New Zealand Paddle Ferns

Final Results

2010-09-13T15:16:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Sorry for the slow update, finally have internet access again.

So Sunday didn't go quite as planned for us. We had a really close game with the Germans with us taking the first opportunity to score. From there it was a you score, we score game. Late in the second half we were drawn 3all, but unfortunately for us with just 30 seconds to go the Germans snuck one past us to take the win and proceed to the final. It was a disappointing loss for us as we were definitely in the running to take the win.

This meant that we were now in the play off for bronze. The team was a little disheartened by the lost in the semi that we didn't pull out our best performance and lost 3-2 to the French to come fourth. While this result is good on a world stage it was disappointing for a team with so much potential to go all the way.

A big thanks to everyone who came over to Italy to support us and a MASSIVE thanks to Alison our manager. You did a stunning job! Thanks also to Nick our coach.

Until we meet again,

Ciao Bellas!!

Canoe Polo Video Live

2010-09-04T09:17:00.001-07:00

The World Championships finals are currently being streamed live on the internet.

Visit http://www.idroscaloclub.org/polo/eng/results.html
Then click onto "video live"

The Semi's aren't being streamed but the finals are! Enjoy!

We play in the semi at 8.30am against the Germans!

NZ Athletes Tent

2010-09-03T10:48:00.000-07:00

Some awesome letters and pictures of support from Nelson Central School

NZ Paddle Ferns Tiki

Long line of Athletes Tents

Inside the tent with more posters of support from Nelson Central School

Outside the NZ Tent with an awesome support banner made by Nelson Central School

Day Three Results...We're in the Semis!!

2010-09-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Today dawned the second round. After a slight draw change late last night we ended up playing the Spanish first. We knew that we needed to take down the Spanish to ensure we made the semi finals. A strong start saw us take the lead 6-1, however in the last couple of minutes we unfortunatley allowed the Spanish to get two more on us to make the final score 6-3. Never the less it was a win in the bag.

We had a quick turn around and next up an hour later we had Great Britain. We knew a win was needed to give us the easier cross over in the semis. We started out strongly scoring the first goal, but GB came back straight away and shot from half way equaling the score. The game was a tussle between the two teams with the score slowly increasing with NZ unfortunately taking the loss 5-4. NZ demonstrated some awesome offense and showcased some cracker shots.

The third game was against the Dutch. After loosing to GB we had to win this game to secure our semi final spot. Having beaten the Dutch at De Paddel 7-2 we knew we could definitely take the win home. We eventually won 6-2 and confirmed our spot in the semis.

We now have a rest day tomorrow to relax and chill out before we meet Germany in the semi final at 8.30am on Sunday morning. We're definitely looking forward to it!

Thanks for all of your messages of support, it's great to know we've got people cheering for us on the other side of the world and with many of you staying up late to see the live results!

Opening Ceremony

2010-09-02T08:31:00.001-07:00

NZ Paddle Blacks and NZ Paddle Ferns

Main Stand

All the teams waiting around for the opening ceremony

New Zealand represent!

Tom Neilson (Captain of Paddle Blacks) represents NZ as the flag bearer

Team Italy

Fireworks Display

Day Two Results

2010-09-02T07:22:00.001-07:00

The Kiwi girls have had another great day winning both of their games and coming top of their pool.

NZ v Australia 3-1

NZ v Switzerland 7-2

We now enter into the second round and tomorrow we will play against The Netherlands at 9am (7pm NZ Time), Spain at 11am (9pm NZ Time) and GB at 1pm (11pm NZ Time).
From this pool the top two teams head into the semi finals which take place on Sunday!

The Paddle Blacks have had a great day also so far. They narrowly lost to the Dutch this morning 2-1. They played an awesome game and a it was a dubious call that saw the Dutch get a GPS (Goal Penalty Shot) to win the game. They convincingly beat the Swiss 5-2. They play Canada later this evening and if they win that game they will qualify at second in their pool and progress to the next round.

Team bonding!!

2010-09-01T04:42:00.000-07:00

Photos from Worlds

2010-09-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

Alison doing her magic in the accreditation room

World Championships Poster

The pitches

NZ Flag

NZ Paddle Ferns getting their gear scrutineered

The view down the lake at Idroscalo

Thurs 2nd Sept Game Times

2010-09-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

Thursday 2nd September Game Times for the NZ Paddle Ferns

NZ v Australia 9am (7pm NZ time)
NZ v Switzerland 1pm (10pm NZ time)

LIVE RESULTS FROM WORLDS

2010-09-01T04:16:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Here is a the link to the live results on the Worlds Website:

http://www.idroscaloclub.org/polo/eng/results.html

The Paddle Ferns played Hungary this morning winning 9-0.

Bologna Comp Photos

2010-08-30T09:44:00.000-07:00

Bologna International Competition

Medal winners: 1st Germany 2nd Australia 3rd New Zealand

NZ on the podium at the Bologna International Competition

Paris drilling the German #7

The twins Ju (8) and Erin (1) applying some intense pressure

The pitches in Bologna

Liv (6) going hard against the Iranians and Tans (5) looks on

Erin convincingly wins the charge against Iran

Ali gains possession against the Aussies

Bologna Competition

2010-08-30T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hi all,
The weather is still cranking and the team are acclimatising well. It's expected to be a little cooler this weekend which will be a nice change from temperatures well into the high 30's!

