Allsports and the All Sports Buzz

Well it has been a few days since I have written anything for sports on the web. The summer months are pretty busy for allsports because of commitments to his girls and their Rep lacrosse schedules. The season for both is finally over and there were some elements of success.

My youngest had her provincial championships (U15) on the long weekend in August. They were played in Whitby, Ontario and the OLA, with their infinite wisdom, wanted them to be played during the “Lacrosse festival”, which started on the long weekend (Civic Holiday) and wrapped up the following weekend. This weekend was when my older daughter (U19) played her provincials. With the way the girls field schedule worked both teams had about a one month layoff from the end of the regular season until the championships.

You can see the logic of the OLA for doing this as it is all about money and grants from the government. The more people they have come to the festival, the more money from the government comes into the OLA coffers. The layoff was not to bad for the older girls because they could stay focused on the task at hand but it was very hard to keep the younger girls in the lacrosse mind set because some did not have a stick in their hand to practice for about 3 weeks. The weather just did not cooperate to run practices and family holidays got in the way too.

Our young girls did ok in the provincials, finishing 5th out of the 6 teams in the “B” division loop. This was exactly where I thought they would finish. We had a very young team with a lot of first year girls that were just learning the game. There is a wide range in age for girls lacrosse and are young kids were intimidated by the older girls on other teams. But at the end of the day they had learned some things and improved over the course of the season. The bottom line though was they had FUN!! with the learning, which is all you can ask for as a coach.

Our U19 team had more success though, we went into the championships rated 4th in the “A” division, but the time off was put to very good use. The girls head coach, Mark Snyder is a good Lacrosse coach. The problem Mark had and which he recognized was that he was much like allsports and had his background in men’s box lacrosse. You can teach skills because lacrosse skills are lacrosse skills. Women’s lacrosse though has sooo many subtle differences that being a box lacrosse guy, you just don’t see.  Enter Kallie Briscoe who does happen to know a few things about women’s lacrosse.

Kallie helped the girls immensely with positioning on offence and defence. She also instituted some offensive plays as well as helping the girls control the ball on offence and gain some rest while in control so they would not be sucking pond water when they had to get back on defence. Well the practice paid off and the girls beat a team they had not beaten all year and took home the bronze medal.

Kallie could not be on the bench during the games because the powers that be would not allow it. They sited the “rule of common sense” which was just a bunch of hooey because there was nothing in the constitution that stated she could not be there. It was just another example of certain individuals overstepping their authority. Small minded people more worried about themselves than making the game better.

So the girls season was a success and they are excited to have Kallie helping to coach them. My daughter for one just loves Kallie as a coach. Hats off to Mark as well for realizing he needed a bit of help and being a big enough man to admit it. He is a good coach and had the girls working well together, Kallie just came along to fine tune the machine.

“No Guts No Glory”

Walt Webb

P.S. If the OLA insists that they run the girls provincials with their lacrosse festival they should make sure that the facilities are adequate. We had three fields running all day for two straight days and the mental midgets that organized it had one, count it one portable toilet for each field. That was truly disgusting, these are young women who need clean facilities to use and some running water for cleaning up. Shame on you OLA for not taking care of the girls needs. You want the girls there, well then make sure you look after them.

Photo’s other than the one of Kallie Briscoe are courtesy of  Allsports friend Dennis Pellerin of Pellerins Photography.

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