Read about the Knights' trip in the Daytona Beach News-Journal

By Todd Dagenais 

Each year, we try to do something unique to help with our team cohesion.  Last year, because we were a team that really "liked" each other, I wanted to bring out a more competitive side.  Therefore we went to a local paintball yard and had some good paintball wars.  We quickly found out who the competitors were, and we also found out who were the players that needed to compete harder or smarter.  They were the players bleeding from various spots on their body....lol.

This year, our entire team building program has been very carefully manufactured.  About two weeks ago I sent an email to the team telling them, "This pre-season training camp is about preparing a worthy champion.  It's going about taking a piece of raw iron and collectively hammering it into a finely crafted piece of steel ... forged by fire, shined by relentlessness, and sharpened into a deadly edge with discipline.  This pre-season will not be easy, but we will walk out of it worthy of sitting on a championship throne."

On Friday morning we held our annual photo session at 7:45am then immediately boarded the vans for a day trip up to the Pioneer Settlement north of Deland.  They have a working blacksmith shop up there run by a passionate young artist named Jordan Thomas.  Along with his colleague Leslie Sharp and brother Josiah Thomas, Jordan immediately started working with the players on the understanding the concept of metal work....starting with making the fire that will burn in excess of 2500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Obviously there is an inherent danger working with coal heated to this temperature, and with metal heated to a red or white hot glow.  This danger was very real, and had to be respected at all times.  I was very impressed with our intensity and focus, but found it very interesting when we started to get small careless burns as our mental focus waned.  It was a great lesson in maintaining our focus for a long period of time until we finish.

The team spent the morning learning how to heat the metal then pound it into basic shapes.  The first projects was to take a metal rod, heat it, then pound it into the pointed end.  From there they worked on pounding and twisting the metal into a decorative hook to hang on the wall.  It took close to 3 hours and putting the metal into the fire 15-20 times before this could be achieved.  All of this in 90 plus degree heat AWAY from the forging stations (nearly 110 close to them).