It’s the proudest I’ve ever been as a coach. But we didn’t win the game. I was coaching the York Maverick Juvenile (17 and under) Girls Water Polo Team, in the gold medal game, at the Provincial Championships in Guelph, Ontario. It was a round-robin tournament and we came in first in the preliminaries, and then won against the 4th place team to get to the finals.

The other team, that got second in the prelims, and was competing against us for gold was Ottawa. The Ottawa team was significantly more experienced than us and we were the underdogs when we beat them in the preliminaries. We had never beat them in the regular season, and my girls played amazing, shocking everyone by winning that game. It was the early 90’s so this next point might be off by a little bit, but I recall that with a dozen 17-and-under year old players on each team, Ottawa had about 27 more years playing experience than us. They were expected to easily sweep the tournament after a perfect season. That didn’t happen. My girls played the game of their lives to that point and we went into the gold medal game having beat them once the day before.

A couple hours before the gold medal game I held a team meeting in one of the hotel rooms. We were packed in, and actually had to go into the hallway to demonstrate a defensive move we needed to work on. One of the Ottawa plays they were doing was this pick or screen that I thought was illegal. One of their players would swim away from the play and do this screen, with the sole intention of impeding one of my players covering another player. I thought it was illegal, the referees wouldn’t call it. So we went to the hotel hallway so that we could see and feel what needed to be done to prevent this from working as well as it did in the previous game. We also had an impromptu violin performance from one of the girl’s boyfriends, and the girls were pumped to go play, and hopefully beat, this previously intimidating Ottawa team again.

The gold medal game was intense, it was exciting, and it was nerve-wracking! My girls were once again playing the game of their lives. We were even up by a couple goals at the half. But the Ottawa team was well coached, very good, and they didn’t panic. They played their own experienced, confident game and half-way through the final period they took a one goal lead.

I called a time-out, and gave my starters a bit of a rest. I can’t say that I gave them any kind of special pep talk, simply telling them to rest and keep playing the strong game that they played all along, and to muscle through that illegal pick that was still causing us grief. Good defense means less goals for them and more time on offence for us. Our team tied the game pretty quickly and every play going into the final minutes of the period were anxiety-filled and intense. The period ended on a tie.

The overtime rules for the medal round was two 3-minute periods, then if still tied, the game went into 5-minute sudden death periods. In the first overtime period Ottawa scored and we couldn’t answer. In the second overtime, Christine drew a kick-out (penalty) from the hole (the centre offence) and she scored on the power play. The two timed overtime periods ended in a draw, now came the sudden death rounds.

So many years later, I don’t remember how long they played in this final period. I only remember the final sequence that ended the game. We were on offence and our shot clock was running out. Arianna caught a pass from about 7 meters out and we were all yelling, “Shoot!” Arianna took the shot, the ball hit the crossbar and floated on the goal line. I remember seeing the goal judge, on the same side of the pool deck as us, stand up out of his chair, flag in hand ready to wave it if the ball fully crossed the goal line. It didn’t. The goalie reached back and plucked the ball from its precarious spot, half-way into the net. We were literally centimetres away from winning the goal medal game… millimetres if you consider the location of the ball as it hit the crossbar.

The goalie then passed the ball down the right wing, it was passed further down to one of Ottawa’s strongest players. She had a slight lead on my player, but my player was swimming hard and taking good position to prevent a breakaway to the net. The Ottawa player picked up the ball and took a hard shot across the net. My goalie, Titia, made a great save. She had the angle covered and had to reach across the net to block the shot. She did, but the rebound landed right on the hand of an Ottawa player, who did a quick wrist-shot before the defence could react. With such a quick rebound shot, Titia was still out of position from the previous shot and the wrist shot went easily into the unprotected side of our net.

We lost.

I remember tears welling up in my eyes. Yes, it hurt to lose. Yes, it was gut-wrenching to think how close we came to winning less than 20 seconds earlier. But as much as that hurt filled me, I also felt joy. I felt proud of what my girls had done. They played their hearts out. They put everything they had into they game. I remember Christine holding on to the edge of the pool, my fittest athlete, asking for help to get out. After helping her, she lay on the pool deck exhausted, defeated, having put everything into the game. I remember seeing the tears in everyone’s eyes and just being overwhelmed, not in disappointment as much as in pride. These girls did everything they could to win. They played for the second game in a row against a much more experienced team, and showed that they were worthy opponents. They were silver medalists with hearts of gold.

I’ve coached gold medal winners. I’ve played in gold medal games, and worn the gold medal around my neck as a player and as a coach. I’ve never had a moment in sports that I’ve been more proud of a team than I was in that tournament, and that second place finish.