we are the champions...of the world!!!

last night, the soccer season that was 2005-2006 came to an end...in sweet sweet sweet victory! about a month ago i wrote a blog about this soccer season. the basic jist of that blog was that this season had been one of the most frustrating seasons i had ever played because our team was so much better than our record of 3-5 indicated. we had lost some tough games, some games that we should have won, and we were going into the playoffs having beaten only the last place team twice (who didn't win a game all year) and rocky, who finished 3rd in the regular season in our very first game of the season. despite the poor record, i knew what our team was capable of and i had high hopes going into the play-offs. our first game was against the first place team (though in my opinion they were not the best team in the league...i mean besides us cause we were the best team in the league...i think this team was actually 3rd best). the thing about this team is that they have a well coached offensive system built around ball control and alot of movement. but once you have figured out their system, it is really not that hard to defend against and once it's your turn to press them on offence you quickly find out that their defence is very shaky. great goaltending made their D seem better than it was. game time came and on the very first shift we went out there and popped one right in there. I read one of their players like a picture book and quickly and easily stole the ball from him and then put a ball through their defenders to my teammate jonny L who was making a run down the sideline. once he collected the ball in behind the defence it was all over(this guy was at one point a canadian junior national player and is the most skilled player on our team by far). just like that we were up on them and we didn't look back. we went into half up 2-0 and then quickly put it up to 4-0 once the second half started. in the end Prairie kind of made a game of it with the final score being 4-3, but 2 of their 3 goals should not have been goals...and don't think this is me just being whiny about it or anything, i mean they actually should not have been goals. their first goal never even went in the net. it hit the crossbar, then the post and out, but the ref called it a goal despite the fact that even a few of prairie's own players who were on the floor at the time were saying it wasn't a goal. and then their 3rd goal was a freak goal and i'm still not sure what happened. they had a guy come down the wing on a break and i was on the far post covering my guy who was hanging out back there. the ball carrier took a shot and got it past our goalie but because i happened to be right there, i was able to reach out and stop the ball just before it crossed the line...then the unthinkable happened and i either tripped or got pushed(our goalie thinks i got pushed but i don't recall being contacted). end result being i fell down onto the ball and because of the way my momentum was going and because a soccer ball is round and rolls well i rolled right into the net with the ball underneath me...it was most heinous. thankfully that didn't cost us the game and from there we were able to run the clock out and seal the deal with no further problems. also, i socred one goal in this game and set up 2 others...this was a very good game for me besides that final goal.
Next up was Taylor in the gold medal game. in my opinion taylor was a better team than prairie making them 2nd best. (it's kinda funny....i actually thought throughout the season that we were the best, taylor was second best and prairie was third best and that's how they ended up placing in the end...am i good or what?) i found taylor to be a harder team because they did not have a system that was as easy to defend against as prairie's was and i think they had more talented players than prairie did. we found out before this game that we were the most hated team in the league...one of our players overheard a conversation between 3 guys from the three other teams in the play-offs and the concensus was that they did not want united(that's us) to win and didn't care who won besides us. we found that kind of funny(and not really too surprising cause we tended to be the most physical and often most emotional team in the league) and it only motivated us to win even more. (i also found out after the game that when taylor found out that we beat prairie some of their players were concerned because they knew "we wanted it bad") this game was an even better game than the prairie game. we went out hard and racked up a score of 4-1 at the end of half-time and that was lucky for them cause we had several more chances that could have made it more. thye pushed us hard in the second half and to their credit managed to make it a 5-3 game. in the end, however, we were just too good on this week-end.
This was the best finish i could have asked for in my final year playing at the school. in my 3 years playing on the school team we had never won the championship and the silver and bronze from the 2 previous years were leaving a bad taste in my mouth. and knowing what kind of team we had and the potential on our team was killing me throughout the season. we finally put it together when it counted and played like i knew we would. it was a huge blessing playing on this team this year with all the guys. i doubt any of them will ever read this, but their heart and effort was really appreciated this year and i couldn't have asked for anything more from them.
honorable mention also goes out to the united girls team who played a heck of a game, but came up just short losing 2-1 in their gold medal game. their team was really awesome this year(they even had 4 out of the 10 all-conference players) and they sould be proud of their season(they even beat st mary's during the season who until that point had not lost a single game in 3 years...that's awesome!). most well-played girls.
so with that i have just one thing left to say. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLD!!!