Here are the results from the weekend:

Saturday:
New Zealand v Iran 8-1 WIN
New Zealand v K-Polo (Denmark) 7-2 WIN
New Zealand v Canada U21 11-0 WIN

Sunday:
This took us into the second round placed first in our pool and we played the two 2nd placed teams from the other two pools:
New Zealand v Italy 4-1 WIN
New Zealand v Canada 9-1 WIN

Germany, Australia and NZ all were now top of their pools and with out a loss, so because the draw was structured in a weird way it came down to goal difference to decipher who was to go into the semi finals as 1st 2nd and 3rd, Italy was 4th because it had lost to both NZ and Germany. The Aussie had an easier second round than Germany and NZ so was able to sit on the 1st position and convincingly beat Italy to progress to the final.

We played Germany in the semi final. Erin scored her "kiwi magic goal" where by she puts presses on the ball under the oppositions goal and then as the player progresses to make a pass she blocks the ball sending it into the goal!! Stunner. She's done two of them now! So with only a few minutes on the clock NZ was 1 goal up. The Germans came fighting back and scored to make it 1 all. The game progressed with a real tussle between to the two teams with the final score unfortunately swinging the Germans way 3-2. We were a bit disappointed with the result but we know we've got a lot more up our sleeves.

In our play off for third we came out firing and put the Italians away 6-2.

The team really enjoyed the competition and is super excited about the upcoming Worlds!

Sunday evening we headed out into the center of Bologna, near the University and had traditional Italian pizza to celebrate Liv's 24th birthday.

Bologna Comp Live Results

2010-08-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

The Bologna pre worlds real time results will be posted on: http://canoaclubbologna.it/joomla/

Still hot over here. 36-37 degrees, and no air con, but handling it well.
1st game today is at 9:40am against the Iran ladies. (7:40pm Nz time)
2nd game is 2:20pm against K-polo (Denmark) and then 5:40pm against U21 Canadian Ladies.

Roasting in Bologna

2010-08-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days we have spent training at the venue and adjusting to the heat! Temperatures have been in the mid to high 30's everyday!
The pitches are set on a fish farm so there have been numerous shrieks from certain unnamed players...
We have had some good training against the Australian and Italian ladies and are looking forward to the competition tomorrow.
We went out for dinner and had some authentic Italian pasta which was delicious followed by scrummy gelato. We are now looking forward to our pizza evening out.

Photos

2010-08-26T12:02:00.001-07:00

Bologna Italy

2010-08-24T12:09:00.001-07:00

Monday 23rd August
We arose early this morning to head south to Charleroi airport in Belgium. It was pouring with rain and quite cool, so we were glad to be heading to a warmer climate. In a very kind gesture from our coach and manager they decided they would drive the 13 hour trip to Bologna with all our gear and boats and let us seven players fly so that we could get to the apartment early and chill out. For a very cheap total of just over NZ$200 we managed to fly all seven of us with Ryan air. Arriving in Italy we were greeted with a beautiful day. The temperature was well into the thirties so we were all finding it very hot. We had rented a car to use for the day, but as it was just a little “panda” seating only 4 people we had to do two trips to get everyone to the apartment. The directions would prove a little hard to interpret and the first group ended up hiring a taxi to finally get them to the apartment. Ali and Ju made their way back to the airport and we did take two of trying to find the airport. After asking a few people where the “stazione central” was we eventually, in a loop-di-loop kind of fashion made it to the apartment. In the mean time Tania and Freya had been off to the supermarket getting us a delicious lunch, which we all gobbled up and then chilled out for the afternoon watching a movie…and sweating a lot! At about 8pm Alison and Nick finally arrived after traveling through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Not a bad effort for knocking off a bunch of country’s in one day! Bed was a sticky issue with the temperature still in the high twenties.

Tuesday 24th August
This morning we were able to wake up when we wanted which was a nice treat. Ali Nick and Alison dropped off the little “Panda” rental car and once they returned we headed off for a light run. It was nice and hot and allowed for a lot of sweating!! We filled the rest of the morning with some more chilling out, reading books, playing knucklebones and showers. After lunch we headed into town to check out the sights for some and shops for others. The architecture is incredible, lots of old old buildings. There was a water fountain in the middle of town that was 450 years old! It made us appreciate just how young NZ is! The water fountain featured Neptune along with women squeezing their breasts as water flowed out of the nipples! It was a sign that the Pope of the time must have liked lactating women! After strolling around town for a couple of hours our taxi driver Tans took us all home. We are now just chilling out watching a movie as Freya cooks us a yummy roast chicken dinner. Bed soon then up early to get back into the training to prepare us for our next tournament this weekend.

NZ PADDLE FERNS

De Paddel Tournament Belgium

2010-08-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

Sat and Sun
Started the day against Italy with a slow start to the day as we came together as a team for the first time in a competition. In the second half we picked up the pace and ended up winning convincingly 4-1. Our second game was against the French U-21 team, after disposing of them 9-1 we moved on to the Dutch team, winning easily 7-2. For our 4th and final game for the day we had a picnic putting Avon ladies into their place with a convincing 10-0 win. Unfortunately we didn’t start the Sunday with the same pace as the previous day and with a draw at full time to Australia we went on to lose the game in a penalty shoot out. This meant we took the long road to the finals; so instead of having a total of 3 games that day we ended up having 4 on the road to the final and all up 5 games in the 27⁰ Celsius heat. After the game against Australia we played and lost against Italy 1-0. After a weak defensive start against the British club team Game On, we came from 4-0 down to draw the game 6 all at full time and annihilating them on the penalty shoot out. We went on to beat Italy 4-0 and this put us into the final with Australia. Even with the support of the boys and their amazing haka, we couldn’t manage any goals in our error ridden final and went down 2-0. We had a steep learning curve but one we were glad to have taken and those Australians had better watch their backs!

