Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Of HUDL, Friends, Food, a Lake and, of Course, American Football!


Tuesday, 24 April, 2018

Another splendid day in Lombardia started with an on-line working session with the HUDL app to start breaking down our video of last Sunday's Skorpions-Crusaders game as well as a video of this Saturday's opponent, our cross-town rival Varese Gorillas.

Near midday we received a message from Skorpion players Pietro Limido (TE/DE) and Nicolas Principi (SS/FB/PR) asking if we wanted to join them for lunch.

Lunch?

Us?

SÌ!

The spot that they chose was on the shore of Lake Varese in the village of Cazzago Brabbia.

Idyllic!

Home of one of Lake Varese's
last fishermen we were told

Laurie loving our lunch spot

The view from our table

Pietro, George and Nicolas

The food was great, the company was better.

Algae is not good for the lake

A fisherman heading out

Nicolas, George and Pietro

On Lake Varese with my bride Laurie

One of three Cazzago Brabbia's
old community shared ice houses

Laurie taking a closer look
into an ice house

Located only about 100 meters from the lake, these were constructed in such a manner as to become huge refrigerators for the townspeople to store there fish, meat and vegetables.

An ingenious plan indeed!

After lunch it was back to work breaking down more of the Crusader game video until about 6:15 p.m. when it was time to leave Laurie alone in the Villa Skorpion and head out to our Skorpion U17, U15 and Senior team practices for four hours.

All three clubs had good sessions tonight but some of our Seniors are starting to show the wear and tear on their bodies from three straight weekends of playing games.

This rarely happens in EuroBall much less a fourth straight game without a bye which will happen this Saturday. We originally had a bye scheduled for last weekend but it was used to play the re-scheduled, snowed out Crusaders game from early in March.

Needless to say, our players' health is a big concern as we head down the home stretch of the 2018 regular season.

Another one of our officially licensed Skorpion Team Photographers added another 500+ artsy photos to our team's FaceBook page from the Crusaders contest.

Here are some of the ones that I liked.

The 2018 Skorpions Team

The PAT Team

The Contreras Team

 Nicolas Principe heading for
the Goal Line

 HERE COME THE SKORPIONS!

 Taking Notes

 One of WR Martino Piazzi's
many grabs on Sunday

 FIRE UP!

Laurie as we slowly took
the field for warm-ups

 DE Tomas Pedotti gets a hand up

QB Omar Passera had a GREAT day!

 As did SS Nicolas Principi!

Omar on the loose again

RB Ema Della Bosca for SIX!

#23 dodged FB Nicolas Principi's
block at the last millisecond

No problem, Ema read it and made a good cut inside.

Same play five yards later

Nice roll Nicolas!

OLB Stefano Granelli's
20 yard Scoop and Score TD

Another shot of Ema's TD

Loving our helmet decals!

QB Gianluca Arena on the prowl

Nicolas Principi timing
his SS blitz PERFECTLY!

 This was the result of his blitz

#87 NG Andrea Gorini 

Our oldest Skorpion playing his
FIRST season of American football

Andrea turns 47 this weekend and had a long career as a hockey goalie before turning to American football this year, due to Nicolas Principi's prodding.

He had an amazing performance last Sunday! 

Post-game handshake line

I dislike the post-game handshake line, too artificial.

I do want our players to be good sportsmen but much prefer the college and NFL post-game ritual of just individually seeking out the opponent that you actually competed against and/or are old friends with in these after game situations.

Entering the post-game
Skorpion huddle

Andrea Gorini . . .

. . . just got awarded . . .

. . . the coveted Game Hammer!

It's GREAT to be a Skorpion!

Meanwhile, back on the international American football front . . .

The Europe Warriors are back!

Recruiting for the Senior team that will play a game in Mexico in mid-August against the University of Chihuahua has begun.

The Europe Warriors team leaders, Bart Iaccarino and Jesús Sanchez, are still working on a possible U19 game somewhere in the New World the week following the Senior game.

Stay tuned . . .

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