Field Hockey Canada
2000 OLYMPIC GAMES

The opportunity is a unique one in that Mr. Granger is intending to solicit his colleagues and competitors within the industry in British Columbia with a pitch to adopting each of our Sydney stream athletes! The structure of the sponsoring group is unique in that the BC lumber industry competes against other states and provinces while at the same time there is competition amongst rival BC companies. It could end up that an athlete is adopted by Mr. Grangers' nearest rival!

For the time being, Olympic Industries have adopted Michael Mahood and Ian Bird. They intend to adopt athletes from british Columbia first before moving outside the province. This is not to slight the Toronto athletes, it is only to link each company to a homegrown player. The funds are donated with the expectation that they will be used between now and the Olympic Games to help the TEAM prepare.

• Qualified for Sydney: Germany, Spain, Great Britain and New Zealand
• Can still qualify (only 1 out of 4): USA, Ireland, China and Japan
• Cannot qualify any more: India and Russia

Hello everybody! Welcome to the next episode of the Road to Sydney. This is Hari Kant writing from Toronto, where about a third of the Olympic team is training.

I received a watch as a Christmas present from my girlfriend Dawna. This watch has one unique feature: I can pick any time and date in the future and it will tell me the number of days, hours and minutes until that event! I of course have it set to September 15th, at midnight, the first day of the Olympics. A quick glance at my wrist tells me that I have 171 days and 10 hours to prepare for the Olympics. A constant reminder to take advantage of every moment there is to train.

In Toronto, we practice at a facility called "The Hanger". It is actually an old Canadian Forces air base which was converted for civilian use. So there are 5 mini sized turf fields stuffed into an enormous airplane hanger! After our first couple of practices, they quickly erected stronger fencing between the fields to prevent errant hockey balls from injuring the soccer players.

We practice here three times a week usually from 5:00 to 7:30 just after work. We have a mix of Seniors training for the Olympics and Juniors training for their Pan Am's in October all scrunched in a field about 1/4 the size of a hockey pitch. The turf is hard, dry and fairly bouncy. It is by far and away the best indoor place we have practiced in Toronto during the winter but with the better weather coming up, we are looking forward to getting outdoors to Lamport Stadium.

This week was an eventful one for the team. On Monday we got a surprise announcement from someone we usually complain about. The Government of Canada, spearheaded by Mr. Denis Coderre, Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, had increased our monthly training allowance significantly for the upcoming year! This was a huge 60% increase for almost all of the squad. This couldn't have come at a better time. Most of the players on the team will have to limit their income earning time in the next 6 months and Denis stepped in at just the right time. So on behalf of all the players, THANKS !

The next big event for the week was the Canadian Sport Awards Dinner. Our field hockey team was nominated for 1999 Male Team of the Year! We were up against the Pan American Softball Team and the Four Bobsled squad. Our chances were excellent considering our incredible success throughout the year and our exciting win at the Pan American Games. Softball had won the Pan Am Bronze and was getting great press after beating both the USA and Cuba. Bobsled had had a great placing at the World Cup with a Bronze medal.

One of the best things about the event was that Field Hockey Canada had decided that the priority for attendance at the event would go to players. Tickets were reserved for all the Toronto based players and invites were extended to any of the Vancouver players who could make the trip. Alan Brahmst, Robin D'Abreo, Kenny Pereira, Wayne Fernandez and I were there from Toronto while Ian Bird, Mike Mahood, Paul Wettlauffer and Ronnie Jagday flew in from the west coast. That's over half of the Pan Am Team! We were joined by Shiaz Virjee, our coach, and by Ed Fernandes, our VP.

We all dressed up in our new A-Wear suits (that's right Pete, the ones with the gold lining) and met at a restaurant called Canoe. Canoe is located on the 54th floor of the TD building in the heart of Toronto. It provided us a great vantage point of the best city in Canada, an admission reluctantly made by most of the BC loyalists. After a couple of social drinks we proceeded to the CBC studios for the ceremony.

There were a lot of stars from Canadian amateur sport and it was great to be nominated among them. We found out that we were the last award to be given away and so the anticipation grew throughout the evening. Ron Maclean, who hosted the event, finally introduced Donavan Bailey to present the Men's Team of the Year Award. Our section starting buzzing. I've played many games for Canada under a lot of pressure but I felt more nervous at that point than for any game! Donovan opened the envelope and announced the winner: the Canadian Bobsled Team.

We were disappointed of course, a number of people came up to our group afterwards and congratulated us on our nomination. It was quite an achievement to be a finalist. Lets see what an Olympic medal does to our chances next year!!!

Already qualified: Australia (as 1996 Olympic Champion, as Oceania Champion and as Host), Argentina (as Pan American Champion), Holland (as European Champion), Korea (as Asian Champion) and South Africa (as African Champion).