2010-08-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 18th
Our trip from Singapore to Paris was long but uneventful. We were on a massive double decker airbus. Boy are they a big plane. The trip was full of lots of movie watching along with lots of eating interesting airplane food! Upon arriving in Paris we collected a nice wee stamp in our passports and ventured out to get our luggage. Venturing out into a gloomy drizzly Paris day Nick was there to meet us. We were all a but disappointed to have finally arrived in Europe and be welcomed with weather that we had thought we had left in NZ! Next on the to do list was sorting out the van and roof racks. After a bit of a wait Nick, Alison, Freya and Liv headed off with the rental car people to get that sorted while the others stayed at the airport and had breakfast.

The roof racks turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Kindly loaned to us from Thule New Zealand, one of the screws that went into the roof hadn't been finished off at the factory properly and had no grooves! A little kiwi ingenuity was brought to the fore and we managed to, with the help the rental places limited toolbox, create a new screw by cutting off the head of a screw and adding some fillers in to it! The new screw worked a treat and on went the roof racks perfectly. Thanks Thule NZ for the racks, very much appreciated.

The roof rack team piled into the vehicle and headed back to the airport to pick up the rest of the crew. After loading all the boats and paddles on the roof and the bags in the back we all piled in and headed towards Belgium. It was about a 2 hour drive which for all of us suffering a little jet lag felt a lot longer than it was. We eventually arrived at Dikkebus Vivjer and made our selves at home. We are staying in big Belgium Army tents on stretches which felt amazing to sleep on after trying to sleep in an upright chair on a plane!

Thursday 19th
Today we woke up early and headed out for a team run and stretch session around the lake to get our bodies moving. The weather wasn't that flash today and we were starting to wonder where summer was. We did two water sessions which were very much a flushing out of the jet lag that everyone was still feeling. In the evening we headed into Ieper and attended the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate. It is a tribute that they do to the fallen soldiers of World War 1 every night. It was very moving!

Friday 20th
Two more water sessions were of order today. We played against the Canadian women and a couple of their U21 men which was really good to have our first game time together as a team. In the afternoon we visited the Tyne Cot Cemetery where thousands of soldiers both known and unknown are buried. Amongst them are a number of NZ soldiers.

Tomorrow the DePaddel competition begins! Paris will debut with her first international which is exciting. The team is feeling really amped for getting some game time and looking forward to showing off what we can do.

Stay tuned for some photos of our trip and results from this weekends tournament.

NZ Paddle Ferns

Paddle Ferns Make It Half Way Around The World

2010-08-17T07:28:00.001-07:00

Just a short note to say that the Paddle Ferns have arrived in Singapore. After a 10 hour flight from Christchurch the team arrived in Singapore ready to stretch their legs. A swim at the airport pool was on order followed by a bit of retail browsing. Boarding starts in ten minutes and then we'll be off on the next part of our journey to Paris.

"See you in Paris, Paris ;-)"

2010 New Zealand Senior Teams Announced - PRESS RELEASE

2010-05-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

The New Zealand Canoe Polo Association is proud to announce the 2010 New Zealand Men’s and Women’s Canoe Polo Teams (the New Zealand Paddle Blacks and Paddle Ferns respectively). The New Zealand Paddle Blacks and Paddle Ferns will compete at the World Canoe Polo Championships from the 1st to the 5th of September in Milan Italy.

In what could be described as one of the tightest selection events in New Zealand Canoe Polo history the teams were officially announced on the 25th of April following the finals of the Christchurch National League Tournament. Selector for the Men’s team Kirsten Demanser-Wilson commented that, “it was exciting to see the tough competition between the men’s teams over the first of three national league weekends. The selection process was very intense as we had many exciting players competing for the 8 places in the New Zealand Men’s team. All players selected displayed outstanding skills, fire power, speed and that special ‘X factor’ which will help them take on the rest of the world later this year.“

After a very successful 2009 season culminating in winning the Oceania Championships the Paddle Blacks have set their sights high and are aiming to be the first New Zealand Men’s team to medal at a World Championship event. In the past few years the Paddle Blacks have undergone a vast amount of development and this is beginning to show in the team’s results as they quickly slide up the international rankings. The Paddle Ferns have proven themselves to be a formidable force having consistently placed in the top four over the past four years. After a disappointing fourth place at the 2009 World Games the team is stronger than ever and is ready to show the world that Kiwis really can fly.

PADDLE FERNS

Erin Bolton - Palmerston North
Julie Bolton - Palmerston North
Alison McCrae (c) - Christchurch
Tania Perrett (vc) - Christchurch
Paris Pidduck - Otaki
Freya Sonneland - Nelson
Olivia Spencer-Bower - Christchurch

Coach: Nick Burnett
Manager: Alison Perrett

PADDLE BLACKS

Anthony Barendsen - Palmerston North
Hamish Dugdale - Christchurch
Carl Duncan (vc) - Palmerston North
Jed Graham - Christchurch
James Mitchell - Palmerston North
Tom Neilson (c) - Christchurch
Jimmy Sewell - Adelaide/Christchurch
Mike Taylor - Wellington
Coach: Steve Hunt
Manager: Carol Taylor

Koahsiung Taiwan

2009-07-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

Sunday 12th July: The team had a good flight over from Singapore to Taiwan. As one of the first international teams to arrive, everyone was very excited to see us. It too was exciting to arrive in Taipei and be escorted throughout the entire airport by security men with guns! At customs there was a special line for World Games athletes too!

