Hobart Tuesday

Tuesday we play Hobart at Hobart. They are ranked 8th in the country, this past weekend they played Buff State on Fri and Sat. To everyone's suprise they were defeated 4-0 by a lesser Buff State Team. On Saturday they came out and showed why they were one of the top teams in the country winning 6-3. Even though they are 1-1 there is no reason to believe they are a weak team, you don't get ranked 8th in the country by mistake. When we travel there Tuesday I'm expecting them to give us there best game which means we need to play at the very top of our game. They play in a hostile environment, there rink is basically out doors and they get 1000 or more fans a game and they pack there rink. Last year they lost in the NCAA quaterfinals to Plattsburgh who eventually lost in the National final. All I know is we need to be ready to go. It will be my first college game after siting out last weekend against Fredonia and Geneseo. My shoulder is feeling better and I'm expecting to make some noise in my first college game. On Friday we host Oswego, who is if not the best team in our league, than top 2. We have two very very tough games this week and then on Sunday we host Lebanon Valley College who is a weaker team but we can't take them lightly. We need to get it going this week/ weekend will be a huge test of what kind of team we truly are. We will be ready and hope to get a lot of support.

GO Red Dragons...

Roche

Big Weekend!

This weekend we have a huge challenge. We play Fredonia on Friday and Geneseo on Saturday. Even though I can't play I'm going to be so pumped and ready just go to the rink and watch the game. I know the boys are ready even though we are missing like 4 guys. I would do anything to be ok and ready to play today. I hope we get alot of student support because sometimes thats the difference between winning and losing. Coach has everyone fired up and ready to go, it just sucks that I cant be part of it. I just want to win, if we do that I don't care. Fredonia is known to be a top 3 team in the league pernially, as well as a tough team that will always throw everything they have at you so were going to need to be ready to go. The atmosphere before the game is going to unbelieveable, it will be crazy that I can say. I have so much work to do this weekend and I cant because I'm so fired up for this game. Buff State and Geneseo play at 2pm and I'll be going to watch that game which will probably fire me up even more which is just crazy. If anyone could hear coaches speeches before games you would know what I'm talking about, just nutssss. Anyway I cant type anymore cause I'm so excited, bring the noise to the game tonight! were looking to winnn....cheers

Seperated Shoulder!

My shoulder is killing me, this is the most miserable I have been since I have been at Cortland. I'm furious at how much this hurts. Theres a good chance I wont be able to play this weekend vs Fredonia and Geneseo. I have been going to our trainer Kristen everyday 3-4 times a day to get treatments on my shoulder. I have done Ice and Stim everyday, Also heat pads and Ibuprofen. It's frustrating because I'm puting in so much work to get back to be able to play and the strides I'm making are miniscule. The thing that kills me the most is this has happend before! I have seperated both of my shoulders in the past. It was at the end of the season so It didn't effect me as much as this is now. I sucked it up took some pain killers and played through the pain, than had all summer to recover, now im facing the challenge of playing and getting hurt worst, or siting out which hurts me more then any injury could. I don't know what to do and it's eating me up inside. I came to Cortland for hockey, not being able to play is the worst part about it. I'm not sure what to do or what else to talk about in my blog because this is all thats on my mind, and all that will be until I'm back to 100%. I'm just trying to figure out what I can do. I guess I'm doing all I can to help recover, I hate to see my team play knowing I'm not helping there cause, which bring up the question I have been asking this whole time! should I sit in the stand and be in pain, or get checked against the boards every shift and wish my shoulder was not connected to my body. Well thats a pretty negative blog, but thats whats going on in my life right now, I expect to see everyone at the games Fri and Sat....Cheers

RED AND WHITE GAME

Saturday Afternoon was the annual red and white game. We break up our hockey team into two teams and scrimmage eachother. We had real refs and it was a pretty good game to be honest. I was on white and we lost 4-1, the good news is I scored the only goal, the bad news is, I seperated my shoulder. It stinks because It's killing me, I can barely type right now. I haven't told my coach because we have two big games next weekend against Fredonia and Geneseo and I dont want him to sit me because im hurt. Anyway the game was pretty good, but what made it great was the fact that we had a lot of fans at the game, I was suprised how many people came to the game, considering it was against eachother. I'm really happy how it turned out other then the shoulder. This weekend also went pretty well, we had a nice team function and hung out as a group. It's nice to get close with the team, we need to be ready to go, things are happening quickly here and we need to win, thats the bottom line. I would also like to wish Dave Aitken a Happy B-day, great supporter of hockey, true hero...anyway hope everyone had a good weekend, and I look forward to posting my next blog after we play Fredonia....

