Father's Day Tournament in Orleans

Having been a little concerned about the amount of “stuff” I have to do and my inability to plan it effectively, I took a leaf out of Mrs. Ottawacker’s book and started planning things properly. It appears the answer to the conundrum is to not be too optimistic about what I can actually manage to get done. Of course, curve balls such as taking a day to translate 500 words can’t be taken too much into account (or else I’d be planning out until Christmas) – but rather than saying “Task A in the morning”, “Task B in the afternoon” – and then realize Task A is taking me a week, much better to just allocate time to the task and do it as I can… Frighteningly simple, and it has only taken me a lifetime to work out. Mind you, I spent two hours of today planning out a week, so there is still room for improvement.
 
Carefully ignoring the Euros, I managed to feel a lot better about what I was doing, and so was more than happy to go with Ottawacker Jr. to his latest tournament, this time out in Orleans. Supporters of the Ottawa Internationals U12 Team Red team will have noted a distinct lack of “results” from the year thus far. Generally crappy, in fact, with a distinct lack of shooting going on. In fact, they have scored more than they have shot, which is down to the teams they have lost to being even worse than they are and scoring own goals from impossible situations. So, you will understand that I went into the tournament with a bit of Father’s Day Foreboding.
 
As it happened, it all worked out shockingly well. Instead of losing heavily to every team, they embarked on a three-match run of success: they drew the first game 1-1 (the opposition equalizing with a hotly disputed penalty with the last kick of the match) against Ottawa TFC Team Black, then beat Gloucester Hornets 2-1; and then beat the TFC Academy 1-0 in the final game. Such scenes. Ottawacker Jr. was in goal for all three games and played well enough (still a bit rusty in parts) – but in all honesty, he had little to do. What he brings is presence – and you can tell the defence is much, much more confident when he is there than when he isn’t. It also didn’t help that the replacement keeper is a very good winger – so you now have two positions significantly improved at the same time. A relief.
 
Anyway, home we went in time for the 9pm curfew, stopping off for a Tim Hortons’ flatbread pizza on the way. I was in bed by 10, exhausted.