I spoke with Say the other day and all is well with his girlfriend, who is now recuperating at home after her traffic accident.

Say had a good time on the tour, and was both surprised and motivated by the level of the competition in Warm Springs and at the Mini-International Tournament. The rest of the world is improving quickly and he was impressed with their work ethic and speed.

On Thursday, the team had a day off except for some video sessions at the hotel. There wasn't any transportation available anyways, but since about half of the guys on the team have a cold now, they appreciated a day of relative rest.

On the previous day, our bench played the Australian bench in a pickup game. The Aussies had star 3.5 Brad "The Kid" Dubberley and their strong 2.5 Steve Porter play most of the game, while Gee did not play at all, and Ian Chan only played in a part of the game. The Canadians won by a two-point margin. :-)

At the Demolition Derby in Birmingham, Alabama, the two Canadian teams play a total of four games today. #8 seeded Canada Ice met the #4 seeded team, the Texas Stampede this morning in a 9:00 a.m. game. The Ice lost 41-37 to the #3 seeded team in the current USQRA Club Rankings. The Ice went down by four goals early in the first quarter, and played pretty much even after that but was unable to close the gap. Both Canadian teams are feeling the effects of a nasty cold, which has made the rounds throughout the group, as well as the depleted numbers of players after both Martin Larocque and Say Luangkhamdeng returned home. Garett is not expected to play in the Nordiques games today.

The next games at the Demolition Derby for the Canadians are:

1:30 #5 Canada Nordiques vs. #1 Lakeshore Demolition
3:00 #8 Canada Ice vs. #9 Suncoast Lightning
4:30 #5 Canada Nordiques vs. #12 Kentucky TNT

USQRA seedings for these teams put Lakeshore as the #1 team in the USA, with the Suncoast Lightning seeded 7th while Kentucky sits in 16th place.