After the announcement by Mr. Denis Coderre, Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, that the stipend for carded athletes will be raised significantly, Randy Starkman writes in the Toronto Star:

What Coderre and others need to do is create an environment that encourages athletes who have finished their careers to stay involved so that the sport can benefit from their expertise.

In so many ways, Canada's Olympians are one of this country's most under-utilized resources.

Few Canadian school children know anything about our Olympic heroes. Instead, they are fed a steady diet of coverage about American sports heroes. Yet there are so many great stories out there among Canada's Olympians, stories that reflect strong values and determination, as well as the Canadian mosaic. (... / ...)

As part of a national sports policy, we should be finding ways to get these inspiring stories into the schools.

Today is Ronnie Jagday's birthday!

Weather update: five of the last nine days here in England have been sunny!

I understand this may be a shock to many of you, but it is true. I've seen it. Two consecutive weekends of glorious sunshine in a row to play hockey in. The first day it happened, I was squinting for most of the afternoon, my eyes unaccustomed to high UV levels, but I slowly got used to it (I know, it's easy to bug the English about the weather, but I have permission because I was born in England, so I give myself permission).

Training has been good over here in Loughton, Essex (just North East of London). I'm playing over here for the season in the English league with the Old Loughtonians hockey club. The big drawback of playing here is that I'm not around the rest of the Canadian Team. Being around the guys adds competitiveness, and the common goal of a strong performance in Sydney provides extra motivation for training. But the league here in England is good – I have opportunity to learn by playing with and against new players. And the facilities are excellent for training – I have access to a good water-based turf anytime.

Facilities are definitely a problem for us back at home in Toronto - there is no water-based for training in the winter and, in the summer, Lamport Stadium's turf is worn down and takes a long time to water with an impracticably small hose. Training on the right surface is important – skills change significantly depending on the surface - and this problem of a lack of facilities in Toronto needs to be addressed for our hockey to improve.

Back to team stuff - I keep in contact with some friends on the team by e-mail and reading the Weekly Team Diary has been great to keep up with what team activities are going on. I feel somewhat isolated from the squad, but it never takes long to get used to being in the team environment again at training camp or on tour.

So this week in Loughton was another stride towards Sydney – a good, typical week of training here for me: down to practice at the turf as much as possible, sometimes on my own, other times with the Old Loughtonians. Running and weights alone. And we have club games on Sundays.

Sometimes it's even sunny!

Today is Chris Gifford's birthday!

Men's Olympic Qualifier - Day 8 - End of pool games.

Pool A Standings Team Pld Won Tie Lst For Agt Pts Korea 5 5 0 0 20 6 15 Poland 5 3 0 2 11 10 9 Japan 5 2 1 2 10 12 7 Gr. Britain 5 2 1 2 13 16 7 N. Zealand 5 1 1 3 10 15 4 Belgium 5 0 1 4 12 17 1

Pool A Standings Team Pld Won Tie Lst For Agt Pts Spain 5 4 1 0 25 8 13 Pakistan 5 3 1 1 25 13 10 Argentina 5 2 1 2 18 16 7 Malaysia 5 2 1 2 18 19 7 Switzerland 5 2 0 3 10 16 6 Belarus 5 0 0 5 2 26 0

• Qualified for Sydney: Korea, Poland, Spain and Pakistan
• Can still qualify (2 out of 4): Japan, Great Britain, Argentina and Malaysia
• Cannot qualify any more: New Zealand, Belgium, Switzerland and Belarus

Check the comments from Canadian Coach Shiaz Virjee on our Special Olympic Qualifier Coverage page.

With six months to go before the start of the Olympics, athletes are focusing their attention on Sydney.

In six months, 320 Canadians will parade the Maple Leaf before 110,000 people in Sydney's monumental Stadium Australia. Their hearts will throb to the music and drums of at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Sept. 15.

But before the din of the crowd comes the buzz -- the buzz of the athletes' intense activity as they count down to the biggest moment of their lives. They'll do some seemingly bizarre things in search of Olympic glory.

Swimmers will shave their bodies -- sometimes their hair and eyebrows as well -- in a bid to shave hundredths of a second off their performances. Boxers, wrestlers and lightweight rowers will shave off pounds to be exactly the right weight. Some will resort to laxatives and sweatbox sessions and vomiting to cut spare ounces.

Some will look for magic in nutritional supplements. Athletics Canada recently arranged for an official sponsor to provide top athletes with a supplement, then found to its horror the stuff contained extract of bull testes. The athletes have been alerted not to use it until antidoping tests are completed.

Still others will look for confidence or killer instinct in the counsel of a sport psychologist.

The final six months of Olympic preparation is a time when athletes' passion for what they do threatens to turn to the madness of obsession -- or even paranoia over what opponents might be doing. It is a time of intricate planning and focus, of mental stress and physical strain and of hope and fear.