We headed down south to Koahsiung from Taipei on the High Speed Rail...ie the super fast train that gets up to 330kms per hour. Arriving in Kaohsiung we were greeted by the World Games Canoe Polo organisers. They had a special Canoe Polo sign and everything! So as they lead us out of the train station we followed like a snake behind the Canoe Polo sign hoisted high in the air! They had a bus ready and waiting for us and took us to our hotel. All around Kaohsiung we could see World Games posters, flags, massive big billboards....all sorts of advertising material! Very sophisticated!

Step one of the acclimatisation process started Sunday evening. The team ventured out into the hot muggy night in search of something to eat. With english beginning a rare spectacle, the team had to rely on pictures to guess what they could eat. After some serious umming and aaahing the team spilt into a couple of different directions to test out the culinary delights taiwan had to offer. One group dined on dumplings while the other feasted on a good hearty meal of a steak and egg!

Monday 13th July: Water Park Day!! Nick had been waiting ever so patiently for the past 4 months or so for this day to come! Half of the team opted for the more mellow route of some site seeing on a wee island off Kaohsiung, while the others heading on the subway to the Blue Lagoon Water Park, which had a good couple of water slides starting 10 stories high!! First on the list was a four person raft water slide where you casually went around a wee curve then plumited for about 60m leaving your stomach at the top. Being the keen bees we are we were first up the top only to be told we couldn't go on the waterslide with out a sexy lycra swim cap. After a little negotiation and alot of hand movements, we persuaded them to let us do just one ride to get down to the bottom then we would go buy some. The eagerly awaited clothing item was a real fashion accessory with most opting for a lovely florescent pink! The rest of the morning was filled with lots more rides then back to joing everyone else back at the hotel at 2pm. We filled the afternoon with some ball throwing in the rain and dinner out at the dumpling restaurant. This place had no pictures through, so we took a gamble and ordered one of everything from the menu! Luckily for us it worked out well and we had a tasty dinner!

Tuesday 14th July: We headed into the centre of Kaohsiung to complete accreditation. Kaohsiung City Hall was decked out with masses of advertising material and was a big place where all the accreditation was taking place. After the team having their temperatures taken to make sure no one was sick, they waited in team area while all the technical stuff was taken care of. Once we got our passes we picked up our WG's bag of goodies and headed over to the catering centre for lunch. It was a plush place similar to the Park Royal! The volunteers were so friendly nodding and saying hello to everyone.

After refueling we headed to the Lotus Pond to check out the Canoe Polo venue. It's situated on a pond surrounding by temples. Looks like a real atmosphere will brew with loud speakers blarring out music across the pond on competition day. The team are getting excited about getting onto the water now! Back at the hotel the team is just relaxing till we head away to have dinner and explore the night market.

The Paddle Ferns Arrive in Singapore

2009-07-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

It can be reported that so far this has been a really uneventful trip! Everyone arrived at 8.45am at the international part of Christchurch airport, checked in, said our goodbyes to our faithful supporters and headed on our way up to a rather empty international lounge. Following a small wait we boarded onto our Singapore Airlines plane headed for Singapore. As we settled into our seats we mussed over the fact that in a little over 10 hours we would be in a different climate, different country and having a whole lot of fun. The plane trip was filled with lots of movie watching, eating, and a bit of card playing.

As soon as the team left the plane, they were hit by the heat and the humidity. But to be honest, it wasn't that bad! A nice change from the freezing cold winter of New Zealand.

The team spent a night at the Allson Hotel in Singapore, before arriving back at the airport at the crack of dawn. The team is currently enjoying a light bite to eat for breakfast, before they head down to their gate to make the 4.5 hour flight to Taipei.

Spirits are high, jet lag seems to be a thing talked about only in the magazines, and a golden sunset appears to be on the horizon.

A big thanks to all our supporters, from the Paddle Ferns

The Team is Ready to Fly!

2009-07-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

The excitement begins to boil at new levels. Tomorrow morning, the team will board a big Air Singapore plane and fly over to Singapore, have a quick stop over and nap in a Singaporean hotel, before piling back onto a second plane and jetting over to Taiwan. After arriving in Taiwan the team will catch the train and head down south towards Kaohsiung.

The team gets a couple of days to acclimatise before the boats arrive on Wednesday. Some light training, scrutineering, etc will keep the team busy on wednesday and Thursday before all the action starts Friday morning!

The New Zealand Paddle Ferns playing schedule: (All times are Taiwan times)

FRIDAY 17th July
8.20am NZ v France
10.30am NZ v Great Britain
2.50pm NZ v Australia
4.40pm NZ v Chinese Taipei

SATURDAY 18th July
7.45am NZ v Germany

Saturday afternoon also has semi finals and finals.

Team Selection Announcement

2009-05-02T13:47:00.000-07:00

The team that will represent New Zealand at the 2009 World Games in Taiwan this July was announced on the 25th of April.

