In his second year at Humber College as a Recreation and Leisure student, Mike Dvorak has his eye on a prize... a CCAA National Championship medal. Sporting a competitive mentality, the 5’10 point guard started playing basketball for the Barrie Royals club team prior to college and would love to add to his basketball resume this week, especially for his mom who he refers to as the most influential person in his life.

Follow Mike Dvorak and the Humber Hawks threw the CN CCAA National Championships in Prince George, British Columbia.

Day 1 - Travel Day

Today was an exhausting day to say the least. Woke up at 6 am to do some last minute packing. Ate some cereal for breakfast and headed out to catch my bus to school. We had a players only practice from 7-8 to get us focused. The bus showed up at 9 am, but as usual we took about half an hour to get loaded and got to the airport at about 10 am.  We were actually the first group to check in, so we got priority seating (most guys wanted window seats). Our flight didn’t leave until 11:30, so we just hung around the airport. Some guys hadn’t eaten, so they got some Tim Horton’s.

Our flight went from Toronto to Vancouver and then we had a stopover to catch another flight to Prince George. The flight from Toronto to Vancouver was about a five hour flight, but it seemed faster because most of the guys, including myself slept for most of the flight. We flew with WestJet and they have really upgraded their plane service since the last time I flew with them. Each seat had a tv with cable, so I watched The Score, discovery channel and A&E for a bit. Our stopover was an hour, so myself and Mike Cruickshank went to get a bite to eat. There weren’t many choices in the airport (Tim’s, A&W, Subway, Starbucks), so we chose Subway, the healthy choice. We hopped back on the plane, which was a 50 minute flight. Again, I slept for most of it. Believe it or not, but flying makes you incredibly tired. 

We flew with two other teams that are at nationals (Mount Saint Vincent University and Algonquin College). We have played both teams already this year and we lost to MSVU by 24 at the beginning of the year and we just beat Algonquin in OCAA finals, so there was a quiet tension in the air. Everyone was fine with the situation though and the Algonquin coach was making jokes about the refs and Jadwey’s (our best defender) rough play on Charlie (OCAA Player of the Year) in the finals.

We finally landed in Prince George and the hosts were waiting for us to lead us to the hotel. As usual, some of our guys tried to pick up the hosts. The team took four vans on about a 20 minute trip to the hotel. On the way over Coach Glenn told the guys in the van he was going to be calm for this entire weekend and within 10 seconds he started road-raging at another driver who cut us of. We’re staying at the Ramada, which is very nice. We have flat screen 42 inch HDTVs, which is crazy for a hotel. Our team is staying two players per room, so I’m rooming with Daviau, our starting shooting guard. Most of the guys went to get dinner before practice, but since we weren’t hungry, Daviau and myself just hung in the room and watched some tv.
We practiced from 7:30-9pm, which in Toronto is actually 10:30-12pm. It was one of our better practices since OCAA finals because we know we need to focus on the goal ahead. There is an excitement amongst the group because we have an opportunity to do something special this weekend. Coach Glenn was in a good mood today and was rather calm for the entire practice, a rarity. We got back to the hotel, had a quick meeting to discuss the importance of this trip at 10pm (1 am Toronto time), and now I’m off to bed.

I’ll end this with our cheer we’ve used all year…1! 2! 3! TOGETHER!!! 

Day 2 - Banquet Day

Today was a day about adjusting to the time difference. I woke up at 8:30 am and was still a bit tired. Daviau and I went downstairs to the restaurant for a buffet breakfast and we were the only players from our team who chose to eat at the restaurant, as well as our two assistant coaches.  A couple of other teams were eating at the same time as us and by the looks of it we have the smallest team in the tournament. We’ll definitely have our hands full on the boards this weekend.
               
We had another practice from 12-2 pm and it was another solid practice. Our team is really focusing on winning a medal at the championship. There were a few mental lapses during the practice involving bad passes, so Coach Glenn had to show us his skills with some no-look passing of his own. We ended practice with a shooting competition and Akeem, one of our starting posts beat everyone else on the team, including Daviau (our best shooter). 

