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Vail Shootout Day 1 – 11:15 am (entry 1)

I’ve never done a “blog” up here in Vail before so I thought I would put some of my writing skills to the test.  It’s been a while since I’ve been able to let loose with my writing skills, so here goes.  We’re early on Day 1 of the Vail Lacrosse Shootout.  Today is mostly a calm day, but that is certainly a relative term.  The day started with internet connection issues and computer problems.  We are moving to a new scoring system with Pointstreak, who does the MLL and NLL.  Once it is up and running for each division, it will be pretty cool.  For now, most people are looking at each computer like it’s infected with the Ebola Virus or something.

The big story today is probably the Pool Play in the Masters Division (33+).  Masters is usually pretty entertaining because the guys still have some skill and they play with tenacity.  The only problem is that this is usually the age group that can’t get the hall pass from the wife and kids, so the division is inherently smaller than the others.  Supermasters on the other hand, is a huge group with 18 teams this year.  Masters has only 6 by comparison.  The cool part of today is that we are running two pools for the Masters that will sort them into the semifinals for tomorrow.  Jagermeister is my early favorite, though the guys from Middlebury put on a good show usually as well.  I need to find out what happened to Rusty Red – that may be the Jager team.

I’ve already seen a couple people I know up here.  Mason Goodhand, a coach at Westminister and Bill Johannson, one of the finest referees in Colorado are both playing.  It’s cool to see guys that I know in a different capacity strap up the gear and get after it.  I hope that I still have some skills when I’m old enough to play in these divisions.  The sad part is, I’m closer than it seems to the Masters group already!

So I’m off to check out the Pool Play at Athletic Field, which is where the Masters are teeing off the tourney.  Tomorrow will be an especially busy day with Boys and Girls High School getting going along with these other divisions continuing.  I’ll update as often as possible.  If this blog stops getting updated, it’s because the computers are down – or I’m just sick of staring at them.

p.s. – on the off chance that Matt “the Anti-Blog” Hanna reads any of this, I will be mercilessly heckled in the Outlaw locker room next week.  That’s nothing new since I’m pale and have a sick tattoo that everyone is jealous of, but I have to prepare myself.  I’m missing our rematch with Chicago tomorrow, but I’ll rejoin the team for the 4th of July game.  See you then, gentlemen.

Vail Shootout Day 1 – 3:00 pm (entry 2)

So the Masters pool play was slightly uninspired this morning but Jagermeister and Lacrossewear put on a good show in Pool A.  Both dominated the Tribe Elders and then played an exciting one-goal game for the #1 seed.  Jager scored an extra-man goal with 13 seconds left to seal up the #1 seed but both teams will be going through.  I just left the field after watching the Silver Oysters take down MAC fairly easily.  Middlebury will close up the day over there and will likely join the Oysters, Jager and Lacrossewear in tomorrow’s semifinals.  There isn’t a dominant squad in the Masters Division this year with Rusty Red taking the year off.  Apparently the “hall pass” joke I used earlier today held true with this group as most of them are just having kids or whatever it is you do in your early thirties. 

I just ran into one of my favorite lacrosse people, Rob Thornley.  Rob walked on at Virginia a while back and was a very good defenseman post collegiately as well.  He was pretty seriously injured a couple years back playing in the Elite tournament and hospitalized for a neck/back injury.  Now he’s all healed up and living in Vail with his wife.  No more lacrosse, but he is skiing, golfing and other active stuff.  I always liked Rob because he was one of the first players I played with out of college that I looked up to.  Mostly he plays the game the right way and he always has a smile.  It was great to see him up and around and apparently doing fine because frankly, it was tough seeing him go down like that.

Other than the Masters, nothing really of note to report as far as I know.  Now that I’ve graduated past “ball boy” and “stat monkey” on the totem pole of Vail staffing, I can kind of come and go as I please.  I’m sure there is some bitterness from Kelly and Garrett, who I left to man the Athletic field for the rest of the day, but they will have to get over it.  “Bloggers” are inherently self-indulgent, so I needed to get my pasty body out of the sun and into a cool beverage - plus I have to set up press releases for the night also.  I’m hoping to round up a couple shooters to take shots at me later this evening if they aren’t all beat from running around today.  We are a little short-staffed and tomorrow will take its toll on us. 

Until later . . .

