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.