After the final game, we headed to Burnaby Lake to celebrate the end of the season. There was food and cake and goody bags. The coaches had pooled together their own money to have trophies made for the players. The kids were so excited!! After all the eating and celebrating, the kids played against the adults. By the end of the two hours, no one even remembered that we had lost. It was a great morning and I am really grateful that Matias lucked out with such an awesome team and above all, such awesome coaches. Next year, who knows? The coaches this year emphasized having fun. They tried to play all the players- even the weaker ones got floor time. During the play offs the better players got more floor time, but the coaches were still pretty fair and above all, supportive and easy going. They seemed to really coach, in the truest sense of the word; every player had dramatically improved by the end of the season. Observing some of the other coaches out there left something to be desired...
During Saturday's semi final game the coaches of the other team were clearly out to win. At any cost. Considering this was the peanut division (under 8 year olds), I couldn't believe the lengths that they went to to try to win. They (illegally) changed the jersey numbers of their players so that our coaches couldn't match up our best players with theirs. When our guy got called for tripping, their player fell down. When he tried to get up, his coach shoved him back down (hoping for a major penalty I guess). Earlier in the season, the same coaches had tried to get a weak player to sneak in and take the penalty for a stronger player. In Sunday's final, the coach had (illegally) cut the weakest players from his team and not even told them that there were play offs. When one of the parents showed up and wanted her son to play, the coach said no. Unbelievable.
