From the coach's mouth... u18 team on their way

So the final journey of the U18's has begun. 

The players have arrived here in high spirits and are raring to go. I think though that the anticipation is absolutely killing them and just by judging by some of the antics and conversation the players just want the tournament to start already. 


Our time here has been spent working on exiting our zone under control, power play, PK and almost a full practice of work with focus on defenceman. So far we are looking strong but as you know the work is never done and you always feel like you can do more. 
Macky has provided great support to me and has given me some ideas and different angles from which to come at. We played a game last night and lost 6-4. I played everyone and juggled some of the positions around the already settled combinations. 


Jack played against us and made some good saves. The other team was made up of veterans like Nick Beukes, Glen Lazarus, recently announced 2nd Div players Jacques Booysen, Joe Olivier and a decent Premier League line of U25 players. The team played alright with some real positives to draw on however we need to be more patient on the puck and work on our anticipation of the backcheck. 


What was awesome was pulling the goalie with a minute to go, explaining a powerplay setup and watching Uthman, Luke and Nick Kuhn pull it off to perfection. Uthman scored a beauty of a net drive goal too. Our man of the match was Andre Visser from Pretoria who played very well on D and certainly punched above his class showing bravery and some smart defensive plays. 


This morning we worked on our neutral zone play and tonight we work on defensive zone coverage, the most important facet for me.

I feel that after the warm up game in Mexico we will be ready to go. The players recovery time is also worth noting and a big shout out should go to Ballistix fitness for the work they have done helping prepare our players. Naturally the hard on ice skating has also put the players in good stead so we must note the hard work of everyone involved. 


by Andre Marais