2007 NACB Nationals
Tuesday, September 4, 2007, 05:00 PM
"The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart."
- Robert G. Ingersoll
No kids, I didn't pull that out of my ass. I looked it up, but it's the quote that the Seattle Gaels Hurling Team needs to think about.
Before going into the finer detail of the 2007 National tournament, lets just start out saying that our Seattle "C" team and "B" team both felt the effects of defeat early in the tournament. Luckly, our saving grace was the ladies Gaelic Football team winning their first Junior "B" title and thus allowing us to drink and party without sorrow on Sunday night.
Lets get into the small details.
Wednesday & Thursday
I arrive a day early with vice-captain, Ron Lorentsen. He immediately tells me to carry his bags, which I have to do since he's vice-captain. I start to then think that maybe we need to set some guidelines as to what a captain does. Cause if it involves telling others to carry bags, I got screwed out of that last year.
To quickly go over those two days, we hit Chicago with Marj Friedman and Andrea Flanagan (a couple early birds from the football team) and do a lot of walking. Ron and I take in a game with the bleacher bums at Wrigley Field (well worth it), we checked out a blues bar, we got in our deep dish pizza and meats (Ron took down some mighty good ribs while I regrettably ate a 'butt steak')
Friday
;)
Friday starts and the morning begins with a men and womens football game going on fairly close to each other, time wise. The girls easily take care of Orange County while the men did not do so well against...uhhh...Pittsburgh? I don't know. I played the 2nd half and tried to not be around the ball as much as I could (I was on defense, so that wouldn't be the worst thing).
Great playing by some Seattle footballers though. Barry Carson was a mad man on defense, some dude in the midfield was good (I forget his name), Sean Bennett was steller and Declan Owens played great on the full forward line. The best player though had to have been Liam Boyle who pulled off some of the most bad ass moves out there. It would be one thing for a young man to do it, but with his solid grey/white hair, it was just laughable to see him juke somebody.
Pittsburgh won though, fairly easily, but it was a decent showing I think from the Seattle Men's Football team. I was also excited to know that photos were taken and I can actually update that page with real photos! Hell yeah!
;)
The Seattle C team (i'm tired of putting quotes around the 'c') then got ready for their game against Indiana. The team was confident and it was great to see all the action from the sidelines. Usually I'm watching a seattle vs. seattle city league game or watching two teams I couldn't give two shits about play each other.
Scott Grigg lead the team out there and played a hell of a game against the equivilant to a Sean Bennett from our team. Scotty Blue Shoes also did great at the mid-field, scoring points a distance.
At the end though, the Indiana team had a much better midfield that we couldn't match up with. The boys played their asses off though.
Friday night was fairly relaxed for me and some of the B squaders, though we were very inticed by the offer to go to the beer tent. I don't know who put the beer tent thing together, but I pretty sure it wasn't anybody from the GAA. Initially it was $10 cover charge for all weekend long, $5 beers, hours of 7pm to midnight.
1st off, I don't know why there needs to be a cover charge. Without a cover, you're looking at about everybody going in there to drink. Having a $10 cover is just gonna make everybody go, "forget that" and go to TGIF's.
2nd, what the hell is with the midnight closing time? Some of us thought it might have to do with some liquor laws, but...
Saturday night, things changed. No cover charge, $4 beers and the place was open till 2am.
Sunday night, I think they offered me $5 to go in.
Saturday
I decided to not see the girls game in the morning as I knew that I would then sit on a bus for 1.5 hours or stay at the pitch and bake in the sun (and surely not feel the normal 128% I usually do).
Words comes back that the girls won, while Paul and I watch Red Dragon to get fired up. Paul tells me it's not working and so we turn on The Cowboy Way. That works better than anybody could expect.
We head to the pitch. I'm feeling pretty nervous about this time. I'm not sure why. I think it's because I put so much emphasize on this game through out the season and I didn't know what to expect...but maybe it's cause I'm a wuss. I haven't figured it out yet.
The game start and I immediately trip my player in the goalie box. Hell yeah! What a way to start the game.
The first half wasn't that bad for us. We played ok, though we could have played better. A goal they scored was one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. So we were down, but not completely out.
The second half though was not our best moment, though again, I don't think it was horrible. We had to get an offense surge going so when we could get some points, we went for goals, which we didn't get.
After thinking about it afterwards, I think the only real difference between us this year and last year was Euvin Kim fouling everybody. That and a ripped up shoe. Maybe we needed that bruiser more than we knew. Euvin, say you'll be there next year.
