Today was a good day on the courts for Canadians down at the Lakeshore Field House.  Team Canada worked their way past Team USA, the German Rebels, and Great Britain by margins of 1 to 14 points, with the narrowest of victories over the Americans.  Meanwhile, the hastily assembled Can-Am Slam team, featuring Daryl and Stevie, beat the Texas Stampede in a high scoring affair, 41-40.  If the Can-Am team beat the Japanese tomorrow, they'll secure 9th place, which is the best they can do after losing their first two games on Saturday.  It looks like they are getting a better feel for each others styles after having played a bit more together.

While the tournament is far from being over, only a few teams can now win it.  In the top-4, we have New Zealand/USA  &  Canada/Australia.  The winners of those two games will see each other in the Demolition Derby Final, while the losers will play for 3rd/4th place.  The only change from the initial seedings was the swapping of positions between the US and GB teams, as the Americans easily handled the European Champions by a 9-point margin in their crossover game.

Similarly, the winner of the Germany/Frazier TNT game will meet the victor in the Lakeshore/Great Britain game, with the resulting winner taking 5th place at this world-class tournament.

Hopefully I'll hear something from the team soon, and if I do, I'll post their news up here.  G'night!

---

As it turns out, this just came in:

"The team played two excellent games today and one okay game.  The game against the U.S. (fancy that this was a morning game) was a squeaker with a number of errors.  After a good tongue lashing by the coach, they game back strong in the next two games.

The U.S. game was a one goal win for us, the Germany game was a 36-22 result, and the GB game was a 7 goal win.  We played the bench extensively in both the GB and Germany games, but found that we used the starters for a good portion of the U.S. game.

In other news, the Daryl-Steven duo (with Marco coaching) took the Texas Stampede by one goal.  They were pretty pleased.

We play Australia at 10:30am tomorrow morning.  If all goes well, we'll be playing NZ in the final again."

~That really IS all~

Team Canada played well yesterday in games against Lakeshore and the Can-Am Slam.  With no player seeing more than 16 minutes of court time, everyone got a chance to play.  The team continues to work out the kinks and fine tune the execution of plays as we prepare for the Paralympics Games in Athens.

The Team faces a tough challenge tomorrow morning at 09:00, as they take on the U.S.  In other action later today, Team Canada plays the German Rebels at 13:30 EST, followed by Great Britain at 16:30.

In terms of experience at the highest level, the European Champion Brits have the deepest team, with 6 returning athletes from their Sydney Paralympic team, and 9 from their 2002 World Championships team.  By contrast, the Americans have 1 athlete rostered from their gold medal winning team in Sydney, and 4 in total from their Worlds team from Gothenburg.  The Germans show similar stats, with 1 and 3, all of which are illustrated on our results page with small graphics ( Sydney 2000, Gothenburg 2002).

The only "upset" according to the seedings at the Derby yesterday was when the German club team, the Rebels, beat the Texas Stampede, which at this tournament, consists of more local players than their full roster, which typically lists Kiwi star Gerry Tinker (2.0) and former Boston Pittbull Bob Boothby (1.5).  The Germans won 44-31, and go on to play for the championship, while Texas meets three other teams in the battle for 9th.  The other teams on the 'wrong side' of the tableau include the Japanese national team, and two quickly created teams, the Can-Am Slam (which features Canadian National Squad players Steven Dunn (3.0) and Daryl Stubel (2.0)), and the East Beasts, who are being allowed to play with more than 8.0 points on the floor.

The final results are now posted on our results page.  The Ice moved up two spots on the ranking after losing a 1-point game to the TNT, and then defeated the German team by the same margin.  At one point in the 3rd quarter, the Ice were leading the TNT by 5, but the same sort of mistakes that have riddled the team all tournament long reared up once again.  Those problems will be worked on in drills and team meetings in the week of preparation before the next World Class tournament in Lakeshore, which starts in only five days.

It was a national team final game, bucking the long trend at this well-established international tournament.  The under-seeded Kiwis, who in my books should have gone in seeded 1st, were unable to run away from the Belgians, who many suspected would be rather tired by Sunday's games, as they only have a bare-bones roster of four, only three of whom are Belgians.  Subbing for their native Nickel starter Koen Delen was Swiss player Roger Suter, who fit in well with the Belgium system, and earned himself Best Point Five honours in so doing.  Iron Man Rugby - 'ya gotta give them credit!

