Thursday, 1 March, 2018
Day #45 in Italy was a Winter Wonderland for an old man from California!
When I looked out of the Villa Skorpion's front door in the early morning, this is what I saw . . .
A two inch blanket of powder snow!
And it was still coming down gently
No BBQ in the back yard today
I hope these plants survive
the cold snap
Near the Venegono Inferiore Cemetery
Train tracks in Varese
Doctor, Surgeon AND Dentist
Dr. A. Bertoli is your man in Varese for all of your one stop medical needs!
Colorful pastel building in Varese
In Varese and out of the cold
A cappuccino in this old, old Varese caffé seemed like the perfect thing on a cold Thursday morning walk.
Did I mention that they sold pastries too?
Lot and lots . . .
. . . of delicious pastries
Once again I amazed myself by only ordering the cappuccino.
Cold drinking water today I'll bet
Not a great day to dry the rugs
Snowy courtyard
The weather affects all forms of
transportation vehicles
But in different ways.
Outdoor seating was available
all over Varese today
C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T-E-!
I had my latest read in my backpack
I usually take breaks on my walks and sit down to read a chapter or two.
Today, not so much.
Solemn look at Venegono Superiore's
War Dead Memorial
I like the matching cannon shells.
Not loaded, right?
Our Flag Football teams normally practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:30 to 8:30.
Due to the extreme weather they had opted to not practice this week in lieu of a three hour block of practice time that the team secured on Saturday at a nearby indoor facility.
YOUR Varese Skorpions 11-man tackle team reveled in the opportunity to work out from 8:30 to 10:30 in absolutely perfect Skorpion Weather!
We even had a couple of Skorpions who called me asking if we could meet at Skorpion Field at 5:30 to put in some extra time.
Of course!
The Frozen Tundra of Skorpion Field
By this time the snow was still powdery and now about three inches deep.
As it turned out, it felt warmer tonight with the snow than it did Tuesday night without it.
Warming-up at 5:30
LB/RB Nicola Principi and
QB Gianluca Arena got in some good
work during our 75 minutes together
Some of our players had designed a new unique looking Skorpion helmet decal a few weeks ago. After much debate and soul searching, the powers that be gave the players the ok to use it.
The only problem was where to order them.
Easy I told them, Sportdecals in the USA was the company for all of your EuroBall decal needs.
We finally placed the order but too late for our Gorillas game last Saturday, nothing in Italy ever happens on time, but voilà. Today, in plenty of time for our game this Sunday with the Cagliari Crusaders, the decals were here.
Here is what our helmet will look like on Sunday . . .
Front view
The left side still sporting the
traditional Skorpions helmet decal
The back now has HUGE numbers
And, finally, our right side with
the players designed
Skorpion Stinger decal
It too is huge but I like it!
It is certainly unique to our Varese Skorpions.
Warming-up with many but not all
yet having added their new decal
With our newest Defensive Line Coach
Pacio Cranchi
On our coaching staff I'm now considered to be a MEDIUM!
From what I saw tonight, Pacio is passionate about improving his players effort and performance. He and Luca Pinto are doing a great job coaching up our Defensive Linemen.
Offensive Linemen on the Two-Man Sled
Luca Pinto and Pacio Cranchi
The two most handsome Defensive Line
Coaches in all of Italy!
Back to the decals . . .
It is the first time that a team I've coached has ordered oversize decals like our Skorpion Stingers.
Because our players use so many different types of helmets, Sportdecals needed an accurate count of how many helmets of our various styles we actually had in order to properly process our order.
I was worried that once here, the correct decals and the correct helmet styles would get mixed up causing issues.
Stupid me for not trusting 100% in Sportdecals.
Even I . . .
. . . could figure out . . .
. . . which helmet got which decal
Problem solved thanks to Sportsdecals!
I'm not sure where the numbers
came from but as I said,
they are HUGE!
Our defense had another good night as our offense continues to struggle with consistency.
On offense, I believe that we have the players with the talent needed to succeed but we continue to have a different player break down on seemingly every play.
The too few times where all 11 of our attack squad players are on the same page, we look good.
The Special Teams continue to work hard in practice, their play was a big reason for our win last Saturday and has to come up big again this Sunday for us to win.
BEAT THE CRUSADERS!
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