Thanks to Bud Azzopardi and his crew from the Durham Seniors Masters Team who did a phenomenal job of hosting this years event. I thought it was a great tournament, well organized and a great time had by all.
For all scores and results go to ontariomasterslacrosse.com
The Lacrosse
I did not watch all the games, but some of the games I did see, the goaltending was really, really good. The Brampton Senior Team were almost impossible to score on, and they won the A Championship because of it. It is not only goaltending though, as they are very tough defensively, and if teams want to beat them, they will have to figure this out.
The Senior team from Six Nations impressed everybody again with their great stick skills and scored some fantastic goals. They went 4 and 0 for the weekend and won the "B" Championship. However they never played Brampton....so that is a bone of contention for some (for me anyway). In my eyes anyway, it should have been Six Nations vs Brampton in the "A" Final, both 3 and 0, both played awesome, but alas, it was not to be. It would have been fun to watch too. Classic offense vs. defence.
Politics
As always, there was a lot of "discussion" this weekend about our Masters game. There is no shortage of opinion as to how things should operate, most of it behind the scenes, most of it is the same old news.
The referees are always a topic of conversation. I, for one, have reffed Masters. I don't like it. It is incredibly difficult. When I was doing it I found that by the time I figured out an infraction had happened, 6 or 7 seconds had gone by. Maybe that is me though, my reaction time might be a bit slower. My point is though, it is a hard job. If you are a complainer, and there is a lot of you, try it for a bit. The bottom line is, the Refs are all nice guys, and I think do a good job. They do make mistakes. So do we all.
B#%ch Session
I do have some thoughts though, no surprise....and here they are.
- for the teams that have not paid for their tourneys.....pay. It is only fair.
- for the guys that yell and scream at the refs over every single call....5 seconds, crease ball, faceoff, stick check....etc. etc. please stop, you sound ridiculous.
- for the guys that offer up cheap shots , pushing, shoving, grabbing, stick checking, (i even saw a spear in one game) - find another league to play in. We are playing Non Contact - Figure it out, or move on.
- for the refs...if there is a stick check and you see it - make the call. 2 mins. If there is a push and you see it. 2 min. Make the call. We don't need to change a thing. Enforce the rules as written.
Masters lacrosse is about family.
You can be competitive and respectful in the same game. It is possible.
My Team
Oakville Senior Masters. Really proud of the group we had. Our team has had a reputation of being (how shall i say) - a little bit on the complaining (whining) end over the years. We are trying to change this. This weekend we played short handed huge. It was tough, but we had great chemistry.
Goaltending was awesome. Carl Krebss (in his retirement tour year) played a spectacular game on Saturday night against the Nation. Our team was in tough....but in the third we were still in the game trailing 7 - 6...but the depth of Six Nations won out in the end. Carl faced a million shots, and a lot of them, take from me were hard shots. Well done Carl. Tippy (Steve McMillan) played great and led us to the "C" Championship of the World, beating the Boys from the Beach 9-8 on Sunday. Our record for the weekend was 3 wins and 1 loss. Special thanks to a great bunch, Cort Sanderson (played great), Hozack was a force, the defensive specialist Campbell, faceoff man McMillan, speedster Kennedy, the ever impressive gutsy performances of Styx Walker and Simpson....sharpshooting Dimarco. A great effort boys.
See you all in Fergus!!
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