The Hoveround Lightning ended up being the top USQRA club team at the tournament, placing 3rd after a somewhat yo-yo game, which echoed many of its other up-and-down games over the course of this tournament.  Belgium and Hoveround earned 5 of the 9 All-Tournament honours, with Canadians Ian Chan and Garett Hickling picking up the best high pointer awards.  For some reason I can't fathom, Mark Zupan of Texas earned the MVP Award, "leading" his team to an uninspiring 2-4 record, and 8th place overall.  I still think they were lucky to get past Tampa, and probably should have had a 1-5 record, but hey, that's just me.

Taking another look at the seedings, the under respected Kiwis gained 5 spots on their seeding, while the Ian Chan led San Diego Bushwhackers moved up 4 ranking spots.  The over hyped Australians and the under performing Brits both moved down 4 spots.  I would have seeded our Canada Ice team 10th, which if all other things were equal, would have placed them in a pool with Hoveround, Texas, and Tampa, but hey, you get what you get, and you make the best of it.  We moved up (again), gained some experience and valuable lessons, and it will make the team better.  I'm looking forward to the tournament next week! 

~That is all~

Today's games have now been updated on our Coloplast International page, and the results were mixed, with the Canada Ice team splitting their games today.

The first of today's games came against the TNT, who made significant changes to their lineup in the off-season, gaining some valuable players (namely Eddie Crouch, Cliff Chunn, and Wayne Romero) from the formerly #1 team in the US, the Lakeshore Demolition.  The winner of this game got to play an exhibition game against the Germans, while the loser would face the friendly neighbourly Maniacs, featuring our own Whitey.  The TNT took the game but I'm not sure if they suited up for their exhibition game or not.

Not to be forgotten in this tournament is the simple fact that this is quite simply the toughest tournament in the world this season, and that if you took the top three high pointers and the best deuce from any team, they would be facing an uphill climb to success.  Next week at the Demolition Derby, we'll be at full strength, and it promises to be a different affair altogether.

In a highlight for the day, Ian Chan led his Bushwhackers to an upset victory over the #1 tournament seeded Australians, looking sensational in the process. The best the Aussies can do in Tampa is 5th, which is also the best the Brits can hope for, after being taken out by 7 points by the Kiwis, who are continuing their winning ways.

The final four are the 3, 4, 6, and 8th seeded teams, namely Hoveround, Belgium, New Zealand, and San Diego, which just illustrates some of the problems with the original ranking, which was bizarre to say the least.  It makes you wonder just how the higher seeded teams got their seedings.  Oh yeah, Vinnie made the seedings.  'Nuff said.

Fighting for 5th place are the 1, 2, 5, and 7th seeded teams: Australia, Great Britain, California Quake, and the Texas Stampede.

9th-14th place will be decided amongst the 9th to 14th seeded teams, as none of the lower seeded teams were able to escape from their interment in the lower levels of the pools.  Frazier TNT, German Rebels, Lakeshore Demolition, Casco Bay Navigators, Canada Ice, and the host team, the Tampa Generals will all fight for pride and 9th place, although the best that Maine and Tampa can do now is 13th, and escape the ignomy of finishing DFL.  The Ice will move up from the ranking, but how far that will be remains to be seen.

That's all for now.  I need some hot chocolate, as I'm still recovering from my day at the Ice Bowl, where it turned out being -24ºC or -36ºC with the wind chill.  That's -11ºF and -33ºF with the wind chill factor in the outdated format, which I barely remember learning in the 70s.  I think our local Food Bank will be happy with the food & money raised today.  Cheers!

Many of you may have already checked on the scores from the tournament, which are available on our site for your convenience.  Daytime updates (for reasons outlined below) will be quicker today on the USQRA site, courtesy of John Bishop.

Our first day on the court in the Armoury didn't go as well as hoped for our #13 ranked Canadian team.  Many of our key players were suited up for their USQRA club teams at this tournament, with Dave Willsie sporting Hoveround Lightning colours, Garett Hickling representing the California Quake, Ian Chan playing with the San Diego Bushwhackers, and Mike Whitehead anchoring the Casco Bay Navigators.

Our chairs arrived late, which was frustrating since we were playing in the first time slot, and players were scrambling to strap in and warm up in the typically frigid environment of the old Armoury, which features 70' high ceilings.  As you can imagine, it's hard to heat that size of facility, and quads feel it first.  A large number of these teams are very close to each other in depth of talent, and it was only a few momentary lapses in concentration or execution that decided some of the wins and losses in today's games for all of the 14 teams.

However, it's still encouraging that the balance of our team was able to come within 3 pts of the #5 team in the world, the small but mighty team from Belgium.  Our second game of the day would see us fall short of Ian's Bushwhacker team, which is ranked #5 in the world.  Our Canada Ice team would have had to beat at least two of the teams in it's pool in order to advance to the medal round.  As it stands now, we'll be playing the TNT later today in a seeding game for the other side of the tableau, the one nobody wants to play in.  Regardless of which team wins our noon game, the TNT and ourselves will be up against the following teams in the fight for 9th place: Germany, Tampa Generals, Casco Bay Navigators, and the Lakeshore Demolition.