But that is not to take anything away from Milwaukee. They played great and took it to us. They went on to easily take the championship with a win over Minnesota 4-20 to 1-11.
I honestly can't remember the score of our game. If you know it, post it in the comments (along with the Junior C game)
;)
After the game, we went on to take down some beers at Gaelic Park. It was fun watching the mood go from somber to rowdy. I don't know who set up the limbo set up, but that seemed to get the loss off everybodies mind. I guess being able to limbo a hurley set up with trash cans and beer cans was good enough for the day.
The party then hit the beer tent, which had one thing going for it. Bean bag toss. 4 games set up for whoever to play some games.
I would like to take this opportunity to talk about Lorcan French and I's two wins against James Walsh and Fernando Torres (that last name may be wrong). We were then awarded beers. James and I then played a VERY SOBER Alan (something) and (Aidan's Brother) O'Callaghan. They BARELY shut us out both games, but the highlight of those games was when James or I casually threw a bean bag at Aidan, who wasn't paying attention.
;)
Aidan then threw it back at us and was yelled at by a cop who said, "If you throw another bean bag, you're going to jail!" Them officers in Chi-town don't mess around. I thought that would be a good time to take Aidan's shirt off (a Gaels event tradition), but James held me back.
Sunday
;)
Most of the guys head over early to watch the girls play in their championship game, while some get up to watch the All-Ireland final.
I show up ready to take pictures, only to find out the Gaels are already up 1-8 to 0-1. I freak out, but find out the game has only gone on for 10 minutes. I then set up the camera, take some pictures of January Chay on the ground and then watch the camera turn off from a lack of battery life. $&%#!
So I join the others as we watch, taunt the ref and cheer on the girls as they easily win 3-13 to 0-6.
;)
The celebration starts and I must say it gets a little emotionaly with watching Meg Starbird (or Seyler, whatever name you're using!) celebrate her first championship in 10 years of playing. Congratulations to her and all the girls. It was awesome watching them celebrate after watching two tough losses the past two years.
;)
The celebration goes over to the...uhhh...food area, where I find out that it's a little too early (game ended about 10:30am) and I'm a little too hungover to continue on celebrating.
So though I missed it, I heard things continued to be pretty crazy for the girls until about 4pm when they eventually came back to the hotel to get ready for the dinner.
The dinner was set up very nice and the food was well done. The booze was very very nice too (thanks to all who got it and the Gaels for buying it all). Props to Andrea for finding the joint too.
Some of the highlights of the dinner were all the ladies wearing dresses (these are ladies that you would normally never see in a dress). Seeing Josh Seyler and Steve Wakefield in the dress was also nice. All the speeches were great and I think everybody had a good time.
;)
Most people headed back to the hotel to go to the beer tent.
I must add that this was about the time that Paul McGarry, Larry Ray and I almost got in a fight with a cab driver. It's a long story to tell, but let me just say that 1) He didn't drive us anywhere (that was kind of the problem), 2) The guy said he was gonna have us 'listed' for yelling at him and 3) Midway Airport's cab situation is a little messed up.
;)
The beer tent turned into White Castle (for me and a couple others at least) and then turned into room 526, where the party lasted till at least 5am.
We all headed home that next day.
----
As far as the hurling team and where we're at. It's kind of hard to tell from my perspective. I know that we are only gonna get bigger with our recruiting, but I also know that the more veterns we lose, the harder it is for team. Losing is not something that you want to get comfortable with, but it's something that you have to experience sometimes to see your faults and push you to be a better player. As far as both teams go, we have to step it up. We have to work harder, we have to get better and not settle for where we are at. This was a hell of a year, but it definitely wasn't one that we want to continue.
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( 3 / 92 )Vancouver Treat...
Monday, August 13, 2007, 03:22 PM
Well, maybe it's old news to some of you, but I might as well write about it for all the Gaelites out there looking to hear about the happenings in Vancouver.
Saturday:
The Gaels buckled up and headed out to Vancouver at the ungodly hour of 10am. Yeah, you heard that right! 10am! That means we had to wake up by 9am! (8:30am for those who needed to put product in their hair *cough*ron*cough*)
Luckily I wasn't the driver or I would have fallen asleep at the wheel.
We all reach the border to find out that there are tons more that tried to beat the traffic by leaving early, so we wait for 2 hours.
Highlight of that part was my ride going past Matt Everett as he picked the slow lane. Though it happens a lot, it's always fun to beat Matt.
