Dolphins
Submitted by Sue Sidebottom

The Dolphins had fun participating in the end-of-year Bantam Hull tournament this past weekend.  A couple members of the current Dolphins weren't able to make this tournament, so we were pleased to have a couple of Dolphin alumni join the team - Jelena and Ceilidh!  We had some pretty stiff competition in our division playing mostly all-boys teams from CAEM, CDN (Cote de Neige), DDO and our very own Sharks!  None the less, our girls were always up to the challenge.

Saturday, we had a close game with DDO, that we initially went up 2-0, but weren't able to maintain our lead, so we weren't unfortunately able to pull that one out of the bag.  The Dolphins stayed after that game to cheer on the Sharks, then we went across the street to Resto R Pizza to enjoy a team pizza supper (and their air conditioning :) .  We headed back to the pool area and had some time outside for team karaoke and cartwheel challenges (Mackenzie's dad does fabulous cartwheels!)  After already having played two games that day, we had our last game on Saturday starting at 9:30pm.  For this late-night game, Jen had to institute a "no sitting" rule for the last quarter of the previous game, as some of the girls had eyelids that looked fairly heavy at that point in the day ...  A fun and full day all-in-all! 

We ended the tournament with one playoff game on Sunday which we won.  Congratulations to the girls for always smiling and never giving up despite playing some very talented teams!  Thanks also to coach Jen for being our lead Dolphin this year!  It was fun having one more tournament to cap the season.


Barracudas
Submitted by Blake Christie

I feel very positive after the weekend spent coaching the Barracudas.  The results don't show how far these players have come this year.  It's important to note that with this age group we have a broad spectrum of ability levels derived from experience, size and age.  So with that in mind we can look at tournaments from the perspective of emphasizing key individual tasks that will help the team in the long run rather than the short term.  First we look at the basics or the ABCs of water polo A- Legs, B- Swimming and C - Passing/shooting of the individuals on the team.  These basics are the base that every other skill stems from and are needed to improve in such a demanding game.  This past weekend we had a chance to see the strongest teams from Quebec and Eastern Canada.  I have to say that I was very proud of the composure that the Barracudas displayed in the face of such an imposing oppositions game after game.

The goals and objectives that were set out were:
      
             Defense - Check tight, keep physical contact with the opposing player, keep our hips up so that we can be more mobile in the water and watch the ball and play develop.

             Offense - Setup our offense deep into the opposing team zone.  Control the ball by swimming back and calling for the ball or driving when it was our turn (making it an easier pass for our teammates), laying out using hard legs, making good passes to the player that was expected to receive the ball.

Over the course of the tournament I saw an improvement in all these goals and I even started to see us countering the other teams by being aware of what was going on as plays developed.  We had a lot of quality opportunities and reduced our mistakes.  I think the Barracudas even drew more kick outs than the Sharks (Wow).

As I walk away from this season I'm excited about the potential I see in all the players involved and they in turn should be proud of the effort they put in, I look forward to seeing them all next season and I hope you all have a great summer.  Thank you very much to Val for being our team manager without volunteers like Val, Sue and Sarah we would not to be able to put together such a quality program (trust me I know).