Wow, this is going to be fast

Well, I had my first opportunity to see some of the Canada Games teams when they played in a Challenge Cup in Pickering December 2 - 5. I have skated a Gold medal game at Nationals and a couple bronze medal games and I guess going in I was expecting it to be about the same level as those games. I was wrong. What I hadn't accounted for was the difference between a club team with their base 12 - 15 players adding the top 3 or 4 other players in the province to make up a nationals roster, vs these teams which are the top 18 players in the province. The speed and skill was quite impressive.

I started off on the Thursday night reffing Manitoba vs Ontario. Ontario won the game 11 - 5, and although Manitoba struggled to keep up with Ontario in this game, as the weekend would progress they would steadily improve. In some respects I find skating games at this speed and skill easier, as generally if teams make their passes, I can skate with them, and plan for where I need to be, the problem comes in when they miss passes and we constantly have to stop and start, that is really when I get tired quickly.

After going to work all day Friday, I was back at Delaney in the late afternoon to ref BC and New Brunswick. I was unsure what they game was going to look like going in, as New Brunswick has made some real strides forward in the competitiveness of their program the last few years, giving them a real chance to win any game against any team, and BC is usually a wild card, I am never sure what we are going to get from them. Again both teams played fairly well, not quite as strong in terms of nailing every pass, but very good none the less. New Brunswick took the game 11 - 7 in a high scoring game. I had a couple hours off before my next game and watched the Alberta vs Ontario game. This had to be one of the best games I have seen, in terms of speed. Alberta ended up winning 4 - 2.

Next for me was the late night game between Quebec and Manitoba. This was a more physical game, than the others I had done so far, which usually means they aren't quite as fast. Manitoba was still working to find their game and lost 6 - 1.