After the team's second trip to Minnesota in two weeks, defender Justin Thompson details the quick trip to St. Paul to play the Thunder. He talks about battling a virus and the challenges this season against Minnesota. Here is his report from the road.
Wednesday, Aug. 15 - 9 p.m.
Well we're back in Minnesota for another road game against the Thunder. We arrived around 2 p.m. and headed straight out for a training session at 4 p.m. local time. We worked on some tactics and set pieces, and we feel quietly optimistic about taking all three points tomorrow night. We've done our homework and now it's down to the players to prepare properly and get the job done.
Thursday, Aug. 16 - 1 p.m.
All the boys are now in their rooms relaxing and getting ready for tonight's game. My roommate Cameron Knowles had to be switched out of my room due to a virus that I have picked up. It would be a disaster if the virus was to spread throughout the team! I mentioned in an earlier report that Minnesota has been somewhat of a bogey team this year. We have played them twice now and drawn both games. They seem to perform really well when they are playing against teams at the top of the division, and drop points to teams that they should beat. If we can win tonight, we will have taken an acceptable five points from a possible nine against them. Game on!!!
Friday, Aug. 17 - 8 a.m.
Who said this was easy!! Picking up a win against Minnesota this year has proved to be much more difficult than we anticipated. We felt we were harshly done by last night with the referee awarding two penalty kicks to the Thunder. We've had our share of penalty claims turned down against us recently, and to get two penalties blown against us for seemingly innocuous challenges felt a bit unjust. We always say a point on the road is never a bad result, but we are a little frustrated that we've let our lead at the top of the table diminish to a couple of points. At the end of the day, Minnesota has tied us three times and so we have to give them some credit.
With only five games remaining we have put ourselves in a fantastic position to be challenging for the league title. Some results haven't gone our way recently but now is the time to build some momentum for our play-off run. We have got a huge game on Thursday night before a big road trip so we could really use your support!!
Thanks for reading!
Justin
