Watch how players from Argentina in the dark blue always move to a space where there's no opposing player. Then the player with the ball passes to the player who's in the open space. Watch 25 passes and then listen to the great Spanish "Gooooooooool".
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Hastings (Empire Bowl) Soccer 2010 -- Italia
Welcome to Team Italia of the Hastings (Empire Bowl) Soccer League for 2010. I'm coach Larry and I'm proud to be coaching my great group of Grade 2 and 3 kids.
Check back here often, as I'll post lots of info for the players and their parents.
Today all I have is the league rules. Be sure to read and understand the rules:
Check back here often, as I'll post lots of info for the players and their parents.
Today all I have is the league rules. Be sure to read and understand the rules:
- I will participate because I want to
- I will play by the rules -- winning is fun, but so are many other things about the sport
- I will control my temper -- fighting and "mouthing off" can spoil the activity for everyone
- I will remember that winning isn't everything -- that having fun, improving skills, making friends and doing my best also are
- I will acknowledge all good plays / performances -- those of my team and of my opponents
- I will remember that coaches and officials are there to help me. I will accept their decisions and show them respect
- I will always make sure that my coach knows where I am
- I will give everyone an equal chance to participate
Marcos' Dance April 30, 2010
Here's Marc participating with his buddy class in a dance presentation.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Reid Homestead
Grandma and Grandpa Reid's homestead near Meskanaw, Saskatchewan, in Google Street View:
Ver mapa más grande
Ver mapa más grande
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Kids' Soccer (Football)
My son is playing soccer on a U8 team, which means the kids are six or seven at the start of the year. It's a fun league, which means "we don't keep score." Of course, the kids keep score, and it's highly disheartening for my kids, because we're the team that always loses. (Actually, there's another team in our situation, and games with that team are actually interesting. We even won one.)
I know it really bugs my kids that we lose all the time. I fear some of them are getting turned off soccer. I bet we're not the only league with badly uneven teams. I think part of the solution is to keep score, and for the league organizers to use the information to balance out the teams over the years. Here's how.
Record every game score for the season. Ideally, also record which players actually showed up at each game. That would be pretty easy for the coach or manager to do. When it comes time to make the teams next year, give all the kids who have history in the league one point for each goal their team scored. Put the kids in order by points and assign the kids to teams on a round robin basis. If a coach or parent asks that two kids play on the same team, then the player moved to make room has to have the same number or more points than the requested player (to eliminate incentives to stacking).
Of course this isn't going to be perfect. You don't know about new players who come along. It won't work for the first year the kids play. But it doesn't have to be perfect. Part of sports is to learn to win and lose graciously. But kids have to be doing both. It doesn't do any good to teach some kids that the deck is stacked against them and they'll never win.
I know it really bugs my kids that we lose all the time. I fear some of them are getting turned off soccer. I bet we're not the only league with badly uneven teams. I think part of the solution is to keep score, and for the league organizers to use the information to balance out the teams over the years. Here's how.
Record every game score for the season. Ideally, also record which players actually showed up at each game. That would be pretty easy for the coach or manager to do. When it comes time to make the teams next year, give all the kids who have history in the league one point for each goal their team scored. Put the kids in order by points and assign the kids to teams on a round robin basis. If a coach or parent asks that two kids play on the same team, then the player moved to make room has to have the same number or more points than the requested player (to eliminate incentives to stacking).
Of course this isn't going to be perfect. You don't know about new players who come along. It won't work for the first year the kids play. But it doesn't have to be perfect. Part of sports is to learn to win and lose graciously. But kids have to be doing both. It doesn't do any good to teach some kids that the deck is stacked against them and they'll never win.
Why Lencho Reyes?
If you wonder why my Google name is lenchoreyes, here it is:
First, in my ongoing quest to miss every great development, I totally blew off my brother when he offered an invitation to a beta of this "gmail" thing. So I missed my chance to be larry.reid@gmail.com.
When I finally got around to signing up for all things Google, all variants of my name were taken. So I used one of my Spanish pseudonyms.
"Lencho" is short for "Lorenzo", which is the Spanish equivalent of "Lawrence". So "Lencho" would be "Larry".
"Reyes" is a real Spanish surname that literally means "Kings". When I was first traveling in Central America, the way to make long distance calls home was to go to a telephone company office, write up a little paper form, then sit in a stuffy waiting room for an hour or so until an operator connected your call and called your name. I missed a few calls because someone massacred the pronunciation of my name (for some reason, "Reid" is hard to read for Central Americans which is funny, because "reid" is actually a word in the Spanish spoken in Spain).
At the same time, I figured out that when I said my surname to people, and tried to make it "Spanish" so they could spell it, their brains would translate what they were hearing to "Reyes", because that's the closest surname they could think of to match the sounds I was making. So I just started writing my name as "Lorenzo Reyes" on the phone company form, and I never missed another long distance call.
First, in my ongoing quest to miss every great development, I totally blew off my brother when he offered an invitation to a beta of this "gmail" thing. So I missed my chance to be larry.reid@gmail.com.
When I finally got around to signing up for all things Google, all variants of my name were taken. So I used one of my Spanish pseudonyms.
"Lencho" is short for "Lorenzo", which is the Spanish equivalent of "Lawrence". So "Lencho" would be "Larry".
"Reyes" is a real Spanish surname that literally means "Kings". When I was first traveling in Central America, the way to make long distance calls home was to go to a telephone company office, write up a little paper form, then sit in a stuffy waiting room for an hour or so until an operator connected your call and called your name. I missed a few calls because someone massacred the pronunciation of my name (for some reason, "Reid" is hard to read for Central Americans which is funny, because "reid" is actually a word in the Spanish spoken in Spain).
At the same time, I figured out that when I said my surname to people, and tried to make it "Spanish" so they could spell it, their brains would translate what they were hearing to "Reyes", because that's the closest surname they could think of to match the sounds I was making. So I just started writing my name as "Lorenzo Reyes" on the phone company form, and I never missed another long distance call.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Turkey on the BBQ
I did an 11 lb. turkey with stuffing on the BBQ for Christmas (so I wasn't an adult when Canada went metric -- why do we still buy our meat in pounds?). I took the temperature of the stuffing at three hours and it was ready (165 F -- again, still cooking in Imperial units). It was nice and moist so I don't think it had been ready for long.
The BBQ is great for a couple of reasons: The rotisserie keeps the juices in the turkey, not in the dripping pan. Also, gas heat is moister than the electric heat that many of us have in the oven in the kitchen.
11 lbs. is the maximum-sized turkey I could do in my BBQ, which is a fairly standard domestic gas BBQ. That's okay, as it's still way too big for our family.
The BBQ is great for a couple of reasons: The rotisserie keeps the juices in the turkey, not in the dripping pan. Also, gas heat is moister than the electric heat that many of us have in the oven in the kitchen.
11 lbs. is the maximum-sized turkey I could do in my BBQ, which is a fairly standard domestic gas BBQ. That's okay, as it's still way too big for our family.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)