Holy Squid team at the Argonautatournament
26/09/2024
The Lila girls team is a combination of girls from he Dutch and Belgium Province of Limburg (Limburg Ladies).
50% of that team contains girls from Orca and we play Dutch nationals and some tournaments together!
This year we wanted to attend the Breda tournament, known for its high level hockey, a seperate womens division and a great party afterwards. But life kicked in (pregnancies, injuries, moves,…) and only Britt and Magali from Orca and Iliana and Kim from Njord were able to go.
So we just had the idea of making a mixed Holy Squid team. Holy Squid is the name of our organization and one of the goals of Holy Squid is to bring knowledge from all over the world to our club and country. That’s the only way to reach a higher level of hockey!
So we reached out to girls we know, girls we know through someone else and girls we’ve never played with before. This to find girls who share our love for the sport and who are open to learn from eachother and teach eachother.
After some last minute changes ( sickness, work and commute) we ended up with an amazing group of girls
– Britt Van kruchten – Orca BE
– Magali Vaes – Orca BE
– Kim Zwetsloot – Njord NL
– Iliana Bazelmans – Njord NL
– Tanja – West-London GB
– France-May Martel – Hope FR/NZ/…
– Oliwia Olszewska – Gdansk Seals PL
– Héloise Balster – Pontoise FR
– Nicole Appels – Njord NL
We didnt have any expectations as we’ve never played together and had no idea of the level of the other teams. We had 7 games to play and started of with the Turkish girls. Generally small girls but animals under water. But it seemed that we all are animals under water as well. As we don’t know eachother under water, it resulted in games where we fought for every puck, rarely silly passes, looking for and helping eachother all the time.
That made the first games result into wins with 3-1 against Turkey, 2-1 against Madrid, 2-0 Hope and 2-0 Dutch Aqua Ladies.
With the lovely weather we had a teammeeting after every game but that contained mostly some basic tactics and agreements. The passion, the willingness to learn, the positivity: Holy Squid was on a roll!
Then a Wicked game against West-Wickam. After 2-0, those eager GB Ladies managed to make it a 2-2. Such a great game! Exciting day and this was the moment we realised a 3rd place would be possible.
We then played the Amazons and the Brittania girls. Both very strong women teams with lots of experience. The Amazons game we could have played a better game and after a 1-1, we got sucked into their game with 1-3 as a result. The last game against the British girls was not our favourite game as it contained a lot of fouls from both sides and dirty play (not saying who started it as that would make this article not neutral ;)) but they won 0-3 and also the whole tournament!
But now you are all wondering what place we took with that 2-2 against Wickam? Well, it turned out we both had the same amount of points so they look at goals scored against. Turned out we both took in the same amount of goals. Next step: goals scored. Unfortunately they scored more then we did, so we ended up 4th!
The day ended with a superhero party where we dressed up as Moms, as those are the real Heroes of today! And it turned out that we both matched under water as well as above water!
Overall a great experience with maybe a Polish tournament in the Future 😉
