I never realized how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to travel the country running State Wars tryouts. Sure lots of people love the west coast tryouts, some love the east, but I love the Nashville tryouts! What a great city it really is! Even if you are not a country music type of person there is still so much to do in the city. 

I arrived on Thursday night without my partner in crime. Pete Messina, unfortunately had his flight cancelled out of Chicago because of rain and flooding. I was able to check out the Opryland area and get a bite to eat at a cool little restuarant with live music.

Friday, I got some paperwork together for tryouts and hit the mall up for a little while. Couldn't resist the giant Bass Pro store where I bought my Duck Dynaty goods! Pete finally arrived that evening and we were able to get downtown for a little while for a little meal and some fantastic music. Couldn't stay up too late because of the early morning tryouts but we definitely made the best of it!

Tryout day was here and it was game time for us.......There really are some talented players in Tennessee! The Hendersonville rink does a great job and keeping the rink organized and clean! What a beautiful day it was!

We definitely had some tough selections througout our day and some people don't realize how hard it is sometimes. It is funny how some parents still think that we are biased to certain people and organizations. TOTALLY FALSE!

Do you think our boss would fly us out, pay for a rental car, pay for food, and pay us at the end of the weekend if we listened to what other parents and coaches had to say? We would just have them select the teams. It just really boggles my mind! We have cut numerous rink owners children and relatives to the staff. At the end of the day we do our best at selecting players and we take pride in doing our job. Sure, some may not agree with our selections but people also have to understand that we only have 2 hours to rate the players. Did your child really shine in those two hours? Pretty hysterical what comes out of the mouths of parents sometimes. It is, what it is, and we just move on......

Players/Teams that stood out to us:

1997: Brock Brown- The kid has moves and has great touch around the net. 

1999: Cody Heikes- Great player and he really stood out on the 1999 team. He really took control out on the floor and he plays both ends of the rink. Definitely a hard worker!

1996: Jack Mali- This kid could fly out there. He is very dangerous and his skating is explosive at times. Jack is very strong on the puck and also has great hands/vision!

2000 Team-This team is pretty deep and you can tell there is some experience here. This was our toughest group to select! Solid two way players and the kids hustled! Can't wait to watch them in Chicago this summer!

Always great to get back to Nashville! Just happy the weather held up for us......After tryouts were finished we rushed to the airport to meet Tim in Raleigh.

-Greg Thompson