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In October of 2004, I returned to the Canadian men’s national program after representing BC in the 2004 Senior National Championships held in Ottawa, Ontario. The national program was in a transition period as the Athens Olympics had completed and the focus now shifted towards the development of younger players.

I began training with the squad in October.  In three short months, I was rewarded when the national team head coach Gene Muller added me onto the carding list for 2005.  A carded athlete is a national level player eligible for monthly funding from the Athlete Assistance Program run by Sport Canada. This was a great boost to my confidence and reassured me that I did belong with the other high performance athletes on the squad.

During the course of the competitive hockey season I play for the VRC Jokers premier team in the Vancouver Field Hockey League’s premier division, which is the most competitive league in North America. I have been their goalkeeper for the last nine years. We had an outstanding year finishing the season with six wins, four ties and only two losses. We won our semi final playoff game versus the West Vancouver Millionaires 2-0 and went on to capture the league championship 1-0 over the UBC Thunderbirds. I was very proud to be named team MVP.

Between January and April, I continued training with the national squad as the intensity and regularity of the practices increased. The team was preparing for a home series versus Scotland in April and subsequent training tours overseas to England and Germany in May and July.

For the Scotland series I was named the starting goalkeeper on the Canada Selects team. The Selects team was made up of a large number of junior players hoping to secure a place in the senior national squad. The series would showcase six matches versus Scotland, the first two of which would be against our Canada Selects team. The remaining four would be official international test matches.

Our first match, a 0-0 draw was a very favorable result considering we were playing our B team versus their A team. The next evening we played in front of about three hundred spectators. We lost a very hard fought match 1-0 in the last minute of the game. I had played well in both matches only conceding one goal in 140 minutes of action. The coaching staff had noticed as well and promoted me onto the senior men’s team for the final match of the series marking my first international cap.  A cap is awarded for an appearance in an official match between National Senior A teams, sanctioned by the Federation of International Hockey. A few hours before the match, I was told I would be playing the second half. With the score tied 1-1 at the half and Scotland undefeated in the previous five matches, I was very nervous entering the game at half time. That nervous energy worked to my advantage and I played fantastic, shutting Scotland out in the second half and earning a 2-1 win, the first win for Canada in the series!

I’m now looking to the future and the 2006 Commonwealth Games to be held in Melbourne, Australia and the 2006 World Cup Qualifier to be held in Changzhou City, China. For more information on the team please visit http://www.fieldhockey.ca

I would like to thank Dowco vice president Ewen Dobbie for his full support allowing me the necessary time off to meet a very demanding training and competition schedule. I would also like to thank my girlfriend Emily for putting up with all of this!