As an athlete there is no better feeling than game day, and it’s almost here. It is game day eve. We have been in Dublin for nearly a week now putting in our final hours of mental and physical preparation for the tournament ahead. The stakes are high: we must finish top two to advance to World League 3. Yet, there is a feeling of calm and ease within the team. Everyone is ready.
We started our final pre-tournament day with a continued discussion and debrief of our practice match victory against Chile on Wednesday evening. As every athlete knows, winning is not synonymous with perfection and there’s always room for improvement.
Once we were finished our team meeting, we went for a team walk and stretch session. After a couple of rainy days, it was great to see blue sky and sunshine! There were a lot of laughs, especially about the staff’s photo tribute to Zoolander (haven’t seen it? Check out @fhc_wnt on instagram!).
Feeling loose, we headed back to the hotel for a quick lunch. Being in Ireland has brought carb loading to a new level: potatoes are guaranteed at every meal, sometimes in multiple variations. Who doesn’t love potatoes?
Antsy to get out of the hotel for the afternoon, our beloved hotel shuttle driver Fran agreed to extend his Friday shift to take us to the mall after lunch. What a guy! As we all piled into the bus, we realized that speakers had not made the trek. No fear though: when you want to hear some Beyonce, you’ll always find a way. Rocky had “Drunk in Love” playing through her phone almost immediately, and Beyonce had a crew of backup singers shortly there after.
A while after, Ke$ha (one of my musical guilty pleasures) started playing and my ears perked right up. I learned that Ke$ha is also a guilty musical pleasure of Rocky’s. No one else seemed nearly as excited as the two of us, so we were on to the next one rather quickly. Maybe it’s a goalie thing?
Coach Ian had recommended that once at the mall we stop at Butlers, a local chain of cafes also specializing in chocolate. Their trademark is that you get to choose a chocolate to go with your coffee. What a great surprise! We possibly held up the line behind us, carefully scanning the seemingly endless choices of chocolate before making a decision.
Once back at the hotel, Rosie (my tournament roommate) and I discovered envelopes with our names and jersey numbers had been slipped under our door while we were out. In the bottom corner of each envelope, there was a small KG. Upon opening our little gifts from sneaky captain Kate, we found a world map with all of the stops (tournaments) on the road to Rio 2016, the common goal that unites us all. We each also had an inspirational quote written on our map. Mine reads,
“There will be obstacles
There will be doubters
There will be mistakes
But with hard work…
THERE ARE NO LIMITS”
How appropriate. Tomorrow against Turkey, we continue our quest to return to the Olympics for the first time since 1992. There are obstacles. There are doubters. We aren’t perfect. But I can guarantee you one thing: you will not find a team that works harder than we work for each other, and ourselves, day in day out. And with that, there are no limits.
To all of our friends, family, teammates, and other supporters back home: thank you for all of your continued support. We could not be where we are without you!