You may have noticed that I have one score listed differently from the USQRA site, as my sources tell me that the Aussies beat the Brits in their exhibition game.  Those exhibition games were made possible by the unbalanced pools in this 14-team tournament, and although it would have been ideal to have 16 teams, I'm sure the athletes and coaches in the exhibition games appreciate the efforts the organizers have made to give them good training opportunities in lieu of tournament games.  Pheonix probably stayed home since the Aussies claimed their Kid, and they are a very different team without him.  Texas, playing without Gerry Tinker, was lucky to get past Tampa, who had a 4-point lead in the 4th quarter of their game.  Noticeably missing from the Tampa tournament are the speedy Japanese, who will be at the Demolition Derby next weekend.

I won't be able to update the scores until after supper time, as I'm running an Ice Bowl tournament to help support Ottawa's Food Bank.  It's -19ºC outside today, without the wind chill factor, which is slightly lower than -2ºF.  With the windchill factor, it's -30 to -34ºC (-22 to -29ºF) out there.  Tampa is looking pretty good to me now, despite the gator problem.  More news to follow when I defrost my fingers.

Welcome to the new site.  Stay tuned for a few format changes and new linked content, as well as news from Tampa, which will start tomorrow.

~Don~

Now, on to other things.  This URL for this blog is about to be changed, once and for all, to a new one which will be more generic.  Once changed, I won't be able to easily access this site, nor will it be updated at this address.  I expect the new URL for the this blog to be http://rugby-rj.blogspot.com, which makes more sense than naming it after a particular location where the team is competing.  I was hoping for a shorter address, but the "rrj" version of a Blogspot address was already taken by a site that looks long dormant.

In the meantime, check out the new pages we have on the CWSA web site on the tournaments in TAMPA and BIRMINGHAM.

See you at the new address!

Among the many Canadian National Team athletes in South Florida for training and/or some vacation prior to the double-decker World Class Tournament Tour (or the "Gator 'n Grits Tour" if you're so inclined) are 3-time World Championships MVP Garett Hickling (3.5), and perennial tournament allstar Daniel Paradis (0.5).  Garett and Daniel ran in to some other wheelchair rugby athletes the other day, who actually aren't here for the Coloplast International tournament in Tampa, but rather for some extensive training in sunny Florida.

The group they met were from Sweden, and comprised of wheelchair athletes from a number of different sports.  The Swedish rugby guys hadn't seen the sport at a high level, and their tournament experience was limited to a European 2.0 tournament that was held last season.  Much to the surprise of the Canadians, none of the Swedes brought their sport chairs along for their Florida training, but the Canucks were willing to let them use their chairs, and Daniel's 0.5 chair (made by Stéphan Charbonneau of St. Jérôme, QC) was especially well received by the Swedes, who were quite happy to scrimmage with the experienced Canadians who were down in Florida for our own training project.

My apologies for getting the second part of this story out so late, but other projects at the office have kept me rather busy.  Where we left off, the maple-syrup enhanced Rattlers and the Quebec Impact were both 2-0, and the Annihilators had done their thing to the Hoveround guys.

In the meantime, another Spokes Ableman story by the Hoveround coach, Ed Hooper, has made its way to the USQRA web site, and talk has turned to predictions of the upcoming world-class 12th Annual Coloplast International in Tampa.  This of course, is followed by the equally tough Demolition Derby, which is being held at the great facilities they have at the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham, AL.

En tout cas, the first game on Saturday involved the Quebec Impact and the Hoveround Lightning, and if you slept in a bit too late, you could have been forgiven, as it was a classic game of control.  Quebec coach, Benoit Labrecque, had plenty of time overnight to do some math, and a narrow point-gap loss was fine in his books, as it would still secure his team the #1 spot in Pool B, as both Hoveround and London would have identical win/loss records, but the tie-breaking rule would be in Quebec's favour.  Kudos to Quebec for a disciplined game.

After that slow-paced game, things picked up a bit, with the high-seeded teams holding court over the low-seeds.  The South Florida vs. London game became a one-point affair with the Rattlers coming up ahead of the tired Annihilators as the final buzzer sounded.  The day ended with the experienced Tampa team being frustrated by the fast-paced Impact, with Quebec running away to a 13-point margin of victory.  Looking especially impressive was Quebec's Fabien Lavoie, who distinguished himself in New Zealand two months ago, as he's once again pushed up his game a few notches.

