Interview with Greg Drake, Coach of the Victorian u21 women’s team playing in the Australian Championships in Sydney from 14th to 25th April 2009

Bartos: So how do you think you’ll go at the tournament?
Greg: I think we’ll go very well. We have an exceptionally talented and even squad. Even without Georgia Nanscawen and Danielle Schubach who are both last minute withdrawals due to their selection in the Hockeyroos, I think we have the right framework in place and the right players to really do well.

Bartos: So last year you came 6th, what separates this team from last year?
Greg: This year we have a website www.vicu21hockey.com where people can view video highlights of games and interact with team members throughout the tournament. This makes us a much better team. Also, the players have trained long and hard since October last year to get themselves right for this. A standard preparation for this tournament is about 10 weeks. We have been preparing for 24 weeks. The players are fit and well prepared.

Bartos: So you have a website huh?
Greg: Yep, did I mention that? I’m hoping that people will really get behind the team while we are away with messages of support and by interacting with the players throughout the tournament.

Bartos: So who are your major threats?
Greg: They are all threats…. But I think WA and QLD will be the teams to beat as they will both be at full u21 strength. We were the only team to defeat WA on their way to winning the tournament last year and QLD scored against is in the last few minutes to defeat us 1-0. This year we are certainly aiming to beat both, and everyone else.

So make sure you hit up the girls website and leave them a word or two of encouragement!

www.vicu21hockey.com

This weekend sees the finals of the AHL in Melbourne at the State Hockey Centre with the first matches starting at 9am on Saturday morning and a total of eight finals being played across the weekend.

For all the details hit the Hockey Victoria website – click here.

But before that the final round games are also underway today (Thursday) so make sure if you have the chance to get down to the State Hockey Centre and not only catch some fantastic women’s hockey but also take the opportunity to have a first hand look at the way the new rules are being enforced.

Today’s (Thursday 2nd April) schedule is;

2:00 PM
Smokefree WA Diamonds vs NSW Arrows

4:00 PM
Canberra Labor Club Strikers vs South Australia Southern Suns

6:00 PM
NT Pearls vs Wrest Point Van Demons

8:00 PM
OAMPS Queensland Scorchers vs Victorian Vipers

We know we said it would be ready by Wednesday, but we had our fingers crossed behind our backs… and besides it was before we got the hangovers…

That’s right folks, the team of Bavarian dairy workers who we hired to do the post production work have gone on strike because of a lack of milk related beverages captured in the weekends footage – but never fear we are confident we will have them whipped into line and that the video will be up live by Friday.

In the mean time to prevent hate mail we thought we’d give you a taste of whats to come…

That’s right folks – with the support of Hockey Victoria the crew have agreed to pull the camera and microphone out of the kit bag for a special one off one hour Grand Final Day extravaganza. The show will not be broadcast on Channel 31 but it will be made available online in both a low res and a high res version – meaning you can tune in no matter what your internet connection speed is!

The show will cover the best bits of the SL1 grand finals as well as interviews with GF players, people in the crowd and also the players named in the SL1 teams of the year which will be announced on the day.

The broadcast is going to be provided on its own website – you can check it out now and maybe see if you can identify who posed for our rather uninspiring photo shoot!

So what are you waiting for? Hit it now – www.grandfinal08.com.

The site will broadcast the show from the 24th of September through to the end of October so its one of those limited time offer things – but sorry no steak knives…

We look forward to seeing you on Grand Final day 2008 and remember… keep dribbling!

Its on like Donkey Kong listeners – the Ball Handlers are back this week with the breaking news in Hockey Victoria.

Tune in to find out about Kew’s MSL1 team’s meteoric rose from SL2 to second on the SL1 ladder by round 6 of the season just six months later! And if that doesn’t tickle your fancy perhaps you’d like to hear a first hand account of the card fest during the women’s Altona vs TEMS SL1 match where a whole yellow card was shown to a very unimpressed Steph! Or maybe you’d like to know why Jimmy from Camberwell is in bed at 8pm on Sundays…

Whatever you need to know there’s only one way to get the info – and if you work out that way please tell us how. In the meantime though you might like to hear us speculate on some of those stories and more – just use the links to the Ball Handlers on the right of this post or just click here to listen…

Thats right, when you need to get in depth info on whats going in in the hockey world there is only one information source you can trust – the Ball Handlers.

