Day Off

Day off!

With the pool play finished and the rankings set out we had a day off.  We really wanted the athletes to have a good mental break.  So our therapist Christine took the athletes in the morning for a pool recovery work out.  

Christine has been awesome.  An athletic therapist is something special.  Quite often people get confused between physiotherapists and athletic therapists.  There is a difference, both are trained with the same background knowledge of the body anatomy and how to rehab injuries.  Just athletic therapists are trained also in preventative work and rehab for athletes.  

Christine's day is long and without her we wouldn't have the healthy athletes that we do.  She doesn't really have time off.  When we are resting or watching video she is performing rehab or pre-hab on all the different athletes.  When we are worried about an athlete's shoulder she is a great resource and understands the wear and tear that happens in the course of a two week tournament.  Christine goes over and above the call, she has little treats and gifts for the girls.  She is an incredible cheerleader and probably the biggest defender of the team culture.  Your athletic therapist can help encourage the culture from her training table more than coaches can.  I recommend that coaches treat these people with golden gloves and not forget their value.

The rest of the day we let the girls just wander and explore Shenzhen.  Most chose to go shopping in a market downtown.  Just a chance to get out of the village and interact with other people is so refreshing.  The all came back with great stories of different culture, a totally unexpected poopy scooping on the road, bartering for clothes, just meeting different people.

The evening we all met and went to support our guys team as they played Australia in their pool play.  I enjoyed the match because I had a chance to watch Brendon and Craig play.  Two Aussies who play at BU, they are good guys who battled hard against the Canadians. It also help them explain the level of the CIS league they play in to their teammates.

WE had a tough decision to make about the practice.  It was scheduled for 9am and it was a 60min drive away.  So the decision is 2 hours of travel worth the one hour practice.  Or would we be better suited with allowing training time for Christine and do something active in the morning.

We decided to go with the activity instead of travel.  Christine has arranged a photo scavenger hunt which should have our competitive girls running around.  One of the things is a picture with five different countries represented in the photo. Another is a  picture of them planking somewhere...should be fun.

The rest of us will prepare video for our match against Sweden. 

Our goal is now B-side champs.