No Borders was a pretty sweet tournament. On Saturday, we had good pool play games against Stella and Storm. I mention those games first because they are most relevant to our next tournament, Canadian Nats. We also had a game against a team from Vermont that we kind of walked on, and a bit of a rough start against Quebec City.
The party was 80's themed. Moving on. ;)
Unfortunately the weather in Ottawa was quite rainy, and I heard that it has been like that the past few weeks. Read: we were very very hard on Ottawa's fields, and I know they work hard to keep them in good shape. There were murmurs of the tournament being cancelled before we played a game. Saturday night, the rumours solidified into loose facts: only the top 8 men's and women's teams were going to play on Sunday. All other games were cancelled. This super sucked for PPF, who lost two games in universe points, and as it turned out it cost them their Sunday. Balls.
For Lotus, Sunday first brought Salty (from Halifax), in a quick game that featured ALL HELL BREAKING LOOSE, thanks to the skies. I felt like I had been thrown in a bathtub. At least the rain and the game didn't last that long. ;)
Game two was Stella, who I always enjoy playing, in the semi. The final score was somewhere in the 13-8 ballpark. It actually felt closer than that. It was a battle game for sure, and I was happy that we took it.
Beating Stella earned us a shot at Brute Squad (from Boston) in the final. One very cool thing about the final (not that playing Brute Squad wasn't cool enough on it's own) was that Rogers was taping it. There were cameras on the ground, and cameras raised up for a different view. I'm so stoked to see the footage. I'm not sure when it's played, exactly, and I think it's only in Ontario. Still, I'm hoping for a viewing at some point. This game was a BATTLE. It was tight all the way, but we were never down, and it really felt like we had it. In fact, we were up two breaks and half, and going on O. We lost those two breaks, which is terrible, but that said, I still think we were playing really well. It just happened. But hey, I just remember Lotus playing hard and playing well, which I think is much more the real story than the two lost breaks. Final game result: Brute Squad takes the game in a universe point. What a heart breaker.
Still, overall I was very pleased with the tournament, so what's one point. (I'm still cursing about it, of course, don't get me wrong). I think it sets us up really well for success at Canadian Nationals. Plus, we were missing some very key folks this tournament, and it will be great to have them back at Nationals. Think folks the likes of Alli Walker, Sheri Madigan, and my superstar girlfriend. I'm so stoked for Nats!
The only thing that I didn't love about No Borders was blowing out my right cleat in the first game on Saturday. I spend the rest of the weekend trying to tape it back together, which is much much harder in the mud and rain. I need to try and buy new cleats (@#)*)@!) sometime tomorrow. Oh, I suppose the other negative (again, tiny bear in comparison) was hitting my knuckle on the ground again, as I've done once before. Hmmm, thinking back, I don't think I've said anything about my knuckle yet. About three weeks ago, I hit a tree with my right handlebar while mountain biking and hurt a knuckle on my right hand. I thought it was just bruised and would be fine, but then a week and a half ago, I re-aggravated it at practice. I just brushed it against the ground on a layout, and it freaked. I did the same thing in the final, and it's super unhappy again. Remind me not to shake hands. I spend a couple of hours today going to a walk-in clinic to get it checked out. I'm waiting on x-ray results. Fingers crossed for me? I'm sure it's fine, and the important this is that it's fine throwing.
A quick note on moving day: it probably looked pretty funny. I was at Mere's last night, and started to move my stuff to my new place today. Nat, a Lotus girl, was nice enough to lend me a bike for a couple of weeks, so I biked my stuff over here. This was a bit more of a workout than I REALLY wanted the day after a tournament that hard. ;) I pretty much biking with as much stuff as I could carry and still ride a bike with, twice. It was tiring, but it's great to have a place of my own here.
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