Bitter Sweet...but still sweet

Does anyone have an extra hand I could borrow, seriously?! Things have been out of control for me lately. I have been doing things like a mad man honestly. Currently I am working on the three YouTube Videos, one is of the first trip down to Long Island for the first two games, the second of spring break from LI to Philly to Virginia Beach, and the third is an awesome look at some snowboarding clips filmed on Whiteface Mountain which kind of gives future recruits a look at how awesome it is up here. On top of that I am trying to make the ideal warm up tape for Wednesday's home game versus Norwich. ON TOP of THAT I am trying to be a productive student and study for my midterms next week as well as being able to keep my eyes open while student teaching full days in a third grade class room. That is hard enough with a full nights rest, let alone 5-6 hours. The guys in Virginia Beach were all busting my chops, "why do you do it?" "How come you are the one that got put in charge of doing all this stuff?" Truthfully, I do it because I enjoy doing it, I know sometimes it is a lot and I probably put too much time and effort into it, but I know it is for a good cause and in the future I will be able to go on YouTube and search for these videos to show my friends and even kids. (Yeah dad, it will not be some grainy fuzzy black and white film where numbers can hardly be made out so you can tell me that is you scoring all the touchdowns when I can barely see.--pure tough love for the old man)

Take a look of my computer screen... The blog top left, warm up tape, top right, and video editor bottom. Yikessss.


So anyways, like I said on the previous blogs, I am making these short and sweet from now on, that is the new motto. Except for this blog, there is little sweet and more sour a taste in my mouth as I quietly reiterate what I am going to write next. First off, this spring break was by far with out a doubt the most enjoyable break I have had in my experience at Plattsburgh. I mean truthfully everything just went great. Starting off in Long Island and getting a win to start the break off was huge. Having a night to stay home one last time with the family was also great. After the wonderful fundraising event out in Kings Park, the trip to Philly felt like a breeze. We stayed in a wonderful hotel with amazing views that only money could top. Only thing not good about Philly was the Ursinus game. As a player, you lose and you say okay short memory and you move on, and you learn from there. Ursinus was a huge test coming in for us, and I think everyone felt as if it just slipped through our fingers.

Well moving on... right after a tough loss the team made the 8 hour trip down to Virginia Beach, arriving at about three o clock in the morning. Please do not jump back in your chair, it is a reoccurring theme for this trip as you will see later. I must say it was completely worth it, boy was Virgina Beach unbelievable. Beach front views 24/7 for four days! I was in paradise. All of us took advantage of all of our time there by waking up early the following morning and walking the beach and the boulevard which was filled with shops for tourists like myself. In the last blog I showed you all a picture of our hotel views, so I will let you all wait for the spring break video for more inside looks.

Down there we faced off against number 17th ranked Ithaca University who we knew coming in was going to be a challenge, but nothing that we could not compete with. The game was hard fought but it came down to who played better for those two hours and Ithaca did indeed. We wrapped up the trip with an opponent who this program is nothing but familiar with, Western Connecticut. Coming in with a 3-0 streak against them (noted to me by alumni Dan DeFran) we were not looking to wrap up break with a third straight loss. Even with a tough day at the faceoff X for myself, the guys had my back and we were able to pull through with a 12-7 win to extend the streak to 4-0. Back on the bus we went after a great tailgate provided by the parents who made the trip all the way down from all parts of New York. 12 hours, ETA to Plattsburgh, 3:30 AM. Someone get me a Tylenol PM!

So you read the title and might of wondered why I chose bitter sweet... When you think back to last year and our spring break and the video you might have all seen, you might remember that we went 4-0, which brought our overall to 6-0 on the year at that point. This year just feels different. Going 2-2 actually does not feel that bad, I think myself as well as others feel that the level of competition was more beneficial to this program as well as us as a team. We are aware what the top teams in the nation are doing and what we can do to beat some of the better teams coming up on our schedule by suffering these loses now. It has definitely been eye-opening to say the least. I think you will see a big improvement in our overall team play when our schedule picks up soon.

I must go now, I am uploading this first video of Maritime and Farmingdale, which you can see below. It is certainly not my best, but like I said, I am pressed for time and I hope you enjoy it anyways.. Wednesday is our home opener against Norwich University at 7pm. I hope you can all make it and if not I am pretty positive there will be live stats. Also I encourage you still to enter the world of Twitter. My newest followers are the Dullea's who were able to enjoy the live stats versus Western Connecticut that a team member provided. (@Platts_lax)

I want to also throw a shout out to my little bro who scored his first collegiate goal this season like myself. However, I might be a little embarrassed to mention that he plays defense. MIT is on a roll and they are really fighting with what they have. Great job boys! #Engineers #NerdPride #31
Until next time...

-Mike Santi #12