Well its the start of week 3 of training camp! The Mercury court is down, freshly buffed and ready to go for our first home game of 2009!!! Practices have been really good and I think we are done with two-a-days thankfully :) but all the girls are still working extremely hard!
So I know you amazing X-Factor fans like to know the skinny on the players! Well... Let me just tell you we always have a great bunch of girls, but this group is hilarious! The new dance that seems to get most of the players moving in the locker room is the stanky leg... Not my style! But.. I do enjoy watching them make fools of themselves. On the court.. During our stretch circle "B" better known as coach Bridget Pettis has a daily ritual of going around and giving each girl a hi-5. This season it has turned into a complete routine with each player having a different crazy action to do with B. I'll give you some examples... With Shin they give each other a karate bow, hi-5 then use their hands to symbolize flashing lights, with LeCoe they both do a dance that they've created, then slap hands. There's also jokesters on the team. One un-named player picked up a tiny disgusting critter found and chased one of our unexpecting rookies around the gym with it!

The team has also been doing a lot together outside of the arena. We've had a few team bbq's... Any excuse for some good food! Memorial Day we had a pool party and we've gotten together for the exciting NBA playoff games. I must say we have some good cooks on the team! Bridget makes the absolute best mac & cheese, our trainer Tamara always provides the delish crab legs and Quigley makes the most AMAAAZING cookie bars, which we've named "Q's intentionally extremely undercooked cookie bar" its like eating warm cookie batter with the tiniest crisp to it! :)  I am definitely the biggest fan of desserts. Some players have also been supporting other local sports, a few of the players went to the Diamondbacks game last friday. Ohlde and Laurie Koehn took their former college coach from K. State.

And just to keep you guys in the know.... Here's player nicknames currently being used.
Of course you guys know our returning players:
DT or Dee, Diana
CP, Cap or Cappa, Cappie
Maz, Kelly Mazzante
Tan, Tangela Smith
Coe, LeCoe Willingham
B-Rock or 'brook the hook', Brook Smith
Shin, Yuko Oga
Q, Allie Quigley
Here's the new ones:
Ali, Alison Bales
Meek, Temeka Johnson
O or Ohlde, Nicole Ohlde
Page, Murriel Page
Laur, Laurie Koehn
DB or 'go getta', DeWanna Bonner
Sha pronounced 'shay', Eureka Brooks

There's a lot of great things happening with the Mercury right now and I personally can't wait for that first game on June 6th!!!! Hope to see you there.

Denise a.k.a Lil Dee