patrickanderson.ca

Last time I wrote, I set some goals for myself.  Let’s see how I did. Visit Beijing?  Yes.  Massage?  Check.  Try to avoid McDonalds?  Yes, every day.   Post photos?  Don’t actually have a camera.  Haven’t hit the sauna yet either, but we’ve played a few evening games and by the time we get back to the Village, it’s too late.

I’m feeling a bit rushed today.  I meant to write yesterday.  I wheeled across the walkway that separates our building from the Super Resident Center at about 10:30 last night , took the elevator downstairs to the Athlete’s Lounge, and the first thing I saw was Roger Federer on TV hitting a ridiculous overhand winner at the US Open.  So I spent the next hour reading about tennis, which I happen to follow quite closely.  Especially Federer.  I know people like to cheer for underdogs and have good reasons for it, but I’ve always found myself cheering for the favorite.  Jordan, Tiger, Federer.  I suppose that partly comes from my experience as an athlete.  I’ve been the underdog and I’ve been the favorite, and it’s much tougher being the favorite.  The ability to come through under pressure is the ultimate measure of an athlete, and underdogs get a free pass.

So I have about an hour until we catch our bus from the National Indoor Stadium for our third game, this one against Sweden.  It’ll be interesting to see how they come out.  They’re coming off a 25 point loss to a surprisingly strong Iran team, who put over 90 points on the board against them.  We won our first game in a nail-biter vs Germany. They played us close back in June, so we weren’t exactly taken by surprise.  I had the sense that the ball was jumping out of our hands a little bit.  It’s hard to get a good feel for your shot when adrenaline gifts you an extra 5 feet on your shooting range.  First your shot is long, then short because you overcorrect.  I misfired on my first few shots before finding a comfort zone.   Fortunately I usually play a lot of minutes, which gives me time to settle in.  I’ve never been a guy that comes off the bench to give the team 5 minutes here and there.  That has to be tough.  Those guys are expected to come in and hit right away.  No warm up window allowed.  That’s a pressure situation that I’ve never really had to face.

Had a little trouble at the free throw line, but I made enough to keep them honest.  For being friends of mine, the Germans sure fouled me a lot.  They were actually pretty smart about it, and the refs were calling a LOT of chair contact.  That should play into our hands, if they continue to call it that way.  I’m not saying we’re saints, but I would argue that our style relies less on aggressive chair contact that some other teams.  I’m sure some Aussie or American would be calling b.s. on that statement right now, if they could read it.

Gotta love the Great Firewall.

Oops, I suppose they could read it on the cwba site.  But I’d find that a little creepy, if opposing players were reading this.  I’ve kind of noticed that with Facebook as well. I’m friends – in the Facebook sense – with players on other teams, but I don’t want to know who they’re poking or what they’re doing right now.  That’s what’s weird about Facebook sometimes – you have these uncomfortably close encounters with someone’s psyche – often an acquaintance or a competitor – and in a public forum no less.  Too much information. Just like this blog, perhaps.

Sorry, this is jumping all over the place, but the clock is ticking. Our second game, FYI, was against South Africa.  I want to peel back the curtains here a little bit – cause otherwise what’s the point of blogging? – to tell you that it was a win that felt like a loss.  We played 35 minutes of good basketball, and 5 minutes of relatively poor basketball.  We won by 20.  The locker room was a like a morgue.  You don’t read about those things in the game summaries, but these atmospheres are what constitutes most of our experience, and are what we feel most keenly. So it would be false and pointless to write about how merrily we go, whistling as we work.   I won’t get into specifics, but combined with a misunderstanding this morning about whose clock has the right time, there is palpable tension in the team right now. It’s happened before, no doubt it will happen again.  It’s not unique to us – we’re not the only team to employ a sports psychologist.  In my experience, winning is the magic balm that heals all wounds and the timely joke that dissolves the tension.  So we need to win tonight, and win big.

Time to run off.  By the way, if you caught the Opening Ceremonies on TV, I just want to assure you that the fireworks were very real.  The entire show was a spectacular display.  Beautiful sets and choreography.  I slipped out just before they lit the flame, but what I saw was great.  In Sydney, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the immense scale of everything, everyone.  This time was no different. But for some reason, the first thought that entered my mind when we walked out from the tunnel onto the track, to be greeted by 100 000 faces, was “Wow, Napolean lost 4 times this many people in Russia.”

Too many war movies I guess.