"This is the last Olympics I'll run in my life," said Donovan Bailey, the sprinter from Oakville, Ont., who snatched gold from Olympus in the 100 metres and 4 x 100-metre relay at Atlanta in 1996. "It will be the most focused six months of my career. Everything must go right."

(... / ...)

Athletes are making sacrifices to wear the country's uniform, leaving jobs and friends and family. The elite rowers are headquartered in Victoria and the synchronized swimmers in Toronto. The top track stars are in Texas, while the swimmers are hothoused mainly in Calgary and Vancouver. Two of the country's top swimmers, Joanne Malar of Hamilton and Kelly Stefanyshyn of Winnipeg, moved halfway across the country to get the coaching they believe will boost their chances for gold.

(... / ...)

Most Canadian Olympians will spend much of the six months before the Games on the road to hone their competitive edges.

"We tend to play most of our games on the road and we'll struggle in the next six months to get to competitive teams who will make us better," field hockey goaltender Harry Kant said. The hockey players won an Olympic berth by taking the Pan American Games gold medal in Winnipeg last summer.

Ideally, they'd dedicate their resources to a European tour, but they're required to qualify for the 2002 World Cup in Cuba in the summer. That means spending money on an Americas tournament that will sap their funds and provide few real tests.

But it's a must-go, must-win scenario. "If we're not successful, and we have to budget for a second-chance qualifier in India, it means we need to find $40,000 to $50,000 somewhere for the European tour," Kant said.

(... / ...)

Not all the crucial help athletes seek is financial. Canada has a system of national training centres in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Atlantic Canada. They're not gymnasiums, but administrative centres that co-ordinate services athletes need, from nutritional counselling to physiological testing, biochemical analysis, chiropractic treatments, massage and passes to work out at partner centres.

"Right now, we have 196 registered and we anticipate closer to 400 as we get closer to Sydney," said Molly Killingbeck, the athlete services director of the Toronto centre. "The athletes are just starting to know we're here".

Last week, Michael Mahood brought you up-to-date on the goalkeeping camp that followed our return from Malaysia. The field players were given that week off to rest and have some time away from hockey. The field players were back at it full steam starting last Tuesday with a physical training session at the Human Performance Centre (HPC) in Burnaby.

When the National Sport Centre (now branded the Pacific Sport Group) opened its doors for service last fall here in Vancouver, national team athletes gained access to long-awaited off field services. For example, the GymWorks Program provides free admission to train at any number of facilities in the lower mainland. One of the top training facilities is the HPC in the 8-Rinks Hockey Venue near Burnaby Lake. Peter and Ronnie had sampled the Acceleration Program at the HPC in the summer of 1998 but dollars and cents had kept the rest of the team from taking on this program. When our coaching staff identified a need for more speed within the team and the Pacific Sport Group found some resources to fund the program, we were signed up.

I'm part of the Tuesday/Thursday morning training group along with Wettlaufer, Bindi, Ronnie, Ranjeev, Roberts and Mahood. We arrive between 9 and 9:30 to warm-up on the exercise bikes and lay out on the mats for some stretching. Dushan, the HPC founder, or Steve (rival to only Ron Mattison in the pleasure he takes in our pain) then gets us started on the 75 minute treadmill and core stability workouts.

At the HPC, they have installed a high speed/high elevation treadmill that is seamlessly nestled into the flooring. Safety bars are on the front and left side, safety harnesses are secured from above for use in our backward running sets. A wall sized mirror reflects either your improved running form or your slide off the back end as your legs give out. I can remember thinking how great the treadmill was when I first arrived. Now I honestly dread the thing and its amazing ability to make you feel exceedingly awful - yet exceedingly fit.

This first session back from Kuala Lumpur was a tough one. It always seems difficult to get the legs going again after a trip. The combination of 7-8 matches in a short time span and jet-lag makes for tired bodies. Still, it's a good feeling having that first session behind you because it tends to get easier as the month goes on. Steve started us out with two 45 second warm-up intervals at "10 and 10" (km/h and degrees of elevation). We worked on our stride form. For me this means concentrating on tight abs, high knees, arms straight back and length out the back of my stride. Steve and I have been trying to get more power into my stride and reducing the amount of leg turnover needed to keep up with the treadmill. It is a difficult combination of staying smooth and relaxed in the legs and arms but tight through your core. Admittedly, it is flat out difficult to change how I run after 29 years of butchering the art form.