Roche Stains

Cortland Vs Plattsburg Soccer

On Friday I went to the Cortland vs. Plattsburg soccer game. It was a very competitive game. Back and fourth the whole time. At the end of the game it ended up 1-1 the game went into overtime, and p-burg won in a shoot out. I was excited to have the chance to finally get to a game because I need to write a reflection for COR-101. Anyway that was my Friday night, Cortland has a very good goalkeeper, he was kicking the ball all the way up the field, it was impressive. With about 47 seconds left in the game Cortland had a chance to win the game, they made a pass out in front and the shot was put over the cross bar. It was great to get the opportunity to see them play cause I'm used to watching slu's soccer team play and they play a different style, although i thought Cortland looked good. Saturday Morning I woke up and had hockey practice, then had the rest of the day off to finish some homework, I love the weekend it's so much less stressful and a great time to get things done, eventually I would like to make a trip up to the Adirondacks, but right now it seems like it might now happen. Anyway I'm looking forward to starting games soon, we play Fredonia and Geneseo in a couple of weeks. It will be interesting to see how we fair up against those two teams at the beginning of the year. Anyway that's it for now....enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Roche puck

BO-Sox

This is an exciting time for me because I love he Boston Red Sox. They are up 2-0 in the series against the LA Angels. The Angels have been picked by some to win the world series. It is nice to see the Sox starting off the playoffs strong. Jason Bay has hit 2 home runs in two games. Bay was who we picked up when we traded Manny. Bay has been a great player for the Sox and been less of a probelm off the field. Many Sox fans were mad about the trade but it looks like it was the right move because Bay is the man. Bay state if you will. I would love to see the Red Sox win and then see the LA Dodgers win as well so we could play Manny In the world series, even though thats a long way out from now. Anyway the red sox are down 1-0 right now in the game and I need to get back to cheer from my sox. Hope everyone had a good weekend...I expect to see everyone at our first scrimmage. We play eachother on the ice next saturday at 2:30. It's called the red and white game. I'm very excited for that and I'll be ready to go.

GO SOX!!

Roche Bloggin

The Final Count Down..

What great time to blog. Anyway, It's almost that time again, the ice gets put down, the stands put in place and the teams get ready to play. We start official tryouts Tuesday at Alumni Arena. We have a white and red game at mid-night. We will finally see who is going to be a red dragon this year and who is going to call it quits. Coach gave us a huge speech about his expectations on Friday. He wants to win and will do whatever it takes. He will cut seniors as well as recruits to win games this year. We have a ton of guys on the roster right now, right around 40. He will have a tough time figuring out what hes going to do. I'm glad I'm not in the position to pick the team right now. We are all excited to find out what the final decision will be. I hope we have a good number of fans Tuesday night so we have some support. I know the team hasn't had a ton of support in the past and hope the new coaching will add to our teams recognition. I always wondered why people wouldn't want to come watch a great, fast past, game like hockey. Hits, saves, goals, what more can you ask for?
It will be exciting to see how the team adds up in the next few weeks, I hope we get as much student support as possible, that leads to wins, and we wanna win games this year!
Hope to see everyone Tuesday at mid-night.

Roche Puckin'...

Soccer

Ok, So today I went to Hobart to watch my dad's soccer team play. He's the head coach at St. Lawrence. They are big rivals with Hobart and my dad dislikes the coach because hes arrogant. A couple of hockey guys and I went down to watch the game and see my folks. It was a good game SLU ended up losing 2-1 but they didn't play very well. One of my good friends is the captain of the team and he scored the only goal. I felt bad because my dad told me if they didnt win another game this year and beat Hobart he would be happy. The thing is he won a National Championship with SLU n 1999. He still gets up for games like that, after such a big accomplishment he is still hungry to win every game. Don't get me wrong Hobart is ranked #5 in the country and SLU is having a bad season there 6-3 overall. Most people would think thats a good record but everytime they go out for a season they expect to win a National Championship. They have been to the semi's twice since they won, and quaters atleast 3 times. I know 99' is along time ago but they still treat it like it was yesterday at SLU. I feel bad for the seniors because when they were freshman they lost in the finals. That wasnt very long ago, It's tough to have such high expectations and still have a 6-3 season. It's a good thing they don't play Cortland this year or I would have a tough time figuring out who I would cheer for, My school or my dad's team. Anyway that was my Saturday and I ended the day with some homework. What a life for a college student.