And this week while ALF was visiting the city of churches who better to fill his shoes than the man whose own name is a part of the shows title, Ball-za, we know its a tenuous link but we’re hoping you’ll roll with it… Just 12 hours before he picks up the keys and heads into his first day of work at Hockey Victoria our new CEO graciously granted us the opportunity to interview him… in depth… and if you want to find out the secrets to his success as an Adam Sandler look alike then best you click here to listen to the full show online and get the story from the horses mouth!

And keep dribbling…

Thats right I got the dreaded call from Alf this Sunday to say he was… ‘late’. Those dreaded words that every man fears – I couldn’t speak for a moment and when I did manage the courage all I could say was ‘are you sure you want to keep it…’.

Anyway the long and the short of it is that the Ball Handlers are not on time this week – we finally got into gear tonight and recorded another second rate show for you to listen to… But regardless of the quality of our work we did manage a WORLD EXCLUSIVE with the Ball Handlers not only revealing the name of the new CEO of Hockey Victoria but also getting the inside info about what type of a bloke he is and what experience he has that qualifies him for the top job in Victorian hockey.

We’ve also spruced up our web player so it is easier to see what episodes are available.

So tune in and hear the top eleven reasons to argue about getting a yellow card!

Click here to listen…

Thats right for another week myself and my good fiend ALF (I say fiend not friend) have thrown another podcast together – use the links on the right to hear it if it so pleases you to do so.

All the regular segments are back and we add our Stick Handler of the Week Award.

So be brave, listen in and prepare to hear words you never thought would be associated with hockey and attack dogs.

Cheers,

Bartos.

This weeks episode of the ball handlers (a somewhat truncated version due to the Anzac Day Long Weekend) was thrown up last night at 9:30pm – use the links on the right side of the page to listen in!

We need your help though folks!!

We need players/coaches/hangers on from the SL1 teams to hit us with an email with their contact phone numbers so that we can have a base of people from each club to call on Sunday nights to get match reports and scorelines.

We desperately need people from all clubs so we can give the most up do date and in depth information during the podcast – so please email us your number today!

Don’t forget if you want to…

> Give your club a pump up
> Dob in someone who did something hilariously stupid
> have the chance to win prizes by predicting your own future
> have a chat to someone on Sunday night cause you’re lonely like us

Then send us an email and keep your phone handy on Sunday nights! Without you the ball handlers would just be two guys sitting in a dark room together chatting to each other which would be terribly uncomfortable and somewhat disturbing – so please for the love of god help us out!!

Cheers,

Bartos & ALF.

What’s a podcast?

Don’t ask us – we have no idea. But we did manage to throw together a half hour audio show packed with interviews and some other stuff we made up on the spot.

Thats right – the Hockey Show now has its own official podcast, we proudly present to you – The Ball Handlers. A weekly podcast with the latest results, some not so incisive comments and a bunch of interviews for you to tune into every Monday morning to make sure you get all the latest info from across the Victorian Hockey scene.

This week we speak to players from all of the SL1 matches from the weekend, get up close and personal with Jim Irvine and list our top eleven reasons why Greensborough are soooo good – is it really just the mountain air?

You can either click on the link below to listen to the show now, or you can click here to subscribe to the RSS feed (especially handy if you have one of the many free podcast subscription programs) or in a few days time you will be able to grab the show on iTunes in the podcast section.

We are keen to get as much involvement as possible from the THS community so if you would like to feature in any of the segments please drop us an email at ballhandlers@thehockeyshow.org.

Click here to listen through your browser.

(if you want to save the file to your computer simply right click and then left click on ’save link as’)