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!