Team Florida

Have you ever heard of Americas Showcase? I was blessed enough to represent and play for Team Florida in the High School division. Americas Showcase is a showcase where each state has high school players tryout for a team to represent the state. This is how it happened for me. After tryouts we waited about one or two weeks after to find out who made the team. After that, we had some scheduled practices. We were fitted for jackets and sweatpants. Next, when time came closer to the showcase, we all picked flights to take. We were required to wear our jackets and sweatpants on the plane to look like a team.

In this photo above I am the one that is on the end, wearing khaki pants, next to my coach wearing the red shirt under his jacket. This showcase was enjoyable, but yet also a business trip. This trip was mainly to showcase yourself, meaning what do you do as a player. This tournament is mean't to have numerous of scouts watching. I remember during warm ups one game I was skating around and shooting, and I look behind the glass and I saw about 10 scouts next to each other just watching us with clipboards. That doesn't even count the scouts in the stands blending in or the ones that are in a different state, that are watching online. 

There were a lot of eyes on us as the game went on. It was pretty cool because if you played well, and you gave it your all, you were going to be talked to after the game by a scout. All of these scouts were from all over the place. My thoughts on this showcase is that it was definitely one for the books I will be trying out again for Team Florida for the 2016 year.  

2016 Florida Panthers

This coming season, the Florida Panthers roster and jerseys are looking sharp. Overall many people thought the new jerseys were ugly. This is what they look like:

 

What I like about these jerseys is a whole new different design. The logo looks more clean and it overall looks better not just because of the logo but the actual jersey compared to the old one. If you haven't seen what the old jersey looks like, feel free to click on the hyperlink above. The panthers have great things going for them this coming 2016-17 season. Even though they lost a defense man named Erik Gudbranson but they picked up some players that can fill that spot. Also working for the panthers was interesting as well. Being a worker at the stadium during the game is a lot different then being a fan in the crowd. What I did when I worked at games last season was I was part of the Ice Crew. What this means is during the T.V. timeouts, me and my co workers would go on the ice and plow the snow off. We had very limited time to do this so this is why we had expert skaters. During some of the games there would be a person that was with the NHL board and he was there to watch us the Ice Crew. The reason is because the NHL requires every team to have an Ice Crew.  

This is a picture in fact me standing in front of Reilly Smith and a co worker of mine.  What do you think about the Florida Panthers overall? Do you think they will make playoffs again?