Hi all,

As you can see, KarinaLeBlanc.com has gone through a complete redesign. I was inspired to make some changes after the team’s qualification for the Olympics and I thought a change of layout would be good! I think this layout will be more “functionable” for KK to make more journal and photo updates in the future–plus, it looks pretty!

With that said, some things to note about the new design:

• The ability to leave comments are back up and running…the old system was being hit hard by spambots and I do believe that problem has been solved now. Old comments, unfortunately, have been lost.
• Photos have moved to a new system to manage…it’s pretty straight forward and user friendly. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that.
• All of KK’s journal entries have been transferred to this new site while the majority of “news” entries and press releases have been moved too. I chose not to transfer all entries simply becuase I didn’t think they would be relevant anymore.

Please feel free to contact me or reply to this post if you have any comments or see any issues with the site. I’m still working on adding and fixing little things over the next few days.

In the meantime, enjoy the site!

My best,
Elaine

Waw, what a rush.

I still don’t think it has completely hit me yet that we are going to the Olympics but little things keep making it become a reality.

Our entire team has been flooded with emails and phone calls (those who do get service out here) from so many people congratulating us. It was been a day filled with smiles and so much pleasure. It is a joy to be on this team today and we have so much to look forward to.

Yesterday we lit our torch to the Olympics with our, today we absorb it, and tomorrow it is back to work.

We enjoyed the celebration with the parents back at the hotel…it’s all about the parents…We had pizza and music and dancing and entertainment. It was a night you just didn’t want to end. Read the rest of this entry »

From the CSA

Believe it: Canada is Beijing bound after a 1:0 victory over México in the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualification Tournament in Ciudad Juarez. The Canucks won the 9 April semi-final to qualify for the Summer Olympics.

The Canadian entry will be Canada’s first in 24 years and the first for the Canadian women’s program. Long considered one of the best-two teams in the confederation, Canada will join the United States as one of two CONCACAF nations at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Bejing, China.

The CONCACAF victory is a major victory for the women’s program, currently ranked ninth in the world. The Olympic berth was secured in fine fashion at the Estadio Olímpico Benito Juarez in front of a partisan Méxican crowd. The Canadian side was undeterred by the opposing chants. Read the rest of this entry »

So the big day is tomorrow and we are all waiting in excitement.

The coaching staff has done a great job of preparing us for the game and it is up to us now to get the job done. We had yesterday off which was great because we looked tired in our game against Costa Rica.

As Even kindly joked about it afterwards, he realized that we are all smart players because we were saving our legs for tomorrow’s game. Mind you, that humor did not come right away but if he found humor in our performance, then so could we.

It was not our best performance but the great thing is that we have had so many good performances lately, that this one will not hurt our confidence going into this big game against Mexico. Read the rest of this entry »

So…here it is—finally—the long-awaited journal for Karinaleblanc.com.

I have managed to survive the daily threats and beatings from KK in order to bring you the latest scoop on the Women’s National Team. Right now, Britt and I are watching the NCAA final four match-up between Memphis and UCLA, yet my roommate, Kara, a UCLA student athlete herself, is nowhere to be found. I think UCLA will feel her lack of support and Memphis will prevail; Britt thinks UCLA will move on to the finals. We soon shall see.

We are all just relaxing at the moment, taking advantage of an early practice time this morning to get treatment and rest this afternoon but at the same time, readying ourselves for our game tomorrow morning against Costa Rica.

As Rhian mentioned in her journals, Juarez has yet to “Spring Ahead”, and we will do that overnight, making our 11am match-up feel more like 10am. Soccer players very rarely like playing in the morning (or at least I have never liked morning games; I much prefer evening or night games) but I doubt we will have any trouble getting pumped up for another important step in our journey towards Beijing. Read the rest of this entry »

I had fun on April fools. I played a couple pranks but a couple worked out even better than I thought.

For the coaches Amy and I started with Even’s door. We filled up a bucket with water, leaned it up against his door, and ran off. The idea is when they open the door the water falls onto the floor and soaks their feet. It works better without the carpet because it spreads but it still has quite an effect either way.

As we put it up against his wall, Amy was holding the elevator so as I was running to the elevator Les, who was in Even’s room, opened the door and I guess it got him good. All we heard was “oh crap” and the bucket fall. I guess his shoes and socks got pretty soaked.

I went around to the other coaches and Ian we had a bit of success with, Paul somehow opened the door on an angle and completely missed him and Bob…well I have to blame Clare for this one. Read the rest of this entry »