The 2009 Paddle Ferns are:

Erin Bolton
Andi Fear-Ross
Angie Hamlin-Tuck
Alison McCrae (Captain)
Tania Perrett (Vice-Captain)
Freya Sonneland
Olivia Spencer-Bower
Joanna Wright

2009 Campaign Well Under Way

2009-04-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

...and we're back! The 2009 New Zealand Paddle Ferns is fully under way. The squad has been training hard over the past few months and the team will finally be announced this weekend at the first National League tournament. The team is set to head over to Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) for the 2009 World Games in July. Stay posted over the next few days to find out who the team is that will represent New Zealand!

Thanks For All Your Support

2008-07-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Thanks from the NZ Paddle Ferns for all your support. Unfortunately it has been a very disappointing day here in Canada. We had a very strong game against GB being the first to score. GB came back quickly to score the equalizer. We pushed through again with great attack to be up once more. A foul on us saw GB again equalize with a free shot. With about 5 seconds to go the scores were tied at 2 all, GB got the ball back and on a fast break shot a long shot which put them one up at half time. The second half remained scoreless and on the full time whistle GB won 3-2. An extremely disappointing result for the NZ girls who played their hearts out on the water. The match could easily have gone either way.

The bronze playoff was between NZ and France. NZ went out strong scoring the first goal. Unfortuately the French quickly scored an equaliser. The French made the most of their fast break opportunities and scored several goals. Half time score was 5-1. NZ fought back in the second half scoring two more goals, but it wasn't quite enough with the final score 7-3.

A rather sad and disappointing day for the Paddle Ferns, but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. The girls have qualified a team for the World Games which is being held in Chinese Taipei in July 2009. The six teams that have qualified are Great Britain, Germany, France, New Zealand, Australia and Chinese Taipei. New Zealand will return with a vengence in 2009 and again make their mark on the world. Kia Kaha!

Thanks again to everyone for all your support, we really appreciated it!

Day Three Results

2008-07-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

Day Three has been a cracker here in Canada with both the weather and the polo.

The Paddle Ferns played against the Netherlands this morning winning 3-2 and then Spain in the afternoon winning 5-1. After a loss 3-0 to France yesterday this put us 2nd in our pool. We now play Great Britain tomorrow morning in the semi final! Exciting stuff!

Day One Results

2008-07-24T18:43:00.001-07:00

Both teams have had a good day at the office today.

Paddle Ferns v Iran 5-3 WIN
Paddle Ferns v Italy 2-1 WIN

Paddle Ferns >

Paddle Blacks v Belgium 6-2 WIN
Paddle Blacks v Japan 6-3 WIN
Paddle Blacks v Great Britain 3-3 DRAW

Carl Duncan (NZ) charging against Nick Archer (GB) >
NZ Paddle Ferns and Paddle Blacks >
Tomorrow the Paddle Ferns meet Canada in final pool play in the morning. In the afternoon the girls depending on their pool placing will play off the 2nd placed team in one of the other pools.

Opening Ceremony

2008-07-24T08:01:00.000-07:00

The pitches are up, the teams are here, and the worlds is ready to begin!

Last night we attended the official World Championships opening ceremony. All the teams accumulated in the athletes area before marching team by team into the amphitheater for the opening. James Mitchell (Flag Bearer) and Tania Perrett lead the New Zealand teams in the march. The athletes were welcomed by the International Canoe Federation (ICF) members and entertained by the Yellow Ribbon Dancers. The dancers were an aboriginal group performing cultural dances.

Both teams are feeling pumped and ready for today's first round of games. The Paddle Ferns meet Iran (12.30pm) and Italy (3.30pm) today while the Paddle Blacks meet Belgium (12pm), Japan (3pm) and Great Britain (6pm). (Canadian Time).

We will post results for both teams tonight!

A big shout out to all our Great Britain supporters!

2008-07-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

Edmonton

2008-07-19T17:07:00.000-07:00

For our rest days while waiting for our boats to arrive from Europe we were able to explore the West Edmonton Mall. One word sums it up.... ENORMOUS! It has a complete theme park, a water park with a beach and hydro slides, a couple of mini golf parks and an underwater world with submarines. And on top of that there's the shops!

Rundle Park >

We've had some entertaining moments since arriving in Canada, with the big one being Becks bringing the Thury Harcourt Club key with her from France to Canada! The boys also showed their excellent sense of smell for the shopping mall by taking us in completely the wrong direction. Apparently the GPS told them to go that way! Also we've had some fun times navigating around the underground University tunnels. The tunnels connect all the buildings together because it gets so cold here in winter you don't want to go outside. Try -50 degrees Celsius for a cold winters day!

Our boats arrived Friday morning, a little later than planned but they arrived nonetheless and all intact. Firstly we must say that there has definitely been a change in the weather! We have finally been able to train in the sun, and boy is it nice! We have been training at the practice pitches at Rundle Park. Today we had some excellent training games against the Germans and the USA. Tonight we hope to head to a real live baseball game! Very exciting!

NZ Boys at Rundle Park >

The hire vehicles have been a point of entertainment so far. The GMC truck we have is massive and sooo grunty. Both Gibbo and Tam just love putting their foot down! Looking at all the vehicles on the road just proves that Canadian's/American's love everything on a grand scale. All the cars and trucks are huge. We even saw a stretch ute today! Crazy!

Tam has been doing a great job of feeding us here in Canada, with some lasagna and roast chicken going down a treat the last couple of nights. Ali got special privileges at last nights dinner and was allowed to use the tea towel for a bib to avoid dirtying her pristine white NZ t-shirt!