Sunday's games had Hoveround in the bad side of the tableau, which is a place they are not accustomed to, and where they won't likely be later this season with our mutually elusive deuce, Mister Willsie.  Meanwhile, in the bronze medal game, Dave's London boys fell out of the medal hunt to the well-balanced Tampa team.  Congrats to the Generals!

The final saw the Quebec Impact against many of their Canadian teammates, currently wearing Rattler attire.  The Impact played a highly disciplined game, with both Steven Dunn and Raymond Lizotte stepping up their games to the next level.  They were to go on to win the game and the Knock 'n Roll, which is the first major tournament win for the Impact, and hopefully, the start of a new trend.

On another rugby related note, the polished up version of the IWRF RULES FOR WHEELCHAIR RUGBY, 2002-2006 have now been posted on the CWSA web site.  The Appendices are also cleaned up, and are available in the zipped package as PDF files.  The entire download is about 500k or so in size.  If you forget this address, it is permanently linked on the main page of the CWSA web site, and is highlighted in yellow.

Out of the blue, I've heard the following question asked too many times to not answer it.

"How far away is it to Jupiter?"

Well, we here at the Rugby Road Journal don't often talk about Astronomy, nor was it meant as a Jeopardy question, nor will I pronounce the name of that celestial body in the accent of it's native people, as my oh-so-articulate Canadian cousin on the popular US TV show does, to the annoyance of many.

I'll just answer the question. Jupiter (and the Big Red Spot where teams are Impacting each other so hard as if to Annihilate one another and create a few more little red spots) is on the east coast of Florida, about an hours drive north from our south Florida training centre in Margate, FL, about a 3.5 hour drive from our Head Coach's home in Tampa, where the Generals live, and a 4 hour drive east from the home base of Dave Willsie's #2 ranked USQRA team from Sarasota, the Hoveround Lightning.

Canadians are everywhere!  Seems it's cold up here, although I hadn't noticed, although my car certainly has.  Yesterday was pushing -40? C here with the wind chill factor, and Gigi, my Gas Guzzling Green Goblin of a car refuses to allow her hood up, so I can't even plug her in.  [Don't even go there...]  Now she forces me to sleep on the bus.

Marco Dispaltro, our High Performance Coordinator, is coaching the team with the most CANCON (or 'Canadian Content' for those who aren't radio geeks).  Featured on his #1 seeded team, the South Florida Rattlers, are Canadian co-captain and 3-time World Championship MVP Garett Hickling, a pair of deuces from the Canadian National Team from chilly Edmonton (Allan Chartrand), and windy London (Susan McRae).  Along with the "pumped up" version of the Rattlers, are 2.5 Justin Patterson, who normally plays alongside Garett with the #3 ranked USQRA team, the California Quake, and the keen regular cast of always improving local players. 

This year's edition of the Knock 'n Roll (who came up with that groaner of a name, anyways?) has a larger group of "A" teams than in previous years, and several of the games will be extremely hard fought. The team composition and schedule for the eight teams are on the Calendar page of John Bishop's USQRA site:

Teams involved in this year's edition of the Knock 'n Roll are:

1 - South Florida Rattlers (the pumped up version)
2 - Hoveround Lightning (USQRA #2)
3 - Tampa Generals (USQRA #10)
4 - Qu?bec Impact (CWSA #3)
5 - London Annihilators (made up most of the CWSA #2 ranked team)
6 - Pasadena Texans (USQRA #13)
7 - Shepherd Smash (also coached by a Canadian!)
8 - Chicago Bears (USQRA #18)

For more info on the Rattlers, you can always check out their equipment manager's Official Blurry Picture Site.

In last year's edition, Tampa squeaked by Hoveround by one goal in the final, while Mike Whitehead's Maine team got past the London Annihilators by a similar margin to lock up 3rd place.

The 2004 Edition of the Knock 'n Roll is only half way over, but already has seen a major upset, with Dave Willsie's highly motivated #5 ranked London Annihilator team beating his friends on his USQRA team, the #2 ranked Hoveround Lightning, by a comfortable 8-point margin, 40-32.  Dave is the consummate impact-player, (and the CWSA's Male Athlete of the Year in 2003) and is very proud of his hard-working team of local players from his hometown of London, Ontario.

The Chicago team has four unclassified players, many of them high-pointers.  In fact, there are SEVEN 3.5 listed players at this one 8-team tournament, which is more than I've noticed at similar sized tournaments anywhere!  Hopefully those new Windy-City players will fall in to place where they are expected to be classified, and that no injuries incur at the tournament.

I'm waiting to hear some updates from my Snowbirds, but they should only try to reach me by e-mail at don.lane AT rogers.com.  More later!