Well, it’s about time I got around to another post. I do plan on writing at least once a week. Just need some traction.
It was a long weekend. I flew to Montreal on points, so I had to be flexible with my travel dates. That meant arriving on Thursday night, and sticking around until Monday evening. Thankfully David Eng was there to pick up me up and look after me.
Dave, or Deng as he’s known, lives in Montreal and has played on the national team since ‘04. He and I go way back, WAY back to legendary junior days long before the discovery of Dave’s tragic leg length discrepancy. He was a common AB then - a super player, but not yet Superman. I was a curly afro with limbs. We tangled on many occasions playing for our respective junior teams, most memorably in the ‘95 Junior CWBL finals when it took a fluke shot at the buzzer to decide a winner.
At Defi, Dave was playing for his provincial team. Quebec, BC, and Alberta were all there to get some games under their belts going into Nationals next weekend. A team from New Brunswick rounded out the pool of division one teams.
Our makeshift team consisted of Hall of Famer Reg McLellan, future HOFer Chantal Benoit, national team mainstay Dave Durepos, Jamie Sopha, as well as Diana, Claude, Gabriel, and James, who I’m sure have last names – most likely French – and I apologize for not learning them. My carelessness aside, we got on famously from the word go and played some pretty inspired basketball at times. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have thought that someone carefully assembled this team to achieve just the right balance of experience and youth, height and speed, east and west coast. It seemed everyone quickly settled into productive roles and had a good time playing. We used our speed to press and push the tempo of the game. Dirt…uh, I mean Dave Durepos, had to bail us out with some ridiculous clutch shots, especially against BC on Saturday night. That game looked like it could have gone either way until Dirt caught fire, then it was over pretty quickly. He has that ability.
So we ended up in the final against Dave, my ancient nemesis, et ses comarades de Quebec. We’d beat them pretty soundly on Friday night, but as often happens, they played better as the weekend went on, and were looking like a much improved team by Sunday afternoon. In fact, their coach Reggie Goodman had juggled their lineups so much that we were essentially playing a different team.
Long story short, we won 68-57. It was a strange game though. We seemed in control from about the second quarter on, but we couldn’t gap them. It seemed to me we put together offensive runs, and we put together defensive stops, but we couldn’t put them together at the same time. The result was the simultaneous and contradictory impressions that we should be up by more and that we should be up by less. Try to make sense of that.
It was a fun weekend off the court as well. I had a chance to catch up with a friend who I met in Athens at the ‘04 Games. And after the final, Dave and his family invited me over to his sister’s place for their Sunday meal. On Monday Dave and I went to work out at his local gym. He showed me where the pulleys and machines were, and then he went off to lift real weights with the big boys. Afterwards, we drove downtown with Dave’s girlfriend and sister in search of Montreal’s, nay the world’s best smoked meat, and found it at Schwartz’s. Apparently, everyone from Hank Aaron to Angelina Jolie has eaten there. Rusty Staub has eaten there, for crying out loud. Rusty Staub!
Anyway, that was it for Montreal. Have to get back there for the jazz festival one of these years.
I’m off to the doctor to examine the results of yesterday’s arthogram and MRI on my shoulder. Of course, now that I’m trying to find out what’s wrong with it, it feels better than ever. Why not.
Team Kenda
Superman, Superhost
