Here we are again in beautiful Hawke's Bay, anxiously waiting for the first match in the 2017 Vantage Hawke's Bay Festival of Hockey.
It certainly has rained since we arrived but yesterday's sunrise was beautiful and the forecast is for fine weather at the start of the tournament.
We were in Rangiora over the past weekend where we met the USA twice in test matches. The first resulted in a 6-2 loss and lessons needed to be learnt.
One of the major things to come from that match was the need to work hard right across the field. We didn't do that to good effect in the first test and it allowed the US to open us up in defence.
The good thing was that we bounced back in the second test with a 3-2 win, which is an indication that lessons had been learnt.
Our aim over the next week is to continue to develop our work ethic for the entire match and that should bring positive results.
When you come to the park during the festival, you will see some new faces in the Vantage Black Sticks squad. It is a really exciting time for New Zealand Hockey, post the Rio Olympics.
There is generally some turnover of players at the end of a four-year Olympic cycle but we have managed to retain the services of a number of our players.
About six of the Rio Olympic squad will play in Hastings this week while Samantha Charlton and Ella Gunson are in Belgium but will return to the Black Sticks squad at some time in the future.
A number of the new faces are girls who have been in our development squad for a few years and they have had the chance to train alongside us. No doubt we will see some of these young players on the turf during festival matches.
One of the really special things about this tournament is the high standard of opposition that assembles in Hawke's Bay and it is no exception this year.
Australia has a world ranking of 4, the USA is 6th and Japan 11th. You may remember the 2016 cup final where Japan pushed us hard before we took out the match 3-2.
The competition will definitely be very beneficial to the squad and will be a good guide to what our form is like ahead of World League in June.
The Vantage Black Sticks will look to play high quality and exciting hockey at the Regional Sports Park over the next 10 days.
We open tonight with a match against Japan, then tomorrow we meet our great transtasman rivals, Australia.
Your support is really important to us as we look to be back-to-back winners of the Vantage Hawke's Bay Cup. We look forward to seeing you at the park.
• Stacey Michelsen is the Black Sticks captain.