· Zach James-Davies Highlights of the trip included:
- 18 "official" games vs a wide range of California club teams and 2 Canadian provincial teams (B.C/Ontario)
- 12 joint-training/scrimmage sessions with California based clubs, including 2 scrimmages against the top-ranked Rose Bowl Water Polo club
- a grueling 4KM beach swim, against the current, followed by a 3KM beach run at the beautiful Huntington beach
- "Tour Du Lagoon" in Long Beach CA.
- a 2-day trip up to Ventura CA. where the boys enjoyed great hospitality and three 3-hour long training sessions with the Ventura Water Polo Club*
*Ventura Head Coach Jeff Argend went out of his way to show the boys a great time both in and out of the pool, arranging for the guys to enjoy a day at the beach playing volleyball and learning how to sea kayak… Neven Kovacevic and Karson Kratzenberg impressed with a "best ever" Kayak wipe-out sending themselves airborne while trying to ride the waves!
Non-Water polo highlights included:
- a trip to Disneyland
- a "not-so-nature" Hike in Fullerton CA.
- Beach day @ Long Beach CA.
- in following with the mandate of healthy eating, the boys dined on a variety of Thai, Mongolian, Mexican, Vietnamese and Whole Food Market cuisine, saving the tasty (but unhealthy) IN & OUT burger as a much deserved treat for the last day of the trip
- going to see the final installment of Harry Potter to celebrate birthday boy Zach James-Davies
- motivation book reviews by all 11 boys (the team stopped by a used book store during our first weekend and each boy selected a book to read during the trip which he then presented to the group on the final day of the trip)
All in all it was a tremendously successful trip. The athletes committed to getting better each and every day, and showed great maturity and self-motivation in dealing with the sometimes arduous travel (L.A traffic a daily problem) and sometimes late-night/early-morning training schedules. As a coach I was thrilled by how well the boys progressed during the trip, and as a chaperone I was even more impressed by their behavior. The athletes did an excellent job of representing Alberta Water Polo with class and respect, and their positive behavior was pointed out by other parents and coaches at various times during the trip.
In total, the provincial team program ran from May 30th- July 25th, providing the athletes (both boys and girls) with over 140 hours of high level training and competition for over 40 motivated and dedicated age-group athletes.
The California trip took place after 6 weeks of training in Calgary/Edmonton, giving the athletes in the program a total of over 8 weeks of additional training and development, our longest summer program yet!
We look forward to expanding the program in the future and encourage all Alberta competitive water polo athletes to participate in the future.
Regards,
Nathaniel Miller
AWPA Technical Director
Provincial Team Program Coordinator and Boys Head Coach
Girls Wrap Up- Team Alberta 2011
The travel California part of our trip was from July 8-July 25.
In total we started with 10 athletes and brought home 12!
· Adele Bibault
· Kyra Christmas
· Madisyn Danyluk
· Emma Dunlop
· Gigi Joudrie
· Tarilyn McAuley
· Ashley Menard
· Emily Riddle
· Katyanna Szabo
· Kennedy Watson
Half way through
· Courtney Menard
· Zoe Osbourne Highlights of the trip
Traveling in the greater LA area. Our first tournament was in an indoor pool at a high school in Santa Monica! The girls at first were upset that it was indoors because they wanted the sun!
-3 tournaments finishing in the top 3 at them, playing in the 18U category in all of them.
-playing/scrimmaging against teams from all over, 4 from the Santa Monica area, 7 teams in the Orange county area, 3 teams from Florida, 3 clubs/5 teams in Santa Barbara, 4 teams from Thousand Oaks and finally 4 teams at the Hale tournament. Not sure the number of games that the girls played but it was amazing.
-We went for a 5k run on the Newport Beach and thought we would spend a little R&R but got a call that the girls had games that night!
-Santa Barbara club took amazing care of us; they had a BBQ potluck and billeted all of us in 2 and a half houses! We then went down to Thousand Oaks where South Coast team was also amazing and the girls are all now great friends swapping swim suits, caps and ended up cheering each other on at the Hale tourney!
Non-water polo Highlights
-Disneyland! (Amazing)
-going to see the last Harry Potter and Captain America!
-Santa Monica pier, where some of the girls went into the water fully clothed and Kennedy’s cell phone went swimming with the fishes
-Coach Ellen and Brooke’s new game, with SKYPE life lines! Also charades was SO much fun our last 2 nights.
-In and Out Burger
-Coach Brooke’s nephew was born and Emma Dunlop had the closest guess to the day time and gender
-Downtown Hollywood eating at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles and seeing the Chinese theater/stars walk of fame. Adele now knows who ‘HUGE’ Grant is! We then saw Mario Lopez filming his show ‘Extra” where yours truly Dayna, Kyra and Adele were on the show and the girls took a picture with him!
-Surviving the ‘Carmageddon’ the 405 was closed for the weekend and you would have thought that the world was going to end.
-the girls taking turns planning, shopping and cooking dinner for each other.
There were several challenges for the girls, some days they were in the water 3 times. This trip was about learning how to be away, deal with teammates, sometimes different coaching, other countries style of play and officiating, how to be responsible with items, time management etc. Over all there was an improvement for them. All the girls were important to the team and all needed to take a turn and do their part, even when the times got tough in the water. Each game and every day I sent an email to the parents with a play by play, it was a lot of fun to do and kept me busy as I have a hard time just watching. Coach Brooke and Ellen sat with the girls at the airport or on the plane and did an evaluation with them; please take the opportunity to ask your daughter what it was that they said. (they were all asked to bring their book and write it down) I was impressed with the girls and their behavior that they showed in a different country, how they worked through conflict and realized that they are part of a team and to take care of each other.
Respectfully,
Dayna Christmas
AWPA Executive Director