We got back to the hotel after practice and had free time until the banquet at 7 pm. Daviau and I took a nap for about two hours and then watched some March Madness. There have been some very entertaining games so far in this tournament and it’s only the first day. The best game of the day was definitely the VCU-UCLA game; it came down to the wire and was almost an upset special. What makes the games more exciting is when guys from our team take sides and start cheering for random teams.

The banquet started at 7 pm and went for about an hour and a half. A couple of executives spoke for 20 minutes and then we were able to eat. It was buffet style and the food was very good. There was pasta, chicken breasts, salmon, vegetables and mashed potatoes available and I tried a bit of everything. The awards were handed out and then we had a team picture.
               
Congratulations to Coach Glenn as he was named the CCAA Coach of the Year. This is a great honour to receive and there wasn’t a better person to receive it. Darrell has been a mentor for myself and the team since day one of my college career. He has pushed everyone to the get the maximum potential out of each and every person. He has also made us better men off the court and if we ever had any problems in life, he has been there to support us.
In lieu of Darrell winning the Coach of the Year award, I’ll leave you with a classic quote from him: “Get on the baseline, you have a 30!”

Day 3 - Game Day

Today was an early day. Woke up at about 8 am and Daviau and I went downstairs to the restaurant for another buffet breakfast. Again, it was a very tasty meal. A couple of other guys from the team showed up for breakfast this morning, as well as the coaches. We had a quick meeting and went to the gym for a 30 minute shoot around. We mostly just walked through our offences and the stuff we might see in the game from Montmorency. At the end of practice we had a shooting contest from the opposite foul line and the winner won a prize.

We came back to the hotel and just hung out in our rooms for a couple of hours. We watched some more NCAA basketball and there were some more very tight games. All the high seeds were winning until the night games when there were three crazy upsets. March Madness is definitely one of the best times of the year for basketball fans.

Our game started at 3 pm PST and we were ready. We had a very good warm-up and came out strong. We opened up a 17 point lead at the end of the first quarter and we were feeling real good. We kept it up at the beginning of the second quarter, but faltered a bit late and MoMo cut the lead to 8 at half time. They had all the momentum, but we knew we still had the game in control. Darrell gave us a good halftime speech and just told us to continue doing what makes us us and we responded. We came out hard in the third quarter and outscored MoMo 33-16, pushing the game out of reach. In the fourth quarter it was all about ball control and MoMo looked like they kind of gave up. They weren’t getting back in transition and didn’t want to play defence anymore. We ended the game winning 104-71. I asked the coaches when the last time Humber put up triple digits and they couldn’t even remember. Daviau and Akeem were our leading scorers with 22 points each and Daviau was named Player of the Game and he got an ipod for it. I played pretty well scoring 10 points and grabbing 7 rebounds and 2 assists in 23 minutes. We’re in tough tomorrow against a long and athletic team in Mount Royal from Calgary.

After the game, a bunch of the guys went to Tony Roma’s for dinner, a restaurant just across the street. They had pretty good burgers there. Myself and Ryan States rushed out of the restaurant to catch a ride to the last game of the night, which was between the host, University of Northern British Columbia (# 8 seed) and MSVU(#1 seed). Prince George really does a great job of supporting their hometown team. The gym was packed to capacity, which looked to be about 2500 people. We were expecting UNBC to come out strong and keep it relatively close for the first half. What we didn’t expect was what a great game it ended up being. UNBC took an early lead and stunned MSVU and had them 40-25 at half. MSVU cut into the lead slowly and ended up winning 74-72 on a last second miss by UNBC. It was a very hard fought game, but unfortunately there was no Cinderella story tonight.

Got back to the hotel at 10:30 pm, had a quick meeting to discuss tomorrow and now I’m heading to bed at 11 pm.

Like in the first blog I’ll leave you with our team cheer that we’ve been preaching all year: 1…..2……3…..TOGETHER!!!

