2-1 in Quebec City

*The trip*
This weekend's trip to Quebec City was a long time coming. We haven't played a "real" game since June, and we haven't been in season since last March. It was hard not to be super pumped-up going into the weekend. Especially since I was feeling really confident about how we were going to perform.

We left early on Saturday morning, although sadly not in our "new van." So, we caravanned in three rentals. As can be expected, after claiming my window seat in the pimped out Mercury Mountaineer, I passed out about five minutes into the trip and woke-up as we arrived in downtown Montreal.

As an aside, I love Montreal. It is a fantastic city, and it was fun to wake-up and see all of the people bustling around. Christian dropped us off in front of a VERY crowded restaurant called Egg-spectations, where we met up with our teammate Sarah Gascon (a fellow California girl) who is rehabbing her knee in Lake Placid at the moment.

After a delicious brunch/lunch, we packed back in the cars and headed 2.5 hours north to Quebec City. Again, I slept most of the way, and it was wonderful.

We arrived at the hotel around 4:45, and had an hour to nap/rest/meditate before we had our team meeting and left for the gym. I didn't sleep at this point, but I spent an hour lying in the dark listening to music, and it really seemed to calm my mind- I feel that was key.


*Game 1- USA vs. Chaudiere*
I was definitely hyped for this game, and it felt good to get out and run around during the warm-up, especially after the 8 hour drive. We had plenty of time, so Kathy and I were able to do our passing/shooting thing that we like to do pre-warm-up.

The gym where we played is just a box- almost no room on the outside of the court, so things are really smooshed inside. At least the floor, which was "sport court," had only handball lines on it! Much better than the gym at say, Laval, where you can barely tell where anything is through the 400 different lines crisscrossing the floor.

I started the game at circle, and enjoyed playing both offense and defense, something I'm transitioning to this season. I felt pretty good through most of the game, even though we definitely tried to keep a good pace.

The first few minutes were a little bit tight score-wise, but we came back and stayed ahead by at least a three through most of the game. I scored five goals, which shocked me because I had a man-to-man type defense on me most of the time and I never felt that open. I was also pleased that I got off two nice lobs, and was then able to hit my corners and vary my shot a little bit- something Christian is always telling me to do in practice.

In the end, we won without too much difficulty, although we probably could have won by more. The reffing was ridiculous- they were letting people get away with murder on both sides of the court. I got pushed from behind by two people on a fast break and nothing got called, even when I went flying across the floor!! But Christian said that's the Chaudiere style of play, so we had to suck it up.

Final Score: USA 29, Chaudiere 23

*USA v. Chaudiere (Sunday)*
In our second match against Chaudiere, we saw the same kind of performance from them. They played a high defense and pushed our backcourts out a lot. There was a lot of space for one-on-ones, but we probably should have tried to capitalize on this a bit more.

It was a bit frustrating at the circle, where they played a man-to-man type defense on me, denying the ball. I got two passes the whole game, but at least I was able to draw 7-meter penalties on both of them. No "real" shots, sadly.

To be honest, this game kind of blends into the first game just because we played them so close together.

Final score: USA 27, Chaudiere 21

*USA v. Granby (Sunday)*
We finished the second game against Chaudiere around 11:40 or so and then had an hour break to eat and rest before starting our warm-up for the game against Granby. I had some peanut butter and jelly and a banana and tried to digest it as quickly as possible for I started running around again!
When the game started, we knew we were going to have to push and it wasn't going to be easy. We were up by five at the half-time, and clearly, this was a game we could win. I personally felt pretty good about us winning the game, but somewhere in the second half things began to deteriorate.
Offensively, we made some silly mistakes, but our biggest problem was that we continued to get 2-minute penalties to the point that we were down one person (and at one point, two people) for a majority of the second half. We kept the lead until the last minute when they got ahead by one point. We had several opportunities to score to at least tie it up at the end, but we double-dribbled twice, missed a fast-break shot, and stepped on the line during a wing shot. It was so frustrating because this was such a winnable game.

Obviously we were all pretty bummed at the end. No one likes to lose, but especially when it is a team you can beat. We were up by eight at one point in the beginning of the second half, and we lost- not because of external circumstances that we couldn't control- but because we dug our own grave.

Needless to say, it was a quiet trip back. That being said, we did stop and eat at a nice pasta bar halfway between Quebec City and Montreal. After that I passed out for the remainder of the drive home. We arrived at 11:45pm, and even though I was hungry again, I was too tired to bother eating, so I went straight to bed.