as a team.
We are all dying to get back on the floor together, we truly broke the barrier for people within our locker room to believe in what we are capable of and to never quit on each other.
I could not be anymore proud to be a part of this organization.
