As I sit at my home, thinking about the experience we all just completed in Israel, in particular in Jerusalem, at the 20th World Maccabiah Games, I can't help but pinch myself to make sure this journey is now complete. In writing this final blog ending forever my coaching career, I must say once again how incredibly proud I am about our entire team. They all came together on June 25th at the airport in Newark, NJ, as we prepared to leave for our journey into forever and became a team of legendary status on July 16. During those three and a half weeks we were together, they became dedicated to fulfilling our run into "Forever"! Each day we trained, which was 7 days and only one scrimmage game, we knew we had a lot to do in order to develop our rhythm as a team. It became apparent that we would have to find that rhythm during our group stage games, as we didn't have enough days or scrimmage games in order to develop it. That rhythm followed the same course as our 2013 team, in that we both lost a game during the group stage and had our backs against the wall for the rest of the tournament. Every game was a must win in order to continue to the knock out stage. Just like 2013, when Ryan Jones scored the increfible goal against Mexico in order for us to advance to the quarter finals, Lance Dotzman did the same thing with his incredible goal against Israel in the semi finals to help us advance to the finals and our chance at becoming a "Forever Team"! So the similarities between our two teams is very eerie, in that the same path and pressure was exactly the same for both teams. This team, as did our 2013 team, played with great heart and tremendous dedication to our goal, which distinguished us from every other team in the tournament. I must list all our players and thank them one last time in print for believing in me and trusting my philosophy and tactics and buying in to the journey we created during our time together. Here is our 2017 20th Workd Maccabiah Gold Medal Team: Max Kurtzman, Ryan Jones, Kovi Konowiecki, Evin Nadaner, Daniel Kohen (our 5 players from our 2013 team, who wanted another chance at history), Josh Haberman, Sam Raben, Jonny Dolezal, Danny Rubenstein, Elijah Lichtenberg, Benjamin Issroff, Will Cohen, Jake Rozhansky, Stephen Elias, Alec Weiss, Lance Dotzman, Aaron Franco, Oliver Eisen, Sam Friedman, Brett Walsdorf, our Assistant Coach, David Goldstein, our tremendous trainer, Kyle Southall, along with another trainer, Daniel Big D Lindsey and Hayley Edenzon, Dr. Mike April, Dr. Dave Rubenstein, our management team of Steve Graber and Maccabi USA administrators, Lou Moyerman and Dan Kurtz. Now, none of this would have ever been possible without our guiding Chairman, who made everything so special for me and our players, Mark Knue. He is without question the reason and all the reasons we are where we are. Thank you Mark from the bottom of my heart and please know you and your family are loved greatly! My heart is full with love and great pride to each of you for allowing me the incredible honor of coaching such outstanding young men! You have made my final game a memory that will remain in my heart forever! Like the great Sir Winston Churchill said, " Never has one person owed so much to so many"! "Forever is Forever"! Coach G signing off from home! The following photos were courtesy of Eyal Warshvsky.