Ali and her special bib>

We have more training planned for tomorrow and the next few days. Everyone appears to be getting very excited now with the games getting so close. Apparently our pool play may be down a number with Iran possibly not being able to get visas into Canada. So it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

Well that’s all from us for now, more when it happens.

Paris to Canada

2008-07-16T11:46:00.001-07:00

Monday morning (French National Day) we were up early and on the water for a session before we packed up everything and headed for Paris. We arrived at the Comfort Hotel with out drama and enjoyed the experience of having a real bed and a good hot shower. Unfortunately the shower and bed didn't quite live up to what we had imagined, but never the less they were better than army stretchers! Liv, Tans and Jo headed out to the center of Paris to enjoy the French National Day celebrations, while everyone else went to bed. They saw some amazing fireworks with the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop. The Eiffel Tower even sparkled blue, which was fantastic.

Tuesday morning we were up at the crack of dawn and quickly loaded the boats and had some breaky before heading to the airport to drop the boats off at Air Canada Cargo. We unloaded everything at the airport, grabbed ourselves some trolleys and headed to the Air Canada check in while Tam and Gibbo took our trusty Peugeot vehicles back.

Becks and Ali were treated to luxury and upgraded to Executive First Class for the trip from Paris to Toronto, while the rest of us had some fun back in cattle class! Toni had an interesting meal, with it still being frozen when served to her, while Liv was given fish when she had specifically requested a special non fish meal! Other than those little events the plane ride was good and we arrived safely in Toronto to get our next flight to Edmonton. We all grabbed some dinner and boarded the plane for the four-hour trip to Edmonton. After a touch of rearranging with some kind Canadians we were all able to sit together. Arriving in Edmonton we were introduced to our awesome meaty big cars and headed to the University of Alberta to find our accommodation. After venturing to the top of the wrong building and trying to get in the wrong rooms, we finally found the correct building we were supposed to be in and unpacked and relaxed! Sleeping in real beds was a real treat and the showers were hot and powerful! We are staying in one of the many Uni hostels on the 9th floor. We have three wings, so the NZ Women's and Men's teams are all together and our supporters will fill the 3rd wing when they arrive.

Today we started with a sleep in, then went running in a thunder and lightening storm, which was very exciting. The storms are incredible here, lasting for a good two or so hours! We are all just chilling this afternoon enjoying a well-deserved rest. We are all just about to head out to visit the huge big Edmonton mall this afternoon. Apparently its so big there is a roller coaster in the middle of it! Rather exciting!

More news when it happens! :-)

Paddle Ferns Treated To A 6 Course French Lunch

2008-07-16T10:30:00.000-07:00

Coinciding with Tam's birthday, the friendly baker came up trumps when he served us up a 6-course lunch just outside his bakery in a wee tent to keep the rain off us. It was a delicious meal. We were also introduced to French cider and had a wee taste of apple brandy, which was extremely potent! It's what the French have in between the courses to allow them to eat more! To thank the Thury Harcourt Club and the baker we gave them a signed photo of the team. The baker snuck away and scanned our picture and printed it onto edible paper, which he then stuck on to a cake for Tam's birthday! He even put a very cool candle on the cake, which was like a firework! The cake tasted amazing! We also got treated to some of the most amazing Brie cheese. It was gooey and so flavorsome. Truly incredible, we felt like we were eating it like ice cream! The baker took us for a wee tour around his bakery. He showed us the cool machine that makes the baguette and explained that they cook slowly by starting them at a low heat and then moving them up levels to more and more heat. When lunch finally finished it was getting late so we jetted home with our full bellies and jumped on the lake for a training session before the sun went down.

More From Thury Harcourt

2008-07-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

Well the weather has somewhat not been what we had hoped for. It's rather like English weather here, four seasons in one day. We've managed to get a heap of washing done which has been great; nothing beats the feeling of freshly cleaned clothes after a week or so in dirty ones! Also with ten peoples washing to hang up it requires a lot of clever clothesline designing!

We have played against the Thury Harcourt club team while we are here on the pitch that they held the 2007 European Championships on. Its amazing, with solid metal frames which have been dug into the ground. According to photos we saw, they had to drain the lake and then went to play with some diggers and other exciting equipment to put three sets of goals in.

We have a lovely baker friend who comes to visit us every morning with a big brown bag filled with delicious fresh baguettes and a loaf of bread. While Tam has been feeding us extremely well with her one pot wonders!

Today is Tam's Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Tam! Age...undisclosed.

Tomorrow we depart Thury Harcourt for Paris. We get the luxury of staying a night in a Paris hotel before getting up at the crack of dawn to no doubt put the roof racks back on the van and load the boats up to be at the airport before 7am. We then fly out to Canada to begin the last stage of our Worlds build up!

More when it happens!

Hull to Thury Harcourt

2008-07-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

A long trip from England saw us arrive in Canterbury on Monday evening. We stayed at the Canterbury YHA that had the best power showers we've all seen since leaving home! A big treat from rugby clubroom and kayak club showers!

Tuesday morning we hit the road for a quick trip down to Dover to catch the ferry back to Calais in France. Tam went a lovely shade of green on the ferry ride over as the ship bounced about all over the show. Docking in France we were ready to hit the road. We all piled into the vehicles and drove off the ferry. Suddenly the van came to an abrupt stop and Gibbo ran to the car and announced that we were one down. We had managed to leave Becks on the ferry!! After we had contained our fits of laughter we got in contact with Becks through cellphone and were able to get her safely back to us!

