Justa Maybe Snow?

So I missed a day of posting, and of course some people noticed. Yesterday, we practiced with the younger players, who did not dress for the games in the tournament, in the morning and had a light skate in the afternoon with the all the uninjured players. So, I gave each of the staff a half day off, Ji and Liu, the locals, took the morning shift so they could go home to family in the afternoon. Li and myself took the afternoon shift.

Of course at lunch, we had to have another luncheon. This time we met with some of the leaders of the Hockey school in Harbin. That is where all of the national team players play before they get here. There is only ONE feeder program. We were there to discuss the players from the school that would join our players staying behind to have enough to train with Li while our top 20 players are in Finland. They did not ask alot of me but there was spirited discussion. Originally, they were going to add 6 or 7 or so players to our 9 left behind, but by the end of the meal the number swelled to 12 or 13. It is good if that many can come and get exposed to the atmosphere of the training center and what it takes to get to the next level.

Before the luncheon, I spoke with Mr. Wang and one of the girls in his office Pei Ying. Pei Ying (right) is a very funny girl who speaks a little english but tries real hard. My favorite phrase of hers is "justa maybe" which is how she starts most sentences and phrases. It is very endearing the way she says it. Through her, Mr. Wang asked if I would run a clinic for younger players Saturday-Tuesday before I left (a couple hours a day). I agreed, but we cut my commitment to 2.5 hours on just Saturday and Sunday for a little extra work on my days off, and to not conflict with the training and planning for the Finland trip.

After dinner, the team went to the Germany - Russia game, which was a "friendship game" at the end of the tournament. Russia had beat Germany in the tournament 3-1 which I had felt was an upset. In last nights game, the Germans showed they were in a little better shape wearing down the Russians and winning 4-2.

Today, we were back to our normal 6:00 a.m. wake up call for breakfast, meeting and stretch before practice at 8:00. We had five players from our top 2 lines out today with injuries. After no competitive games since last April, our team played five days in a row against some much bigger players and it took its toll on some of our older and smaller players.

After the morning practice, Pei Ying was back and "justa maybe" I had some time to speak with the man organizing this weekend's clinic. She quickly felt over her head in translating and ran to get our team captain, Wang Linou, to translate. It is a good thing I had time as I found out that the clinic I was running was to teach COACHES how to coach younger players. So now I will have to scramble to come up with five hours of on-ice instruction for coaches. This too is good as it sounds like there is little experience coaching girls hockey in this country.

This afternoon I taught them a new breakout. It involves spreading and stretching the ice to utilize the team speed, which seems to be our strongest asset. I will leave it at that in case the Finnish teams are translating this to scout our team ;-) Also (Finnish translators) all of our players will be healthy for the trip next week according to the good Dr. Gao!

This evening before dinner, a new lady, who I was told was once the team leader, and I believe will be in that role for the players remaining in China while we are gone, called me into her room. She speaks a few english words and is very nice. She had taken the time to type in all of the words from a newspaper clippling about me and the team into Microsoft Word. Then using the built-in translator on Word, allowed me to read the entire article in English. It was a long article on the front sports page of the Harbin Daily and had a picture of me on the bench as well as an action shot of the team. I am hoping tomorrow to scan it in and post it on the blog for all to "read." It must have taken her a long time to do and was a very nice gesture which I thanked her for several times.

I am also trying to compile some photos of the team so that soon, I can begin letting you know a little bit more about the truly amazing and interesting players that I have here.

So, that is all from Harbin for now... According to accuweather.com, tommorrow "justa maybe" it will snow.