თემა: I.1

You guys might notice a...different...lineup for USA U21 tomorrow against Brazil. Resting some guys like Vaughn who already play a ton of minutes for us, since we've clinched the WC finals tournament.

I haven't had the chance to see yet who Brazil U21 was running today, but our secondary lineup just won 33-31. Our secondary does include some players who normally play in the main lineup, but we played a lot of guys who haven't been getting minutes (some none at all) on normal in a qualification match. I'm happy with the way this team plays! Our third-string goalie, Collins, made some key saves as I played him in the last 10 minutes (thinking we would lose this game by 5-9) in a very tight game. Sweeney sealed the deal with a nice goal with only 13 seconds left.

Also, if it matters (I think it does, but maybe not much), our current season's points make us 4th in the current season (9th overall due to other seasons' influences).

Our senior NT is in a tough spot, but not out of it. They have two games remaining, against Poland and Switzerland. Poland is far enough ahead in goal differential that they *may* decide to rest. I wouldn't count on it, though. If Poland does beat the US, then it's all on the match against Switzerland. If the USA beats Switzerland, then they'll be even in points, but unlikely at that point to be even in GD (Swiss should be ahead). But the Swiss have one more game against Belgium, who may or may not be resting. If they beat Switzerland at that point, then maybe the GD is favaorable.

tl;dr: We need to beat both Poland and Switzerland, and hope that either Switzerland loses to Belgium or else that GD is favorable. If we lose to Poland, we need to hope Switzerland loses to Belgium and us by enough to make GD favorable.

At a glance, I believe our U19 team has qualified for the WC finals, so I just want to say congrats to them!

Our U21 team is in the following interesting group in the WC finals: Germany, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, and Belarus. I believe that the final 16 playoff would match our group with teams from Group 3, which includes: Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Switzerland. Tough group!

Highly unlikely that our two teams will meet this season, so we wish you the best of luck!!!
U21 team Canada
Bobby Jay

And to you!

Congrats to the pballas!

It's a bit disappointing for me. I had tried to conserve energy for the playoffs, but I guess it wasn't enough this time. Home advantage probably would have been worth more than having a little more energy. I think I sabotaged myself a bit by playing on too high a level for some national cup and/or international games. I also just noticed that I hadn't been cycling my backup goaltender in for a long time, so my starting goaltender was a lot more tired than the rest of my roster.

I had tried to upgrade my roster more earlier this season, but I didn't have any luck logging in at the right time to win any auctions.

Sorry to hear this! Did you win last season, at least? If not, then really sorry!

Speaking of really sorry....I know this is no excuse, but real life got in the way a bit and I didn't remember to call up everyone I needed to for U21 match.

I won the last two seasons, so I'm pretty happy with my team's performance overall in handball over the last couple seasons. Ultimately, it's good to have a strong rival to make things interesting.

Don't worry about it. The U21 team has overall been one of the most successful national teams recently, so you're doing great overall.

Well...it's worse than I thought. I could add four players--so I added our best four, including our main goalie. But I couldn't remove anyone. For, as the guide says, "The players called up for World Championships cannot be removed during the course of the tournament."

This leaves us our main goalie, all of our main backs except for Lincoln Harris, no good pivot (but at least a pivot), and a couple of wings. Not the worst thing ever, but the worst mistake I've made thus far haha.

Thanks, I was worried for that final. I only lost 3 games all year and they were all to you (2 reg season and nat cup final). I noticed you were conserving energy so I actually started doing the same thing with 10-15 games left.

Well, news gets worse:

On the U21 WC front, our back (really, player) with the highest FiP went down with a 10-day injury, effectively ending his tournament. If we don't win today, then our hopes ride on beating UK (most likely, as I believe Belarus will beat them today). Good news is, we do that and we're almost assuredly in to the sweet 16 for the second consecutive year!

On my club team front, I didn't avoid winning game 1 of the promotion round, so...I'll get destroyed in I.1, I suppose.