We had a long (& expensive) trip to Thurry Harcourt going through an unbelievable amount of toll booths. A few of the toll booths cost us 6.90 Euros for each car! We arrived into a picturesque Thurry Harcourt at 8.30pm and dived into the first restaurant we found. It turned out to be AMAZING! They had the most amazing wood fired pizzas! Having sufficiently filled our tummy’s we headed off to discover our accommodation for the week. While the setting for our little cottage was incredible, the inside was left a lot to be desired. It can only be described as walking around a rather rough student flat! Never the less we made the best of the situation and turned our wee cottage into the Paddle Ferns Love Nest. We were given some Swiss army stretchers complete with handles to lift the wounded, some mattresses and each subsided to the various rooms and called it a night. The following morning we were up at the crack of dawn...well maybe not, try 8am! Gibbo set us up with a bit of a plan of attack and we were off for the next couple of days training.

Thursday night the catwalk was out as Project Runway took place. Tam in her secrecy had been out and brought some accessories and with some white t-shirts we had picked up along the way we were randomly spilt into pairs and had to design an outfit we would wear at the worlds after party. Each pair had one hour to use the t-shirts and the accessories to make their masterpiece. Some extremely entertaining pieces were created. Each person was allowed one vote, but not allowed to vote for themselves. It ended up being a tight contest between Team Gibbo & Tania verses Team Tam & Megan. With points tied, the last vote was counted and the winner was.........Gibbo and Tania. Gibbo and Tans designed a stunning white suit jacket for Gibbo. It included beautiful duct taped cufflinks, a red paper handkerchief in his duck taped pocket and a tall top hat made with white paper. A very entertaining evening with lots and lots of laughs!

Well that’s all the news we have for now, thanks for all your support! Keep it coming!

MORE WHEN IT HAPPENS!!

Hull International

2008-07-06T10:36:00.001-07:00

Quick update! We played in the Hull International tournament over the weekend in Hull, England. We won the ladies division!

I believe we came 6th in the div 2 open grade. Will confirm later. We had some lovely torrential rain over the weekend with a touch of lightening and thunder. Adds to the excitement. We head to Canterbury tomorrow for the night before catching the ferry back to France on Tuesday and heading to Thurry Harcourt for a week. More when it happens!

Hull, England

2008-07-04T04:51:00.001-07:00

- Saint Omer Canoe Club

We departed Saint Omer early Thursday morning and got on the road for a 50 min drive to Calais to catch our ferry over to Dover, England. After going through customs and having a good wee giggle with the English customs officer and receiving a stamp in our passports we were herded towards line 126 to await boarding of our ferry. In no time we were on the P & O Ferry and

enjoying browsing the duty shops on board. Upon arriving in Dover and oohing and ahhing at the well known white cliffs of Dover we were in the vehicles and headed north towards Hull.

- Dover Cliffs

30 mins into the drive we stopped in at a petrol station type thing to have our lunch in a car park! Its not every day you do that! We arrived in Hull and got settled into our "new" scout hall. Apparently a scout hall built in 1982 is considered new! Anyhoo, we were delivered some judo matts to sleep on and settled down for the night after a quick visit to the supermarket. It was a real treat to be able to read the labels on the products!

Today is Friday and we began the day with some Yoga and stretching. We headed into the center of Hull to find some well needed internet access for everyone and will be jumping on the water in an hour of so to prepare ourselves for the tournament ahead. We are playing in both the div 2 open grade and the ladies division, so that will give us six games tomorrow to work on things!

We will do our best to jump on the internet over the weekend and keep you all posted with the results from the weekend!

- Humber Bridge

The vehicles with their New Balance and Thule Sponsors Stickers

The story thus far...from NZ to St Omer

2008-07-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

Day 7 and boy have we got a lot to cover! Mishaps in Paris, one tournament down and New Zealand’s Next Top Model discovered.

After meeting in Bangkok we caught our connecting flight through to Charles De Gaulle airport; Paris, France. Sorting out rental cars and putting roof racks on proved to be difficult and time consuming. The van and pilot vehicle were collected and brought to the team for pick up from the airport, however the local coppers were on our case and we were not allowed to park there long enough to install the roof racks. Gibbo and Liv shot off and sorted it all out off the airport premises, coming back later to pick us up. Boats loaded and bags jammed in every available space we were on the road to find our hotel. What was supposed to be a quick thirty-minute ride to the hotel, a wee tiki tour around all sorts of avenues, roads and alleys in Paris eventually saw us arriving after three hours at the Opera Cadet Hotel. All planned of course! The hotel manager, we will call him Basil for arguments sake, directed us to the car park entrance. After a little bit of analysis we discovered that there was no way in the sam hill that the van with the boats on the roof was going to fit in the underground parking. Off the boats came. We squeezed the van down into the small passageway with the most utmost precision and teamwork. Roof racks coming off one by one as we squeezed under the barrier. Boats neatly stacked away in a spare car park and bags and Paddle Ferns packed in to the lift, we were greeted by Tam in the hotel lobby only to find out that Basil had overbooked the hotel and that there was room for us at another hotel further down the street. With a fairly average trolley stacked high with bags we carried on down to the next block, literally, to the other hotel with only a couple of bags falling off along the way.

Time really got away on us that afternoon leaving no time for a trip to Euro Disney. Instead the team showered and prepared for a trip on the metro to see the Eiffel Tower. Dinner that evening was in a little restaurant near the hotel and off to bed for the lot of us!

