When last we here here at the Rugby Journal, our players had just wrapped up a set of back-to-back tournaments in the States, notably the Coloplast International and the Demolition Derby.

Since then, players involved in our Florida Project, led by our High Performance Coordinator, and co-editor here at the RRJ, Marco Dispaltro, and our head coach, Benoit Labrecque, have been busy at a couple of western US tournaments. Their first event, under the banner of the Quebec Impact, was held in Denver, CO, while the second one, under the familiar red and white of Team Canada, was in Phoenix, Arizona.

In Denver, the Blue and White boyz came in 2nd behind the back-to-back-to-back winning team from Phoenix. Whitey and his Hoveround Gunners took 3rd place, in an 8-team field. The Quebec team, self-funded to this tournament, comprised of a majority of players from their anticipated Nationals team, including:

1.0 Jeannot Demers
1.5 Patrice Simard
2.0 Raymond Lizotte
3.0 Fabien Lavoie

Phoenix pushed past Quebec by a 5-goal margin, while Hoveround humbled the Harlequins by la même margin to merit a medal. (Oh man, Stuie's gonna get me for that one!)

At the Phoenix Heat Rave tournament, the Heat won their 4th straight tournament, and their speedy Japanese import, Shin Shimakawa, won his 4th MVP selection in a row. This time the margin was only 2 goals over Canada.

This tournament featured the largest sized teams I've ever noticed at any rugby tournament, ever, with the visiting Denver Harlequins fielding 17 players, and the Texas Stampede sending 14.

I'm hoping to hear a bit more about the Canadian overtime win over Texas... more on that from Benoit or Marco...

Meanwhile, check out our latest promotion for the Murderball DVD:



You can get a Merchandise Order Form in either French or English from the CWSA web site to order the DVD and other items.