Cheer's

ROche-blog

One Day Home..

Well, I went home Friday just for the night, which in the end was a dumb decision because I traveled 3 hours there and 3 hours back for 24 hours at home. It was worth I needed to get somethings and I wanted to be home for a little bit. I got to watch my dad's soccer team play against Plattsburgh and Potsdam. He coaches soccer at St. Lawrence Univ. They beat Potsdam 7-1 which is a huge win in soccer, it's almost ridiculous. The day before they lost to Plattsburgh State, 1-0 it was a terrible game but I'm glad I got to watch my dads team play while I was home. I like to watch them play, They won a National Championship in 1999. They always have a chance to win every time they get on the field.
I also got to get my hair cut when I was home, which I needed badly. It's always nice to go home because my parents haven't seen me in so long so they get some stuff and give me money which is rare. My grandparents gave me 70$ in the course of 2 days for no reason and I felt bad taking it, but I needed it.
On a different note: It was nice to see Michael Reilly got his guitar in the mail. Mike is a privileged and proud musician and I enjoy listening to him play.

Cheers,

R-bloggin

Conspiracy Therories( World Ending)

My topic is going to be, " Why do people tend to make guess on why the world will end?" how do they have that knowledge? what research have they done? What religion are they? What evidence in our history of the world goes to show this?

Examples-

Y2K- the world was supposed to end due to computers not being able to process 2000
Our newest threat- The world will end in 2012, because the Mayan Calender ends. Along with other sources I will look into deeper.

The Journey

This weekend I have decided I'm going to make a trip home before our season starts. It's going to bed nice because I haven't been home in about a month. I live close enough where I can make the trip home and be back within 3 hours.
It will be nice to go home and play golf with some of my buddies who go to SLU. Hockey is obviously my true passion but I love to play golf because its relaxing and builds mental strength. Hitting the ball in the woods or having a good shot makes me want to break my club over a tree but mentally I have to let it go and be ready to hit my next shot. OK, that's my little tangent on golf.
Anyway I'm hoping to have the opportunity to shoot up to lake placid and maybe get a hike in. I've got a time set up to play some tennis with a few buddies and grab some dinner at the Lake Placid Pub and Brewery. A few of my buddies who are Alpine and Nordic skiers are going to be up in Placid training some hopefully I can catch a few runs. I'm going to stop by my old school and catch up with one of my best friends and make sure he's doing well. It's great to go back and see how much things have changed. I have realized since being at Cortland I live in two worlds now. Their is my world here at Cortland that is my work, hockey and social life. Then my other world is family, friends, and my community back home, at times its very tough to balance both of this commitments.
I have gotten a hard time from friends outside of school for not keeping in touch as much as I should be. My biggest problem is the fact that they should know how much work and commitment it is to just stay focused on school work and athletics let alone outside influences, so hopefully I can make it up to them this weekend.
Hope everyone enjoys what we have left for warm weather in the North Country. Cheers.

Training Day

Well here it is, 3 weeks into school and we have started captains practices and off ice lifts, agility's and runs. So far our team looks pretty good, all the freshman and returners came to school in pretty good shape so it's nice to see were right where we need to be.
Our first captains skate it was obvious a lot of us were rusty and we were trying to get our legs back under us as well as our stick skills. I was impressed with a lot of the guys. We have a hand full of returners about 10 recruits and at least 12 walk-ons. The competition level has been pretty solid so far. I don't wanna jinx the team to early but I am excited to see that we have the guys to have a solid season. I think the biggest part of having a good team isn't just solid players and the potential we have as a whole but how the team jells. We need to have good chemistry and trust each other before the season begins. We have a mid-night madness skate on October 1st where we have a red and white scrimmage and cuts begin after that, we expect a decent showing from town people and students as well.
The training has been tough every Thursday we run 6 20's 6 40's 6 80's and 4 110 yard sprints. It's a great day for us because it builds character. Our week involved 3 off ice lifts/sprints and two captains practices.
So far things are going well, the team looks good, the lifts have been hard, and coach seems pleased, I'm excited to see what the future brings. For now I have a cold and need to sleep.

