Tag: sports

Let’s Talk a Little Hockey

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As many know, the NHL season was cut in half this season due to problems with a collective bargaining agreement, or CBA. It’s funny how in the past 2-3 years, labor issues have been a serious problem in professional sports across the board. The NBA and NHL lost games while the NFL lost certain preseason workouts. All three were greatly affected. However, this 48 game season of hockey (a full season has 82 games) has been nothing short of exciting yet confusing.

I’m a big New Jersey Devils fan. They lost in the Stanley Cup finals last year to the Los Angeles Kings, but I wasn’t torn up about it. I was excited to even get to the finals and win the Eastern Conference. That was way more than I was expecting last season, but it elevated my expectations for this season.

We aren’t the best team in hockey. But, we play very well. At least we can say we are better off than Columbus.

Regardless, the playoffs are fast approaching as there are about 10 games left for most teams in the regular season.

The NHL is ranked on a point system. A team is given 2 standing points for a win, 0 for a loss, and 1 for a loss in overtime or a shootout. In each conference, there are 3 divisions. This is the last year we will see this, as next year the league is realigning into four conferences. Anyway, there are three divisions in each conference, and the division leader in each makes the playoffs as the first, second or third seed. In order to finish off the playoff bracket, the next 5 teams in point standings are added to the bunch. 8 teams from each conference go to the playoffs, making a total of 16 teams.

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Kevin Ware

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There are no other words I feel comfortable putting in this title. I’m not going to show you guys the video or anything like that. This is mainly about how hard an athlete has to work to reach his goals. Kevin Ware is no different than anyone in the sense that he worked hard at what he loved. He loved basketball and because of what happened yesterday, he can probably never play again.

By now, just about everyone knows about the Kevin Ware incident. He jumped up to block a shot and while landing, his leg crumpled in a number of spots. According to reports, his tibia went through his skin and was exposed. This goes down as possibly one of the most gruesome injuries in the history of sports. It’s right up there with Joe Theismann.

I don’t want to talk about it too much. But what I do want to point out is something I saw on Facebook the other day. There was a picture by Adidas posted on their wall, asking the public “Is there anyone on YOUR team that brings out the best in you?”. I immediately started thinking about players I had competed with at any given time. I thought of a few, but after this moment in the game yesterday, I undoubtedly believe that Ware is one of the most inspirational players I’ve ever seen.

He spoke to his coach Rick Pitino and some of his teammates as he was being tied to the stretcher. “Just win the game” he said to his teammates.

A man who is laying on the ground with part of his bone out of his skin still tries to rally his teammates. And it worked.

Louisville won by 22 points and buried Duke. It was inspirational, and I wish Kevin Ware the very best.

NHL-It’s a distant second

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Well, as you guys remember, I was a pretty big fantasy football player during the NFL season. This season, I follow fantasy hockey. I’ve been playing with a few of my friends this season and I’ve really enjoyed making some trades (including some that shouldn’t have been made and now I’m just laughing to the bank with it :))

Anyway, I’ve always been a pretty big NHL fan. I am a New Jersey Devils fan, and my favorite player is probably Ilya Kovalchuk. To be honest, I don’t have a favorite player. I just love watching some good hockey.

I especially love this time of year, which is trade season. The trade deadline is on Wednesday and teams are making some last minute adjustments to their rosters in the hopes of pushing for the playoffs.

I just want to discuss the Jarome Iginla trade from last week real quick. Iginla was traded to the Pittsburg Penguins for a first round pick and two college prospects. I think the Flames win this trade given Jarome’s age. But, I want to direct everyone’s attention to one of the college prospects that the Pens sent to Calgary.

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Lacrosse Week

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This past week marked the first 3 games of the 2013 lacrosse season.

Our first game was against the York School from Monterrey, CA.

The team was on a southern California road trip and had played four games prior to their game against us last Saturday.

Our team on the other hand had not yet practiced as a whole team yet, and it was evident on the field.

The team has many beginning players and adding new players changes the chemistry of the team every year.

It is an adjustment period to learn how people play the game and to be able to predict how they will react to certain situations.

Come game time I was excited to be back on the field from 9 months ago.

For most of the game York was dominating offensively and defensively ultimately scoring 11 goals.

The game almost ended in a shut out until one of our star returning players, Grant Spencer, scored the one goal of the game.

We all celebrated like we had won the game, but to us it was a victory because we did not give their goalie the shutout.

Final score was 1-11 L.

I was disappointed, but also realized it was the first game of the season and we had a lot of room to grow.

On Wednesday came the game against Laguna Blanca, a game I look forward to every year no matter what sport I’m playing whether it be football or lacrosse. Even when I’m not playing in the game, but the school is, I get excited.

Many think that Thatcher is our biggest rival, and they are, but they are our biggest hometown rival. Laguna Blanca is our biggest rival over all.

Most games with Laguna consist of some mouthing off from players and their parents which at our level of play can get a little out of hand.

We aren’t playing Division 1 sports, what parents need to remember is:

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Time to Break the Poetry Trend-Intro to LAX

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The past few posts on this blog have been straight up poems and I AM a big fan of poetry but it’s time to break that trend. I’m a sportswriter so let’s talk sports!

This weekend was our first lacrosse game. I was excited after I got done from my SAT and strapped on my pads.

Then we lost 12-1. So much for excitement. I am experienced enough to know that one game will not define our season. But, that’s not the way you wanna start off the season. I had a good time playing, and I thought personally that while I could have given more, I played a solid game. We could have all given more. Some guys had excuses after the game and as captain, I have to listen to them. I dismissed a lot of them.

Following the game, something interesting happened. My football coach, coach Titus, walked over to me, gave me a fist bump and we talked about the game a little bit. He then proceeded to ask me to take a picture with his baby, Shepard. I happily accepted his offer, squatted down next to the stroller and smiled.