We arrive at the pitch to get ready for a big matchup against Vancouver (and whoever they flew in from Ireland for that day).
Match 1: Vancouver (with some Calgary peeps) vs. Gaels
Results: Ugly. I wish I could blame the fact that we sat 4 hours in a car, but Vancouver has been playing Gaelic Football all day, so we were probably in better shape than them. I thought we played pretty well on defense, but our offense wasn't getting the ball through the uprights. (I know I sound like a jerk since I was on defense, but I think it's true) The Harps played well on offense hitting the shots they needed to.
Break 1: Irish Dancing
Results: The lone dude obviously stole the show.
Match 2: Gaels vs. a mix of Harps, Calgary and a couple Gaels
Results: Tie, though I don't think that was true. I think we lost, but I leave my opinion on the blogs, who am I to question the ref when he blows the whistle. It was a fun game though as I think we played pretty well and it wasn't as serious as the first one.
--> We didn't have any pictures taken of the game, but I did a mock up of what I think it looked like. That's a Gael going hard against one of the Vancouver players. That's Ronan for Vancouver. He would occasionally bring a Gaelic football into the game when the ball was coming to him. We didn't say anything cause he's very sensitive, but I think the picture captures what we had to go through.
Break 2: Dinner Party
Results: Good fun, good food and some great music (It doesn't get any better than hearing "Hit Me Baby (One More Time)" by some dude with a guitar). The awards were a little boring this time (since I didn't give a speech), but it was good for the other squads.
A bunch of Gaels went off to some high-priced/1st-class bar (Gaels style) where we spent the rest of the night drinking top shelf liquor and buying rounds for everybody in the bar. This was until we realized the Canadian dollar is actually worth more than we thought.
At this point I believe we all went home, though some people keep mentioning a place called Cecil’s, but I don't know what they're talking about.
Sunday:
Break 1: The best of the best (Justin Meaney, Brian Delahunty, Paul McGarry, Lorcan French and I) decided to stay and cheer on the ladies for their final day of Gaelic Football. We watched a couple games (including the "final" one), cheered them to victory (without us, they would have lost) and then headed back to the states.
I then forgot about the work I had that night. Oh well.
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( 3.1 / 115 )Wrap it up already...
Friday, August 3, 2007, 03:55 PM
Let's get right into it.
Seattle Gaelic Games
In my own personal opinion, it was a wonderful event. I can't really think of anything that went terribly wrong. Yeah, a couple things could have been better, but as a whole, I would consider this a HUGE success for the Seattle Geals. Amazingly, it ran off like we've been doing these tournaments for like 5 years straight. Everybody pitched in, everybody was on top of things and nobody decided to mess everything up.
A little quick recap on the hurling side of things.
1st Match: SF Na Fianna vs. Vancouver
Conclusion: I didn't really get to watch this match too much as I was running around trying to make sure everything was going smoothly everywhere (which is was) as well as getting warmed up for the first Seattle match. Vancouver did come out fighting the first 10 minutes, but they couldn't hold Na Fianna back for the whole game.
Winner: Na Fianna
2nd Match: Seattle 'B' Team vs. Seattle 'C' Team
Conclusion: A good match that I think got the 'B' Teams confidence up heading into their last match. The passing was good, the striking was solid and defense did it's job. You can't expect the 'C' team to really match up, but there was some good play by them. Scotty Blue Shoes (sorry Scott, I'm too lazy to look up your last name...) did an excellent job playing mid-field.
Winner: Seattle 'B' Team
3rd Match: Gaelic Football match - SF Na Fianna vs. Vancouver
Conclusion: The best matchup we had today...and it wasn't a hurling game. These guys went tied into the last minute when the ref stated 'next point wins'. Well...10 grueling minutes later the game was still going on. SF Na Fianna went on to take it...with a point I think.
Winner: SF Na Fianna
4th Match: Vancouver vs. Seattle 'C'
Conclusion: Vancouver goes on for a victory against a fighting 'C' team. From my angle, a great disply of defense on the 'C' side the second half. Brian...from San Fran...American dude...again, too lazy to look up the last name, did exceptionally well. Ronan Deane on Vancouver played a wonderful game (though some would call it "cherry picking") and put a lot of pressure on Seattle's defense.
Winner: Vancouver
5th Match: SF Na Fianna vs. Seattle 'B'
Conclusion: Complete blow out for Na Fianna. It's kind of weird for our Seattle team. Everyone knew that these guys were the 'shit', I think it really took us all by surprised to see how good these guys were. Did we honestly expect to win? God no, but I don't think we played as well as we should have.
