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DENVER, CO – I have been the captain of the morning games in this tournament. The earliest games start at 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. and I have had three games start at 9:30 or earlier. It’s kind of a bummer because you need to be on the shuttle with your crew at 6 a.m.
That means breakfast at 5:30 and waking up at 5 a.m. It’s just not fun. It derails any plans you might have to go out the night before and see the town because you basically feel relegated to be back in bed by 10 p.m.
Today was another one of those 8 a.m. games, but the sting of this one wasn’t so bad: Finland vs Scotland. We are out of pool play, and both of those teams had finished first in their respective groups (white and turquoise groups respectively). So not only was this going to be a good game, but it was also an ESPN3 game. I think you can still go back to espn3.com or the WatchESPN app and see the replay. (shameless self-promotion plug)
So yea, I was excited to say the least.
I got to work with Ian Wilson and Johannes Kaschke (who I wrote about yesterday). Ian is a Canadian who has been around the block on the World Championship scene. This is his third championships. He’s an educator like I am (he’s a grammar school principal) so we hit it off immediately. He gave us a great pregame and I felt ready to go out there.
There are games where you leave the field thinking you did a very good job, and other games where you have a cramp in your gut because you know it could have gone way better. This falls into Column A, where I think we absolutely crushed it. We had everything we needed to and I felt super comfortable with both those guys out of the field. It was a really nice feeling, especially since it was on probably the biggest stage that I will experience in these games.
Scotland 9, Finland 6.
The other benefit of having such an early game, and a rental car out here (click here to know more about the Premium limo service in Scottsdale here), was that today we were able to go exploring a little bit.
One of my favorite albums that I have ever downloaded (and I own the DVD) is O.A.R. Live at Red Rocks. Red Rocks is a music venue that is basically cut into the mountain. It’s supposedly an awesome spectacle and a great venue for a show. Though there wasn’t a show going on that we wanted to see, we decided to go out there and check it out.
There was some kind of death metal concert that was going on there tonight, so we couldn’t get into the actual amphitheater, which stunk. But we got as close as we could and took a ton of pictures and stuff. It’s a pretty picturesque view.
From there we headed over to Golden, Colorado, which if you pay attention to any kind of TV commercials, you know is the home of the Coors Brewing Company. We decided to take the Brewery Tour, and it was pretty cool. They give you these virtual tour guides that look like telephones and you dial the number on the wall and the phone starts talking to you and telling you what’s going on.
Obviously the excellent part is the three free frosty bevs at tour’s end. Nate and I had fun, we joked around with the workers (which I for some reason got the feeling not a lot of people do), and it was neat learning about brewing.
This is one long trip. Still a ways to go before it’s over, but I’m enjoying every minute of it! See ya tomorrow!