NSA vs. Cortland

This is going to be a topic that I obviously enjoy writing about. I went to a private school in Lake Placid, NY. The school I attended was strictly for winter sport athletes. We have boys and girls hockey, figure skating, alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, Nordic combined, snowboarding, luging and bobsledding. We have had numerous skiers and Luger's in the Olympics and on the US National teams. The aspect that makes this school so unique is everyone plays a sport, and the school itself only had about 90 kids. My graduating class was 27. I know for a lot of people this concept is almost impossible to visualize. It was an amazing experience living at school with my teammates and other student athletes. The thing is I went away to school there my sophomore year, so this year in college to me is no change at all I have been away from home for hockey for roughly six years! Most freshman are a little overwhelmed, but for me its just another year, another mountain to climb, more goals to be set and friends to be made. The one thing I miss about NSA is the location of the school. Lake placid is the home of the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics, which make the town a neat and special place.
Coming here to Cortland is a lot different. When I was looking at schools for hockey I wanted to have a bigger environment. A lot of private liberal arts schools I visited were between 2 and 3 thousand kids, I wanted a bigger atmosphere. After being at NSA this is crazy for me, I knew everyone at my school well, here I don't know even close to the student population. The size difference is insane. What I like the most about Cortland other then the cute girls, (j/k) is the fact that you see different people everyday, I recognize some, but I see a lot of new and different people.
The two experiences are completely different, and I don't think anyone here has had the size difference from high school to college that I have had, at least I hope not!

The Road Less Traveled

After graduating from the National Sports Academy in 2006 I didn't take the normal route to college. Most students after they graduate move on to college and pursue there education. As for me, well I took two years off to focus on just playing hockey. I started off my junior career playing hockey for the NH Jr. Monarchs. I then made two more stops throughout my two years after high school. I was in Cornwall, Ontario and Boston, Massachusetts. I get questions all the time like " aren't you upset your friends will graduate two years before you?" or " why waste your time playing hockey get an education and move on." See these people don't understand the passion, commitment, dedication and time put into the game of hockey. It's been my life for such a long time I cant see life without a stick in my hands and skates on my feet. People who can't respect the dedication level an athlete puts into there sport is mind boggling to me. When everyone else focus on work and hanging out with friends we have to take that extra time in the day to work out or practice. At times it gets unbearable and I hate it. It's the only thing I know where one night after a tough loss you think the world is over and the next night your so high on life because of a huge victory.

I know that I took the road less traveled to get to where I am today, and you know what, I would change it for the world. There are days when I wake up and wonder what it would have been like, how different my life would have been if I didn't go to open skating when I was four years old? where would I be today? Would I have chosen a different sport or would I have chosen a different career path? I don't know, but I'm also curious to what that would be. It's great to be here at Cortland with other freshman hockey players who also took anywhere from 2-4 years off from high school to do what I did. You cant find people like that on any ordinary day, but to be here and be with all these great players is awesome.

I hope my time off will help me here at school, and at the same time push me to strive harder to do my best everyday.

West Campus Housing/ Freshman Year

Well, I moved into West Campus about a week ago. I was expecting to be living on campus due to the Cortland website that states " West Campus Apartments are on campus facilities." Now I consider on campus to actually be on SUNY Cortland property not 2-3 miles away. As a freshman being put all the way over there that wasn't exactly what I was looking forward to.

Luckily, once I moved in I realized a lot of other guys from the hockey team were in the same apartment complex. I was lucky enough to have a buddy of mine as one of my three roommates. My one concern about the situation is I feel like Cortland should be more honest about its so called "on campus" housing. It's nice to all have our own rooms and the freedom of being 21 and able to drink, but still damn that's along way. I was hoping to have a memorable start to my freshman year in college by being able to interact with other people on the campus, instead we have a small number of people at West Campus that already have there groups and such.

I have been told by a lot of the upper class men on the hockey team that they enjoy living off campus and it gives you more freedom., I for one know I will be living on campus until at least after my sophomore year, I mean come on, don't we all wanna experience the true life of college?

Ether way I will be keeping a positive attitude towards my new living arrangement until I truly give it a chance.

Hoping to head up to the Adirondacks soon before it gets to cold to be outside!

Blogging Puck.