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CANADA WIN WAY TO CYPRUS CUP FINALS 1st March 2010

I can't start this journal without mentioning the Olympic Men's hockey game. Before last night in Cyprus, we have not been able to see a single Olympic event. The time difference of 5 hours makes the schedule terrible and there is only one TV channel here that shows events. Of course, this is the German channel, and guess who they focus on??? We watched the game, as a team, in the hotel bar, and what a game it was.

A few members of the Canada squad made it all the way team to the end, but the rest, like me, headed to bed after the second period. It was great fun, and I know that our Italian coaches enjoyed watching their first ever hockey game with such passionate fans. Even Carm, who has never seen a game before, really got into it. However, a few of us soon became frustrated when she yelled "icing" ever time anyone touched the puck, was offside, gave up a penalty, or even scored a goal. Carm also sent us into fits of laughter when she asked which one was Bill Cosby!!!! Is she really a Canadian?

Carolina is usually pretty strict about curfews and having all of us in our rooms by 11:00 pm. I think she understood that this would be tough to do yesterday. We were all so so excited about watching the game. However, we were all aware that we had to get to bed early to meet an early wake up call for our match tomorrow at 2:00pm

We prepared well for South Africa. We had seen footage of them playing, and they have come a really long way since we saw them play last year. They are more athletic, stronger and aren't afraid to take a shot. We realized that in this Tournament, they could cause us problems if we weren't fully focused.

Kaylee, Laura and Miriam all got their first caps in the game while a few others, Kendra and Des, to name two, got their second and third caps respectively. Even though we fielded a young team, we fielded a talented one and they played extremely well for the first part of the match. They had most of the possession and produced some good plays that really put the South Africans on the back foot.

By halfway through the half though, the South Africans composed them selves and began to press. This caused havoc for the backline defence with their movements into the box. South Africa is not the most organized team and it is often hard to predict where they are going to run, and the decisions that they are going to make. It is never easy to play against a team like this.

South Africa scored first when they poked home a close range shot after a scramble around the net. I had just come on in the left back position and had a front row seat for the Thierry Henri like handball pass that the South African forward played to her teammate in front of the net, I was, and remain utterly unimpressed that the officials missed this. It seemed blatant to me. As defenders though, we have to learn that we must always play to the whistle, no matter how sure one may be that a whistle will be blown.

At half time we came out strongly, helped by the introduction of some veterans like Diana and Sincy. We started to take more and more control of the game, although the Africans were still very dangerous on the break. Kendra scored the first goal for us off from a great play by Sincy. I think I remember her playing the ball over the top to Kendra, who coolly slotted it home.

The second goal was also created by Sincy when she broke free down the right hand side of the field, and crossed it to a wide open CJ on the 6 yard line.

Even though this was once again, not one of our better matches, we are pleased to have got the win, especially such a hard fought one. It shows character to come back from a 1-0 deficit and that is something we have not done in recent games. We will take the win; we will take the positives and leave the negatives; we will prepare for our final game, and the finals of the tournament, on 3rd March.