Game Time

Just like the monarchs of natural bridges, the butterflies were back Saturday night. Our first game of our season and my first real game playing in Italy. I laid out all my new gear (shirts, jackets, Speedos) that I had gotten the night before and sat around fidgeting in the apartment all day until it was time to leave for the pool. It was a home game so I hoped in the clown car and drove the 10 minutes to the pool. The complex was completely transformed. There were huge posters and banners set up all around advertising the team’s sponsors. The pool was flawless and ready for the battle. Everything was so professional looking it made me feel kind of important.
We had our pregame chat which I didn’t understand more than five words and then hoped in the pool to warm up. With the music bumping and the crowd filtering in I was getting pretty pumped up. I did my normal pregame routine and then we all got out of the pool for the presentations. One problem, when they told us what to wear for the game they forgot to retell in English. I asked one of my teammates what I should bring and he forgot to tell me that we had to bring our sponsor shirt for the introduction ceremony. I couldn’t believe it, I had to miss my first pregame intro, something I had definitely looked forward to. Instead I just sat on the bench and watched, I felt like I was wearing a dunce cap.
The ceremony finished and my team filtered over. Everyone had put in a tough offseason and was ready for it to finally begin. Our opponent was Modena Nuoto, a team that I was told was young but I thought looked pretty big and strong. While I didn’t get the start, my team shot out of the gates to an early lead. Capitalizing on some 6 on 5 opportunities we quickly went up 2 – 0. Halfway through the first quarter I got the call, “Roosil, u in”. First off the bench. I had been studying their center forward the first few minutes and felt confident that I could shut him down. I got a few defensive stops and some tough counters and I lost my self in the moment. This was awesome; I was actually living out a dream.
On our 4th counter attack some overgrown man-child on the other team was grabbing my suit the whole way down the pool. The only thing that went through my mind was what my old coaches had told me, “Don’t take any shit from anyone”. I had to make it known that I was not going to be the foreign kid who let you walk all over him. It was now or never, time to send a message. I took two hard strokes to get in front then stopped and came back with a hard head butt followed by a strong right elbow. I was actually kind of proud of the connection. They immediately called an offensive foul and the possession got switched to the other team. Even though my team wasn’t happy with the foul and the ogre didn’t look like he was going to be my new friend, I knew that this was something I needed to do. We quickly got a defensive stop and the giant actually ended up switching so he didn’t have to guard me on the next counter.
Our goalie was on fire and we continually increased our lead. I was proud with my play, no kick outs from center and they didn’t even get a shot off. That’s all you can really hope for when defending. I felt strong in there wrestling with their freak and my shoulder held up perfectly. No goals tonight from me as I only took one shot that I probably forced. That didn’t stop our team from being successful as we cruised past Modena Nuoto winning easily 9-2. It was a great way to a start of a long season.


-Bus #10