More Driving Than Soccer

I arrived at the Libertyville field complex around 7:45AM for our 9:00AM scheduled kick off.  Once again, no one was there to take my $5 for parking.  Nice!  Once again, I was bewildered by the lack of cars in the parking lot and once again was stopped by the tournament volunteer, waving me down with a sheepish grin, the feigned grin that one wears when they know they have to give news that people aren’t going to like.  Ah, good morning the volunteer says after I rolled my window down.  Is it?  I ask.  Ah, well, all morning games have been cancelled.  They are working on the revised schedule and should have it for you at the tent down the road.

What the…?!?!  Couldn’t they at least try to make contact with the team coaches/managers and let them know earlier that this?  So I got on the phone with the manger and let her know to try and corral the girls and their families before they all left the hotel.  Too late.  Real fun.

I headed over to the tournament tent to find out that that first round of games for the U13 age group had been moved to the Geneva Township fields, the complex an hour away from our hotel.  The Eclipse people had been out all night with wet vacs and squeegees trying to dry out the fields, even renting a helicopter (brilliant!) to try and get the fields in playable condition.  To no avail.  I was also informed that due to the scheduling constraints and trying to give all the teams game time, games would also be cut down to 40 minutes.  There was still no word about the second round of games for the day.  Keep checking the website.

What was really disappointing was the fact that the U14 games were being played at a completely separate venue in Oak Brook at the same time as the U13s so I had absolutely no chance of watching any of those.  Real bummer.

When all was said and done, we drove a hour to Geneva, played a 40 minute game, had to hustle back to Libertyville (an hour) to play our second game of the day at 5:30PM (another 40 minute game) on one of the two semi-playable fields at the main complex.  I say semi-playable because due to the wet conditions, 5 or 6 yards of the field width had to be lined off and were hastily painted with orange paint indicating the revamped sidelines.  It took the girls on both teams about half an hour to adjust to the unfamiliar orange lines and the narrow field (the ref wouldn’t let me put down any disks to help the teams), and by that time the game was done.  Real fun.

No word about the schedule for tomorrow, but the organizers said they would be trying to get everyone 2 games.

So much for my plans of going home on Saturday night.  I figured I was down here and still wanted to see some of the U14 games.  My wife understood and gave me her blessing, so we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Oh, and with a little help from YouTube and other internet sites for nerds like me, I finally solved the cube!