It felt good actually. Ya, we just lost by 11 points, but I enjoyed the experience of getting back into the game. Hopefully, we can get some wins going this season.

Choices

callmemaybe321 Comment

I have been thinking a lot lately about what my future is going to be like.

Not as a grown adult, but where I want to go to college, what I want to study, and what about sports?

Thinking about what’s going to go into getting in to the schools I want to go to, and if I will be able to do it.

It’s a lot to be thinking about, there are so many choices we have to make even at the young age of 16, but I have realized the future is really up to me and how hard I want to work.

I have always been the kid who doesn’t put in the effort, and I come out with a few As and a few Bs.

I have realized I need to start actually trying to put in more effort to make it all As, instead of sitting on my butt when I have free time, maybe I should study more, and get work done before sunday night.

Maybe that means I can sleep more seeing as my schedule right now is crazy.

That brings me to the other thing I have been thinking about.

It was just last year that sports started to mean something to me again.

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Team Rest

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This weekend was the first time since the start of the season that our team did not have a game.

This is not because one was not scheduled, but because simply we could not compete against Orcutt Academy’s team.

We are a team that defies odds, beginning a season with a mere 20 players in a collision sport.

Players are bound to get injured, and starting with a number that low doesn’t put us in the best position.

Regardless of size, we are a team who trains to compete, to show what we are made of, and even if we don’t always win, to show we will not go down without a fight.

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Defeated Again

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Once I again I walked off of another teams field not feeling the great feeling of victory

This past weekend the team traveled up to Los Olivos, CA to compete against the Dunn Earwigs on their parents weekend, just as we did last year.

We went into the game with high hopes, and a new play series that we had worked on all week.

We arrived at the school, and right of the bat the day was not going as planned.

Somehow the ball bag was left back at school, some 2 hours away.

We did not have our own game balls, or our own kicking tee.

We put that aside and made do, and went into our pre game routine of bananas, pretzels, and stretching.

Our Defensive Coordinator John Wickenhaeuser had dome some research that bananas and pretzels before a game does the body good if that comment seemed a little odd.

During our warm ups that same nauseous feeling returned, and I was once again off my game.

I even tried to take medicine to make this feeling go away, but it is clear that it is nerves, and I just need to be hit a few times so that I don’t think about it as much.

When the game started Dunn quickly scored their first touchdown, and we weren’t too worried, that happens in the game of football.

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We Run.

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Yesterday was a special day for me. I had my first cross country meet in my life.

We left for The Thatcher School for the meet. The whole team went there and most of us were going to run under the fervent sun for 3 miles.

My leg still hurt from last day’s practice and I didn’t really feel nervous until we stood on the starting line, with other girls talking by my side. They cheered, laughed. Five of us – me, Min Ju, Momoe, Emmy and Ally represented our school. I was in Line 6, the number stands for luck in Chinese.

“Take your mark, ready, GO! ” We flew out of the lines like birds finally gained freedom from the cages. “Three miles, just as what we usually run at school. ” I encouraged myself.

It was hard, I admitted. We need to run two times of the course. For the first one, Min Ju and I was running together and we sometimes talked to each other so that we would not feel tired.

I ran.

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Moving Forward

callmemaybe321 Comment

After the OVS football team came home with an outstanding victory in Lee Vining, that winning streak did not continue this past Saturday.

After our return we had a week to prepare for our next game against Hillcrest Christian of Thousand  Oaks, California. During this week practice seemed to be filled with not only focused faces and hard work, but excitement and laughter after the team had just broken a new Ojai Valley School record of being the first team to win a varsity football game.

It seemed that the win may have gotten to the heads of some players, myself included, and that if we beat that team, that we would probably be able to carry that win into the next game.

Although the game did not put another W on the Ojai Valley School’s standings it did teach the team a valuable lesson, a lesson our coaches were trying to instill in us all week.

Yes we won, but that is just one game, and that while we should be happy we won, there was still plenty of work. In practice Coach D said that yes we did play well, but we need to be better, the word better was repeated over, and over, and over, but apparently in this game our opponent ended up with the better score, which means, they won.

While many of us wanted to walk off of the field with our heads down, we had to keep them up, and come back to our next game playing even better than the first and second.

This past loss has given the team a reality check that while we did play well the first game, and this is not to say we did not play well on Saturday, that we do indeed need to be better.

Our next game is Saturday night against the Maricopa Indians.

This game will be very special for the team because we get to play in the Indian’s stadium arena at night under the lights.

This next coming week of practice is going to be tough, but it will only give us more time to sharpen our minds, and sharpen our plays, because come Saturday it will hopefully be time to put another win up on the boards for this team of new records.

Hopefully we can show everyone that we do deserve to play, and shatter the harsh words that some put on OVS football, like the program should be cancelled because “we aren’t good.”

To all of the people who doubt our team or speak I’ll of us, I ask you to come out and try to do what we do everyday, and see after that what you think about the fact that we aren’t good or that we don’t deserve to play.

If you have to win all the time to be worth it, than sports would not be what they are, nobody would ever win because everyone would be just as good as the other. And if we are to follow in this thought that winning is the only reason to play, than nobody would be able to play because winning would become impossible.

Empty Stadium

If any of you would like to know what it is like to go through what a football team goes through together, I beg you to come out on to the field everyday, put on your helmet and pads, run around in the heat, get beaten and battered, and then return from a loss, and hear, “wow who could have seen that coming,” in a sarcastic tone.

Hopefully we can better ourselves from this game and have the season of all seasons. If you can come out and support at any of our games it would be greatly appreciated. And to all of you who doubt us I really hope we can change your minds at some point, and if not try and keep it to yourself.