Friday morning, packed up and after a quick brekkie down, down, down the stairs in what felt like a dinky basement restaurant we headed back to the airport to collect Tonille. With the GPS, kindly lent to us from Inger and Libby, finally working we had a successful trip to Mechlen, Belgium.
Upon arriving at the lake that the Flanders Cup tournament would be played on we sat down and had a picnic lunch. After lunch we settled down into the large cabin on the side of the lake that would be our home for the next three nights. We hit the water for a light training session to get us back in our boats and moving around after the large amount of traveling we had all just done. Dinner was quite an event, during a long wait for food, the team managed to break one glass, take out the entire Spanish men’s team with a rather large umbrella and examine each player’s eyes with Liv’s camera. With the food still taking a rather long time to come we entertained ourselves with some colouring in pictures that Becks managed to find in the restaurant. Dinner came and for some was good, and for others not so good. It would appear that “kip” is indeed not chicken, but fish! We all ventured back to the cabin and hit the hay to get a good nights sleep for a big day of games the next day.

Up at the crack of dawn, the team wandered sleepily over to the breakfast room to fill the tank for the day. Our first game was at 8am against Espanol. We had a slow start, but managed a 5-2 win. Next up we played Nederland’s B who we convincingly beat 9-1. As the drizzle cleared we were back on the water to play against Belgium. 8-1 the final score. Our last game of the day was against Poland. A disappointing performance saw us only just sneak away with the win 4-3. We were on duty for five games during the day and managed to catch a lot of sun during that time. While nice to get some extra vitamin D, a touch too many of us gained a little bit too much turning into what some would call a very red tomato. During the evening we were served a delicious dinner of chicken, rice and veggies in the same place we had breakfast. Following dinner we settled down to have a good look at our games, which Tam had videoed for us, to figure out what we could do to make us a better team. Before we knew it, it was pushing on half ten and we were all ready for bed. But before we could all go to sleep we had to get our singing voices in tune and we sung a loud Happy Birthday to Becks for her thirtieth birthday. Inspired by Friday night’s dinner entertainment the team gave Becks a colouring in book, some pencils and a pencil sharpener! Becks was set to be entertained for the rest of the tour!

Sunday morning we were up at the crack of dawn again with another 8am game. This game was the first real bench mark test for the Paddle Ferns as we came up against the Great Britain team. We were slow out of the starting blocks getting down by a couple of goals in the first half. We stepped it up in the next phase of play winning the second half, but it wasn’t quite enough with the team losing 2-4. Our last pool game was against Germany under-21. This game provided some great entertainment as two of our players in separate incidents managed to have their arms hugged and pulled at while they held the ball cleanly away from the defending player in the other hand as the refs watched happily letting the game play on! We won the game 5-2. At the end of pool play we were sitting second in our pool, which saw us set to play Germany in the other pool for a spot in the final. The game against Germany didn’t quite go our way with some unforced errors seeing us be defeated 4-1. We had to settle for fighting it out against the Nederland’s for 3rd place. This game was a tightly fought match going into to two periods of sudden death. We had a couple of very unlucky shots that hit the bar and as a result we headed into a penalty shoot out to decide the winner. The Nederland’s got the upper hand on us and went on to win the bronze medal by one goal. Everyone retired to the cabins to chillax until dinner was ready for us. We dined in a big yellow tent with the competition organizers. Beer seemed to be the only thing being consumed here, but we managed to persuade them to give us a non-alcoholic beverage. As more alcohol was consumed by the organizers they managed to persuade us to do a ladies haka for them. After a quick practice outside the tent we came back to find they had rearranged all the chairs and set up a stage for our performance. Megan opened us up with a spine tingling haere mai chant and then we kicked into our haka causing tears in some of the audiences’ eyes. We followed this up with a very loud, and slightly out of tune Maori version of the New Zealand national anthem. Peter jumped up on the table and presented us with a poem he had written about the support we had from, what he called, ‘our’ Belgium team. They want us to remember them when we are standing on the podium in Canada. As if they hadn’t spoilt us enough with their generous meals and drinks they gave us all a Flanders Cup tee shirt too.

Monday saw us off early out for a run and over to brekkie with some very hung over tournament organizers. Before we know it we’re on the road again back to France to train in St Omer for three days.

The GPS took us on a fun wee tiki tour in St Omer, but soon enough we found our way to the club. It was awesome to find two well set up pitches on what appears to be old public baths. The club is very nice and spacious with a lovely breeze flowing through the sliding doors. A few of us opted to sleep in tents on the grass for a little added entertainment. We all jumped on the water for a training session before finishing up with some more video analysis and then bed.

Tuesday morning we had a busy day planned. Tam got creative with the white board and like Mother Goose had us extremely organized with lists of things we had to do before we had to get on the water. We completed two good sessions on the water during the day. We discovered New Zealand’s next top model when Megan entertained the team by strutting her stuff by the lake in her bikini and Liv’s high heels. In the evening we were welcomed to St Omer by the club chairman. He presented our team with some gifts and we presented the St Omer Club with some silver fern pins. The French press was present and took a photo of our team, followed by a large group photo with some of the members of the club and the Paddle Ferns. Tonight they are putting a BBQ on for us and it’s a perfect night for such an occasion with the sun beating down a nice 30+ degrees. We are staying at St Omer until Thursday when we will pack up camp and head to England to compete at Hull.

More news when it happens!