SnowSnakes?

Tuesday, August 6, 2013.  Hoop2Hoop and our faithful entourage woke up this morning to another gorgeous day.  Knowing the importance of our upcoming match, all spent the day in deep meditation to prepare mentally for the evenings play....or not!  Everyone continued on with site-seeing adventures and explorations.  Dave showed the people of Turin the true mettle of us CanAussies, as he, without regard for his personal safety, rescued an old "nonno" who had a flat tire on his car.  The nonno could not change the tire so Dave stepped in and helped out.  The car, an older Mercedes, was on a hill and the old fellow had no blocked the tire to prevent it from rolling and was attempting to solve the mystery of the jack!  Poor old nonno had no english, poor old Dave could only order beer in Italian!  But in true CanAussie style he overcame the communication barriers and armed with the car's manual (in Italian only! luckily he found the pictures!) he was able to change nonno's tire and send him on his way.  Dave then found a fountain to rejuvenate himself so he could make the trek back to "home" in time for the muster!
At the muster the group was treated to a bit of local excitement as they witnessed some street justice being handed out to an unfortunate fellow who we suspected had attempted to liberate something from one of his compatriots.  The result was a brief skirmish with lots of yelling and liberal, yet short, pummeling of the offender!  It was all over in less than a minute!
So once all arrived at the muster, with Phil and Trev on time!, the Hoop2Hoop group made the march to the #14!  
We played the Canadian Snow Snakes, a team from Edmonton, with two US imports.  Hoop2Hoop took to the floor with brimming confidence that we would preserve and reign victorious when the final buzzer sounded.....ah but our well laid plans and confidence proved to be false as we could not overcome our poor shooting again!  The Snow Snakes were spotted a 21 to 7 first quarter lead!  Hoop2Hoop battled back to within 2 in the final quarter, but could not find that last piece to the puzzle for the win.  A late surge by the Snakes ended Hoop2Hoop's dreams of glory!

This was our final game for the round robin play.  As it turns out it became our final game of the tournament!  The organization of the basketball, and most other sports we have heard, has been quite chaotic!  We would have to check each morning to see if the "schedule" and venue had changed!  Then last night we learned that only the top two teams from each pool would be moving on!
Hoop2Hoop's devoted fans could not bear the shame of our lack luster performance and discretely faded away leaving the team to retire to the La Ferrazza Cafe to drown our sorrows in bierre!  Our consolation was another wonderful pasta meal prepared by Christianna!  
On our #14 ride home we analyzed our games and made plans for 2017!  So intensely rapt were we in our discussions we missed our station!  We discovered this when the bus stopped, the engine shut off and the driver got off!  We had gone two stops too far!  The extra two blocks walk home gave us that much more time to further our plans for the Aukland games!  You see Hoop2Hoop, if given lemons, will make lemoncello! (there is always a silver lining!)
So as old Turin slept, the boys of Hoop2Hoop, holding their heads up high, retired to reflect on life (and old man's BBall!)!