Brad Emmerson Blog - Game Time!

After several weeks of intense training on and off the ice since our camp in Colorado Springs our first national team competition was about to get under way. Things were a little crazy, I was waiting for my new sled to arrive so I could get it ready for some game action since my old one was so banged up and unusable. By the time it got shipped to my house, my dad and I had only one afternoon to get it all fixed up and put together. We loaded all my equipment into the car and went to my uncle's shop to do a few last second adjustments. We worked for a few hours and finally got everything ready to go. Then it was off to the rink to try it out and make a few tweaks and adjustments. After packing up all of my clothes later that night there was finally a little time to go out to eat with my parents and relax.

The next morning, on Saturday, Nov. 15, I got in a car with my teammate Adam Page and headed for Rochester, New York. After an hour and a half drive we didn't have much time to get into our hotel room and get a little rest before our first practice. Everyone was excited and ready to go. This was going to be our first competition of the year as well as the first games most of us had played in a long time. Practice seemed to fly by and the next thing I knew I was waking up and heading to the Toronto airport on a bus.  It was a long, tiring trip to Prince Edward Island up in Charlottetown, Canada. On Monday we had a lot of time to rest after our short skate in the morning. It was nice having the whole afternoon off to catch up with a lot of the team members that are more like family than anything else.

On Tuesday we had an early pre-game skate and lunch before we had our first game against Canada. As if we hadn't had enough to be pumped up about and excited for, our staff unveiled our new jerseys for the season as well as our new captain. They gave Andy Yohe the C, he is a perfect fit; a hard working, vocal veteran that everyone looked up to. To be honest, I think that I may have been more excited for him to get it than he was himself. We talked as a team for a few minutes before we did our pre-game stretch and pep talk. Finally it was game time, the puck was dropped and the hard hitting physical game I was waiting for began.

The first period was tight, but Canada got on the board first with a few minutes left on the clock. In the second, Canada scored again to make it 2-0. After Chris Manns got a penalty, Adam Page and myself were sent out to kill it off. As his penalty was expiring, I skated hard to the point to try to block a shot, their defensemen tried to shoot past me but I managed to block the shot and knock it out to center ice where Page picked up the puck. It was great timing as Chris got out of the box and we had a two-man break. Adam made a great pass to Chris and he fired the puck past the Canadian net minder getting us back into the game. In the third period Canada managed to get their two goal lead back and it was too much for us to overcome as we lost our first game, 3-1, opening the tournament.

We didn't have a lot of time to think about the game because we had to play Japan the next day and it was a must win if we were going to have a chance at the gold medal game. It only took three minutes and fifteen seconds for us to take advantage of our first power play chance giving us a 1-0 lead. Things were pretty even until we scored two goals, four minutes apart, to break the game open in the second. It was a good team win, we came out on top 4-1 and at the end of the day we were tied with Norway for second place in the standings. That meant our game the following day was win and you're in the gold medal game.

Norway has been a team that, ever since I have been a member of the national program, we have had trouble with. And we showed that again through the first two periods as sloppy play put us behind 3-0. But, the third period was a different story. After mustering up only eight shots in the first two periods we seemed to really come to life for the first time in the tournament. Mike Torres started our offensive spike with a great breakaway goal finally getting us on the board. Dominating play, we managed to put another past Norway's goalie less than two minutes later. Keeping us in the game with an amazing save on a breakaway, Steve Cash stopped Norway's only shot in the third period. With two minutes left our coach Ray Maluta called a time out and decided to pull our goalie in an attempt to tie up the game. With several close calls in the final minutes our hopes of playing Canada for the gold medal were washed away as we couldn't pull off the win. But we had great momentum to build off of after out-shooting our opponents 11-1 in the third period.

After failing to beat Norway, we only had an early practice that we used to go over a few things in preparation for our bronze medal game with Japan. When practice was finished we washed up and finally had a chance to get out of the hotel to see some sights. We all got on a bus and toured the island and checking out all it had to offer. We had a team lunch in the hotel after we got back and our coach told us that we could go out and have the remainder of the day to ourselves.  I decided to go out to dinner with Lonnie Hannah and his family. Lonnie and I have always been close since my first year on the national team. We had a nice relaxing meal at a small local restaurant and got to talk and have some fun until curfew.

The next morning everyone seemed ready to go for our game against Japan. Everyone was focused and a little angry that we didn't make it to the gold medal game, and we played like it. Two minutes into the game with the puck on my stick, I looked to my left and saw Tim Jones wide open in the slot so I slid him the puck. He picked up the pass and put a nice backhand over the sprawling goalie. After going up 2-0 with a goal from Jim Connelly, coach decided to leave our line on the ice after scoring a fast goal. His decision paid off as two minutes later I received a pass from Adam Page in the slot and shot the puck low on the ice past the Japanese net minder.

Going into the third period we were up 7-0 and three minutes into the period after receiving a pass from Lonnie Hannah I scored my second goal of the game making it 8-0. We finished off the tournament with a great 9-0 win, out-shooting our opponents 30-3 in the game. The last four periods that we played showed the world what we could do when we played our best hockey as a team.

This trip may not have been exactly what we were looking for when you look at the third place finish. But we took major strides as a team as well as bringing a lot of confidence home with us. We now have a short break for Thanksgiving, but in the mean time we need to continue our workouts at home because we have a camp December 4-7 in Rochester, New York.