Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

PILOTS PREVAIL

27th November 2007

I have attached a few pictures of Ian after one of our training sessions at the University of British Columbia. As you can see our sessions quickly turn into a dog run, immediately after Even calls time. We now have four little dogs on the team, and one big one!!! Total insanity.

This past weekend I headed down to Portland with Sincy, Tiff and Tank to watch the NCAA Sweet 16 game, Portland against Tennessee. Most people will know the score by now, and I have to admit it wasn't pretty for my alma mater. However, I still enjoyed the trip and I enjoyed seeing my old friends, including Marie Eve (Buddy) Nault.

I had a hard go of it at the game, what with being the only fan in Tennessee orange, not only in my section of the stand, but also on the entire south side of the field. There was another fan, a woman in an orange coat, but it turned out that she had worn it by accident and that it was just the warmest coat she owned - Sad.

It was good to get a group of Lady Vols vets together before the game and see our old Assistant coach.

Then, at the game the crowd was great, boisterous and raucous and totally one-sided to the Pilots. Even though their reception to me was chilly, at best, the fact that I had traveled with two of their heroes, Tiff and Sincy, definitely aided my cause. In fact, when Sincy first walked into the stadium the whole band struck up the "Welcome home Sinclair" song. It was very cool, and I hung my head and tried to be as innocuous as possible. It did not seem to be the best time to be flaunting the rival school's colours.

I was proud of myself though, and screamed my support of the Lady Vols through the entire match. We were totally outplayed and over matched on the field, but the Tennessee girls never gave up and I was proud that I could be there. I also loved seeing Sophie playing, even in Portland gear. She is playing forward for the Pilots and tearing it up out there. She is really fun to watch. I obviously made her the exception and cheered for her throughout the game as well.

While down in Portland I felt really privileged to see Tiff's two Olympic medals. She keeps them in a safe spot, so just getting to see and hold them made the trip down to Portland worth it. You grow up watching the Olympic Games and revering those athletes who compete in these tournaments, let alone win a medal. It was awesome getting to see them and I am looking forward to winning one of them myself for Canada :)

As you can see, Tank is practicing her medal winning pose. I also got a picture holding Tiff's trophy for being the bronze place World Player of the Year, and her US Player of the Year trophies. They are all surprisingly heavy!!!

On the home front, we are now right back into intense training. We are hoping the weather improves soon, as we have just about had all the running around in sleet that we would like for the year!!