Saturday 10th April
(from Dundalk)
We don’t leave for Luxembourg until Tuesday morning but this past week and this weekend in particular have and will be action packed for the Senior Irish National Team. In the past week alone, the team has practiced on Sunday and Monday before a good performance in the 9 – 4 win over the Dundalk Bulls on Thursday night. The team has been digging in deep in preparation of next week…
But before we leave, there was the small matter of doing some fundraising for the team with a “Texas Hold’Em Poker Night” at the Dundalk Ice Dome. It was an excellent night that was very well organised by Seanna Conway. It was nice to see several of the team’s players take part in the poker with Mark Morrison, Sean Dooley, Steven Ewen, Adam Pepper, Niall McEvoy all getting in on the action.
Craig Fay even made it to the final only to lose out to his father, William “I fantastic in my referee’s top and sunglasses” Fay!!! Before that, one of the stalwarts of Irish hockey over the past twenty years, Robbie Byrne, was knocked out as was Evelyn “the shark” Kelly. Unfortunately, many of the players on the Irish team didn’t do too well and its just as well that we aren’t going to the Poker World Championships next week!!!
All in all, it was a good night and everyone had some fun and we raised a few hundred euro on the night. Congratulations must go out to William Fay who won the Poker and Robbie Byrne who won the Green Bay Gamblers jersey on the night.
Thank you must also go out to the Dundalk Ice Dome for helping by advertising the night and keeping the bar open late, the Poker Dealer for a professional night of Poker and Seanna Conway for organising the whole event. Lastly, well done to both the Flyers IHC and Raiders IHC for winning their Semi-Finals in the IIHL Development Division Playoffs.
Team Ireland will be bolstered by the great support shown by everyone and can now look forward to their final practice on Sunday evening.
Log onto www.iiha.org tomorrow for more inside information on Team Ireland…
Tony Griffin (General Manager)