Vail Shootout Day 1 – 5:15 pm (entry 3)

So, our Pointstreak isn’t working well yet.  I could go into a bunch of technical mumbo-jumbo, but I will spare everyone except to say that we’re one hour from dinner and haven’t completed any of the work that we are supposed to because we’re waiting on good ol’ tech support to call us back.  Suffice it to say that most of us in “middle management” are Jonesing for the time when we get promoted one level further and get to really boss people around.  I suppose they deserve it, but Flip Naumburg and the brothers Soran have good gigs up here - they only have 36 years of experience after all.

My early days in Vail were spent chasing balls around the field and providing support staff.  It’s a thankless job and one of my early Vail memories is getting yelled at by some old guy who didn’t think I was working hard enough.  That old guy was David Soran and he probably doesn’t remember that day since many young punks have come and gone in the last 10 years, but he got me pretty fired up.  “I’m not getting paid!” I remember thinking.  “What do you expect out of me?”  Ah yes, the good ol’ days.  10 years later and I'm still slanging words for the tourney. It's pretty hard to get sick of this place and for anyone lucky enough to be here today, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I want to shout out to all my readers.  I think that includes me and our webmaster Andy Sharp.  You’re the best bloggership around!  Much love.

Vail Shootout Day 1 – 10:15 pm – (4th Entry)

So, one day, one hot tub session down.  Lest some of you think that I am avoiding work that might be unbecoming to a long-time staffer like myself – not to mention doing potential harm to my valuable typing hands – I did in fact help Clayton and Kale string a goal after dinner.  The work was cathartic for me.  Sometimes it’s nice to just sit down and do a monotonous project.  Don’t get me wrong – I don’t envy the six more that were supposed to be done this evening, but that’s why we employ unsuspecting high-school students who don’t know any better. 

This has been kind of a weird lead-up to the tournament this year.  I just bought a house with my wife and the Outlaws are in full swing – not to mention that Rock-it Pocket, the company I work for, is extremely busy and our CSU Lacrosse Camp is just around the corner.  I was almost dreading coming up to Vail at first because I saw it as just another thing to do on my already crowded list.

But all that changed once I got on the highway.  Really, once I got on I-70 westbound because I-25 from Fort Collins to Denver is one of the worst stretches of roads in the country.  I’m not exactly Mr. Safety behind the wheel and I have been known to curse at people on the road (ahem . . . once in a while), but it’s seriously not a safe thing to be on going either direction. Once you’re on I-70 getting out of town however, it’s a whole new story.

I forgot how much I really enjoy being up here.  I’m very thankful for my job and my profession that it allows me to experience one of the greatest lacrosse events in the world every year.  Last year I missed my first Vail since the summer of 1998.  The reason was sound, I suppose.  I got married on July 5th.  And the Outlaws were on the road the week before and on the 4th.  It was a crazy couple of weeks and obviously it was unbelievable in its own right.  My wedding was the best day of my life.

But now being back up here, I remember why we do it all the time to begin with.  There is no better backdrop to watch the game of lacrosse than the green Vail Valley in late June.  The weather was perfect today and every evening feels like it should be spent outside for fear of wasting.  All these people are my extended family – even if it takes me three days to remember their names each year.  I’m working on that by the way.  Apparently if you picture a person with a note card on their head with their name on it and then you focus on that note card when you shake their hand, you will remember their names better.  Mmmkay.

I do miss being with the Outlaws on this road trip to Chicago and I'll be back with them for our 4th of July game against San Francisco.  Our team is 5-1, but I don’t feel like we are playing our best lacrosse yet.  Other teams are certainly good and I’m not taking anything away from any of them, but I do feel like we could have won some of our games by a little more and that maybe had things gone just a little differently in Washington, we could have had that game too.  I like being on this team maybe more than any of the other three and I’m having fun playing the game again.  I might not have been able to say that this time last year when my thumb was swollen three times its normal size and I was concerned about my status constantly.  It hurt to pretty much do anything, let alone make moves on shots. 

Today I took some shots from three CSU boys and Kale and felt pretty good.  Each day is an adventure as you get a little older though.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  My focus will likely be on the high school early on and then the Masters semifinals.  Supermasters appear to be interesting this year too, but I think Masters is completely up for grabs.  All four teams are right about the same level and Rusty Red isn’t here to beat them all up.  That was a good team and they aren’t here to defend their title. 

If there are actually people reading this, shoot me an email at alex@rock-itpocket.com.  Anything you want to see covered?  I’ll make a point to take a look at just about anything as long as it makes some sort of entertainment/journalistic sense. 

Good night from Day 1.