Day 4 - Semi-Finals

Today was a day of excitement to say the least.  Woke up at 7:30 am to go get breakfast with Daviau at the restaurant downstairs. Our team had a quick meeting and then headed to the gym for a shoot around at 9 am that last 45 minutes. We just walked through the offences and defences Mount Royal uses throughout the game. â€¨â€¨We came back to the hotel around 10:30 am and had a lot of time before the game. We watched some March Madness, had a nap for an hour then watched some more March Madness. We watched video of Mount Royal at four o’clock for 15 minutes and then headed to the gym to get ready for the game. We had a good warm-up and everyone looked focused, but there was a nervous energy. 

We came out hard, but the score didn’t show it. We had a bunch of turnovers and bad shots to begin the game and Mount Royal got off to an early nine point lead, which they held for most of the first half. Near the end of the half, we made a bit a run and cut the lead to three points. We had a bit of momentum going into halftime and Coach Glenn gave us an inspirational speech, which could have been in a movie. 

We came out very strong in the second half, but they matched our intensity and it was back and forth for most of the half. We made a push in the third quarter and even got a four point lead, but every time it looked like we would break it open, Mount Royal made a big shot to keep it even. With 24 seconds left in the game Jadwey, one of our posts got fouled and went to the line for two shots. We were losing 63-60 at that point and he made the first one and then missed the second. Luckily Daviau grabbed the offensive rebound and we brought the ball out to run something. The ball was in Daviau’s hands and he took a three point shot for the win with three seconds left, but unfortunately missed and we fouled with 0.6 seconds left. The Mount Royal player made the first free throw and then intentionally missed the second one and the game was over. A very unfortunate loss because we competed so hard and should have won.

Everyone on the team was extremely disappointed with the result of the game, but we all know we still have two more games to win tomorrow. We know what we have to do and hopefully we will get the bronze medal when it’s all said and done. I’m off to bed now at 11 pm because we have to get up early tomorrow for a 10 am game.

1…….2…….3…….TOGETHER!!!
 
Final Day

Today was a disappointing day to say the least.  We woke up at 7 am and were still bummed about the game last night.  We went to eat some breakfast, but no one was really hungry.  We had a team meeting at 8 am, and then headed to the gym to get prepared for the game against the hometown team, UNBC.

We came out very flat and UNBC came out firing on all cylinders. They got up big early and we had our work cut out for us. At the end of the first quarter we were hanging in the game and they only had a five point lead. They broke it open in the second quarter and at halftime they had a 14 point lead and it looked to be a blowout. At halftime, Coach Glenn told us to keep competing hard and our skill would help us comeback and he was right. At one point we had the lead down to six points, but they pushed it back to 14 by the end of the third quarter. There was a potential for the last 10 minutes of our season and we knew it couldn’t possibly be true. We came out desperate to close the gap and our intensity overwhelmed UNBC. We cut the lead to one point with 24 seconds left and had to foul one of their players. He hit both free throws and we had a last chance to tie the game. Daviau took a three-pointer with four seconds left and missed, so we had to foul with 2.6 seconds left in the game. The UNBC player made both free throws and the game ended with a score of 83-78. Another very unfortunate loss considering we came all the way back from 14 points down.

Everyone was extremely disappointed once again and we just hung around the hotel for the rest of the day until the gold medal game. Congratulations to Mount Royal who won the gold medal over Champlain in a convincing fashion, winning 79-67. The score made the game look closer than it was as Mount Royal dominated the game after the first quarter. 

Every team was at the closing ceremonies and the awards were handed out. Congrats to Daviau for being named a 2nd team all star and to Jadwey who was named Best Defensive Player. After the ceremonies, we went back to the hotel and all the teams went to the official national’s party that was held at a club called the generator. Everyone put aside their competitive nature and had a good time together.

I would just like to thank all the coaches, players and trainers for a great season. The game against UNBC was potentially my last game in a Humber uniform, so I am feeling very a bit sad by the result, however the experience was memorable. The entire year was a great memory, all the practices, the travel and the camaraderie amongst the guys. I have grown so much as a basketball player and as a man because of the leadership I have received from the Coach Glenn, Coach Collins, Coach Sharma, Coach Bookal and our manager Jimbo. All these men have had a drastic impact on my life and I can’t thank them enough for the time and effort they put in on a day to day basis to help the Humber program and players be successful.

One last time 1…2…3…TOGETHER!!!

- Mike Dvorak