January 23, 2005
By Chuck Terry, 97 Stallions Atom team dad

A Compliment From The Competition

It is probably a rare case when one team writes to compliment the team that beat them in the finals, but that is exactly what I am doing on behalf of the 97 Stallions Atom division team.

We came to NARCh as a Cub Platinum team last summer and made the final 4 while having an excellent time. We were very impressed with how the NARCh staff ran the tournament and even more impressed with the competition.

Since the team was moving up to Atom this year we thought it would be great to come to the Winternationals and get some experience against older teams and have some fun. The tournament was extremely well run again and we had the privilege of playing some teams that not only played hard but exhibited the type of sportsmanship that should make parents proud.

We were so impressed with the team that beat us in the Gold medal game, the Westcoast Warriors. They were clearly the class of the Atom division in more ways than one. They were well coached and beat us soundly with an older team that certainly would have had every reason in the world to gloat or show up our team of youngsters (our goalie actually turned 7 during the tournament!).

The fact is that the parents, coaches and players could not have been more gracious and it was a very positive experience for our kids to not only learn to take a tough loss in stride but see how champions should behave.

Thanks to the Westcoast Warriors players, coaches, and parents for setting such a good example in Reno. Our kids left the Winternationals with a lot more than just silver medals!