Chapter 45

The season had changed dramatically since we were in Calgary and we were loosing most of our games – something was going terribly wrong so I arranged a team meeting for the next day.

The meeting went well and it was decided that we needed to change our tactics slightly and maybe try some new lines.

The next day we put into practice what we had discussed and it seemed to work well so we decided to try the changes in tonight’s game.

“Gill, what a game we played tonight, you are amazing” Geno announces as I enter the changing room after the post game press interviews.

“Listen up guys. You have done well tonight but we are still a long way off being near as good as we should be and if we want to win the league again we will have to win all of our remaining games.

“I have faith in all of you and I am proud of how well you done out there tonight but I want to tell it as I see it, so therefore, if you do not get a winning streak started again we may not even make the play offs this year let alone winning the league.

“I have seen you all play far better than this, to be perfectly honest you don’t even look like the same team that one the Stanley Cup less than a year ago.

“Good night guys, I will see you tomorrow.”

I went home that night and left Sidney with his team. I know that I may have been too blunt with them but at the moment I think it was what they needed to hear.

I sat with my guitar and started writing a song for Sidney. I always find it so hard to buy him a present for his birthday as he has everything. My plan this year is to write a song by August. I will write out the sheet music have it framed and probably record the song for him once I have played it as there is a small recording studio in the basement of my house.

Sidney soon came home and I asked if the team were ok with what I said tonight.

“They respect you Gill and they know you said what you did to help them realise that we all have a lot of work to do this season if we want to finish in a half decent place.”