After the warm-up it was onto 15-20 second intervals at "12 and 15" then "12 and 17" then "12 and 20". I feel awful; my stride technique is out the window and my lungs feel like I haven't trained all year. Between the intervals we work on the large exercise balls which seem to be all the rage right now. Most of the exercises on this day focus on rotational power coming from the abs. As so much of our game is spent bent over and turning, added power and strength in this area makes for improved performance and fewer injuries. New and varied sets of intervals follow. Faster speeds. Higher elevations. The time on the treadmill would drop off to as low as 4 seconds. Our last sets had us running at "14 and 15" with a weighted medicine ball held to our chest in a bent over posture. Kullar just grabs on and pretends he's back behind the line of scrimmage for North Delta High. His form is impeccable. No problem. I jump on there and after about 5 strides I feel myself sliding into the spotters hand on my back. The boys yell their encouragement, "High knees Birdman" or "Stride it out" then Steve calls "Done" and I make a less than gracious dismount- Ranjeev gives me a 5.9...

Rick commented after the session on how remarkable it is that with less than 10 minutes of actual running time and maybe 15 active minutes on the exercise ball, we are all completely exhausted. Another good session behind us and another step taken towards success in Sydney!

Welcome to the inaugural Men's National Team Weekly Update for the week of March 6, 2000. The Weekly Update is a spin-off of the diaries that the team keeps while it is on tour. Rather than just looking into the events of tour life, we invite you to see what we do on a weekly basis.

For the goalkeepers in the National Program, the last week was a very exiting time. The services of former Dutch International keeper Bart Looije were brought to Vancouver to provide some insight into how to improve our goalkeeping. Bart proved to be the perfect man for the job. He was tremendous to work with on the field and a joy to be around off the field as well. The goalies involved were Hari Kant, Jon Mackinnon, Shankar Premakanthan, Matt Peck, Chris Fisher and myself. To operate most effectively, the camp was divided into two groups, a senior group consisting of Hari, Jon and I and a junior group of Shanks, Peck and the Fish-man.

The camp started on Tuesday and ran through a Saturday morning Jonny Mack session and then officially ended at the 12th and Cambie White Spot with an order of Nat's Hearty French (two eggs poached, two bacon, two sausages, toast, hash browns, two french toasts and coffee - beautiful!). It was a very hectic schedule as sessions ran at 9 am, noon and 4 pm. From the moment the camp started, I knew it was going to be a great week.

The first order of business was to clean up our "shot stopping" techniques. Canadian goalies have always been taught to kick the ball when making a save. Bart asked us the question "Why do you want to kick the ball?". None of us had the same response! The fact is there is no reason to kick the ball anymore. The kicking technique comes from the past when the pads were of such a low quality that one had to kick the ball to remove it from the circle. However, in the world of modern goalkeeping and high density foam, all goalies must do is block/direct the ball in the direction that they want it to go. Working on the premise of "blocking" rather than "kicking", Bart proceeded to help us train our bodies and our goalkeeping styles to mould with this new technique. Through one week, all six of us were doing quite well, by Sydney and September 16 we're going to be awesome!

While the focus of the camp was on the technical aspects of the position, Bart did bring with him some old fashioned, gut wrenching, puke enhancing drills. Why is is that everyone takes a certain amount of joy from watching us goalies go through such drills? The drill which undoubtebly will become very popular around the country is the "Hell Drill". This drill is very simple yet oh so effective! The goalie starts on the left post and dives to save a ball bound for the top right corner - do this six times. After thirty seconds of rest, the goalie again starts on the left post and dives for a ball going towards the right post at about waist high - do this six times. Thirty seconds of rest later the goalie is on the left post diving for a ball rolling along the ground towards the right post - again do six times. Is is over? No way! Rest for two minutes and repeat to the opposite side. Thus, 36 balls in approximately five minutes. This is pure hell, trust me! Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, this is just for day one of the camp. Day two - eight balls, day three - ten balls and for day four - twelve balls. Ouch... Just to let you know, the goalies have committed to stopping sets of eighteen by the Olympics - 72 balls per drill. To the field players, what are you guys going to do? It better be painful!

Hari, Jon and I also took Bart to the wonderful world of the NHL. The four of us witnessed the Vancouver Canucks defeat the Anaheim Ducks 3-1. However, this was not Bart's first game as he had taken himself to the Canucks 2-1 defeat of the Phoenix Coyotes while we were still flying home from Malaysia. Folks, the Canucks are 2-0 with Bart in attendance - perhaps they should think about signing him up. He stated that he would sign for about a million if the deal included performance bonuses. Hey, the team is now within five points of the last playoff spot, it might not be such a bad idea! The game was a good time - we learned how to deal with scalpers, we showed Bart the wonderful world of BC's micro breweries and he experienced the glory of a White Spot triple-O burger! Lastly, we accidentally got him within five feet of Messier and Bertuzzi in an undisclosed night club where we continued with our evening until the wee hours of the morning!

Thanks for a good time Bart. We hope to see you again in the near future.