The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Last weekend I had the honour of coaching the Norman U13 boys soccer team at the Manitoba summer games in Carman. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect. I have never been to a Manitoba games and was amazed by what I found. The athletes, some 1,000 plus of them, were housed in two athletes villages, one for girls and one for boys. The food hall was incredible. I donÕt think that this many teenagers had ever eaten such healthy food for five whole days. Personally I loved it, but for some the lure of chips was just too much and the odd bag was secreted into the village! The soccer venue was amazing, it was new, as most of the venues were, the surface was perfect and probably ranks as one of the best I have ever stood on, including old Trafford. It had taken the host committee two years to perfect the surfaces, and it showed. With new bleachers, game announcers and top class referees, it would have been easy for our boys to be out of their comfort zone. But it was not to be. Our first game set the tone for the three pool games we had to play to advance. We relaxed the players by turning up early, running a quick 1.5 kilometers and warming up before standing in front of the speakers and doing our version of soccer aerobics. Something must have worked because we won our pool with a perfect 3-0 record. The only team to have a perfect record, and with the best goals for and goals against record. So now it was the medal round, we were drawn against Eastman, the best team so far on paper and one that I had watched previously. Their pre match ÔperformanceÕ was to walk on the field in two lines, carrying sports bags and coaches at the back. The way it worked out they were drawn as the away team and had to cross in front of our bench. The Eastman team would enter from the left hand side of the field, so we lined up at the halfway line, to walk straight ahead to our bench, with perfect timing we lined up in lines of two, coaches at the back, and walked out so that the Eastman team had to stop mid walk and wait for us to reach our bench. Round one to Norman! The game was tough, which we expected, and Eastman scored on a great play, and we found ourselves 1-0 down. We rallied, and held on until the 60th minute of a 70 minute game before I made the decision to pull a midfielder and defender for two more forwards, we may as well lose by three as one, and that is what happened, we lost 3-0. Our first loss and a team which had been prefect we were now going to play off for a bronze medal. Our bronze medal game was the following morning at 9:30, we were ready, pumped, relaxed and raring to go. The game was an emotional nightmare, we took a 1-0 lead, held it for 69 minutes and then Interlake broke through and scored. The ball was placed on the center spot, kicked off and the whistle blew for full time. We were that close, 30 seconds, but now we had to start all over again with two 10 minute overtime periods. In the first period Interlake were awarded a penalty, what should have been a goal, missed the right post be an inch and went wide. As play resumed, the Interlake team allowed the miss to affect them, and we scored to take a 2-1 lead. This score held until the end and the smallest team from the smallest regional squad had won bronze. I have never felt so proud as I was receiving that medal, to me this was the Manitoba Olympics, and there we were on the podium, the feeling was amazing. If we could somehow match the other regions in numbers of athletes we could easily be second in the standings, Norman really is the best region, our athletes were commended by everyone, our spirit was everywhere, and our medals turned a lot of heads. Norman won two gold medals in 2004, and this year it was 13! Our total went from 16 to 34, our athletes, with the poorest funding, less than perfect facilities, and geographically separated had done fantastic. The winter games are in Portage la Prairie in 2010, if your young athlete has a chance to compete it is something that they should not miss. I am calling them the 2010 Manitoba winter Olympics.