Then again, I can't stand it when people will lose a basketball game and say, "We gave them that game cause we didn't hit our shots." Maybe it was because the other team played exceptional defense that you didn't hit your shots?
Regardless, we learned a lot that game and I think it's definitely something that will help us get ready for the Junior 'B' division at Nationals.
Winner: Na Fianna
Champions: San Francisco Na Fianna
MVP: Uhhhh...I think his name was Paddy White...but I'm not sure. I do know that he didn't like tequila. Or having the ice cooler dumped on him.
-----
Seattle City League Final
Honestly...I had to work, didn't get to watch it and I actually didn't hear that much about it. But I do know that the Blue Balls Beyonders (or whatever their name is this week) won the championship against the Romio Red Eagle Bears. Yes, this is the same blue team that was crying earlier in the year that the teams were unfair, how the red team was loaded and how no one could beat them.
What team was I on? Yeah, the 3rd place black team.
Excuse my behavior, I didn't like the red team earlier, but I looked at it like this.
Red Team: New York Yankees
Blue Team: Boston Red Sox
Black Team: Baltimore Orioles
While I don't like the Yankees and should be happy to see the Red Sox beat them, my team (the orioles) is still in their division and still wants both of them to have food poisoning right before our games.
So if you're expecting a huge little blog entry about how the lowly Blue Balls came back from an 0-2 record to win the championship, you're not gonna get it. The Black Team should have been in the playoffs, but we just lost the last game deciding who goes in. No, the Blue team didn't win, the Black team lost the match. We gave them the match. (heh heh, you see how I'm sarcastically tying in my blog? I'm amazing, thank you)
Ok, so seriously, congratulations to the Blue Team (as well as MVP, Ron Lorentsen) on a well earned championship.
And before anybody asks, when I get the scores, I'll input them into the league page. If you want to see the stats, tell this person to email the scores to me.
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Vancouver Tournament
Tomorrow the Gaels embark on a tradition. We all ride up to Vancouver, cheer on the girls in the afternoon, play a couple hurling games, get sun burnt, let loose that night and then watch the girls the next day while burning our sun burnt skin.
I believe this is gonna be a tough matchup this year. I think there is a side-effect to the strong relationship we've built with Vancouver. And that is that their gaelic football team has played about 4 more games of Hurling than they would normally have if we only saw them once a year.
Crap.
They're an awesome Gaelic Football team and a good hurling team that can be great if they actually played all year. It'll be a tough matchup. But that's always good for us.
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( 3.1 / 107 )Gaelic Games Conclusion!
Monday, July 23, 2007, 02:41 PM
....won't be happening today.
Hah, that's funny...right?
Anyways, after a Sunday hanging out horizontal, I'm soon gonna be looking through 350 photos my brother took of the games.
It'll all be posted and everyone will be able to relive the glory.
Quick recap: fabulous.
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( 3.1 / 100 )Mind Games...
Friday, July 20, 2007, 09:17 AM
Freck! You know, I'm looking at the tournament this past week going, "we're in really good shape".
We got both the hurling and Gaelic football thing all figured out. Everything should cater to all the different needs from the teams and players. All the outside things (trophies, shirts, after-party, insurance, pitch lining, nets, food, drink, PA system, poster, website, photography, packet, etc. etc. etc.) are taken care of or on schedule to be taken care of.
Then Sean Bennett has to point out that it’s supposed to rain on Saturday.
What the hell??!?!
Maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall with having Rain City Clothing sponsor the tournament, but come on! It's July 21st! The rule in Seattle is that AFTER July 4th, your summer starts. That's when you don't worry about rain; you bust out the shorts and sandals and let the muggy sun heat up your house until 11pm.
Yeah, rain or shine, you play hurling or Gaelic football. We're not talking about Nationals 2006 conditions here, but you know, I just want to have a tournament where the weather is not a factor!
Regardless though, things are looking up, so I'm happy with what I have control over and looking forward to the games.
Honestly, I don't think the rain is gonna come down hard, I think it'll be that weak rain that doesn't effect your day except make traffic a lot slower. I look forward to meeting the boys from San Fran (both squads) and hoping that Vancouver doesn't point and ridicule everything, stating how they're tournament is better (it is quite good, we patterned a lot of things around it).
So lets all hope that Mother Nature decides to open up the clouds and peek down on the Seattle Gaelic Games. If not, then to hell with her, we'll still go hard.
see everyone tomorrow.
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