We didn’t get the medals – yet.  The ceremony is tomorrow.  But “World Champion” sounds nice, don’t it?

I doubt I could be eloquent at all right now (not that I’ve acheived any literary heights in my quickly-written posts this week).  It’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m back from a relatively subdued dinner followed by a loud party that was large enough to fill an ice hockey rink.

There’s a lot to consider from today, which I’ll attempt to do some justice to later.  The short version is:

Semis: New Zealand played better in this game than when we played them previously, hitting on several challenging long throws in particular.  We were also able to pressure them into enough turnovers to get us through with a relatively-comfortable 17-13 win.  Truthfully, their game was a little one-dimensional, and one player in particular was very strong running deep.  Overall, a good, hard-fought game, and I’ll proudly wear my shiny new New Zealand Ultimate hat.
Finals: Canada re-match.  Yes, like people expected.  It was a tight game and a little sloppy; finals tend to be cagey and this one was no exception.  Enough turnovers to go around, especially on a brutal final point with three turnovers from us.

I got into a collision with one of our own players early in the second half, and the result was me not playing the rest of the game.  Tightened my back up enough that I wouldn’t have been able to hit 100%.  I’m a little torn about whether I should think I’m lame for not sucking it up and getting out there, or whether I was simply doing the right thing by letting the sub-caller (Al)  know that I wasn’t at full speed.  I would have gone in had we given up a run of breaks, but in any event, Al, Paul, and Moonee took care of the handling duties through the final push.  Those three have played a ton of huge games together.

I recognize that not playing much of that second half could make the result feel hollow to me, as in, “if *I* didn’t help get it done, it doesn’t count.”   But that isn’t the nature of team sports.  I’m going to be very proud to get up on that podium tomorrow and collect the gold medal – proud personally for what I’ve accomplished all week up until now, but even more proud to be a member of this team that got it done together.

I’m already wondering if this level of introspection (to coin a word?) belongs out here on this blog.  But it’s 2:30 a.m., and there it is.   I’ll be putting out some more pictures and some more cogent thoughts on the tournament over the next few days.  But now, maybe I’ll try that sleeping thing again…