July 31, 2006

Hope you are all well and enjoying the heat and humidity of a southern Ontario summer. We're in Nova Scotia enjoying the beaches, sun, seafood, friends, family and moderate temperatures. IT's been sunny with some rain since I got here with temperatures ranging from 23 to 28 during the day.

Here's Chris and his cousin relaxing poolside at the Ben Eoin campus of the Oakville Hawks Nova Scotia Training Centre.

In the background is East Bay of the Bras d'or Lakes, and the past weekend was the annual East Bay regatta so the bay was filled with sail boats of all shapes and sizes racing. Very cool.

Meanwhile, Patrick has been eating his weight in Skittles every day, lounging about and behaving like someone on vacation. Actually, the truth is he's been working out regularly to build is core strengthen and he's been swimming a lot too.

On Sunday, we moved the vacation to the Ingonish Campus of the Oakville Hawks Nova Scotia Training Centre, where Pad played the Highland Links this morning and then spent time on the beach working on his stick skills to stay sharp for the Ontario Provincial Lacrosse Championships in August in Kitchener. Hey John, here's photographic evidence!

I gather from our house sitters that all is the same in Oakville. One minor incident between their dog and our neighbour's dogs, but I guess that's why they call it the dog days of summer.

More updates in August!

July 27, 2006

• A big 10-1 win for the Hawks 3 team over shorthanded Newmarket 2 last night at Maplegrove. We know what it feels like to drive a long way and get your ass handed to you and our guys wisely eased up on the whip in the third period. With many of our guys away we had three peewee Hawks in the lineup and they were outstanding, giving as good as they got physically and contributing big on the score sheet.

• In the home stretch now to vacation -- mucking out the kitchen with a fire hose, stacking pizza boxes, etc. Arrangements made for the housesitters who will clutter my clean crispers but also make sure Gil the Beta Fish (does that mean he's like an early, trial version before the market product is released) is fed, etc. In between cluttering my clean crispers the visitors will be enjoying the sweltering heat, oppressive humidity and dangerous smog of a southern Ontario summer, which is something every Canadian should do at least once.

• I feel like I have enough work that I should actually be in the office another week. But I won't be. I bet life will go on without me.

July 25, 2006

Season 2 of Swamp Hockey ends tonight. The brainchild of my buddy Dave, it's been a big hit with the kids and parents alike. The flexible three-on-three format for atom kids changes teams every week. Kids, ice and pucks. What could be simpler? And River Oaks is a great place to escape the heat and humidity.

The Hawks also have a practice tonight and I have some administrative work to do before heading for Nova Scotia later in the week. Double booked for for kids' activities and my kids are 2,000 kilometres away.

• I thought Tiger Woods' win Sunday was the most complete and methodical performance of his career, and that's saying something. I also thought that Chris DiMarco was brilliant and gritty. And I thought Sergio might as well had stayed home.

• I watched all the golf Sunday. My intention was to watch, then head out and run errands -- return DVDs, get some groceries and food for dinner, etc. So, after the golf, I flip over to the Blue Jays and gleefully watch their eight-run third inning as they pounded the Yankees. So I figured I'd see that inning through and THEN go out. Which was the plan till the power went out. So, the internet is down, the TV is off, total blackout. OK, NOW I'll go out. So next I'm standing in the garage and of course, the door won't open because the power is out. Now, if it had been an emergency, I could have unhooked the door from the opener and freed my car. But, that's a hassle and it wasn't an emergency. So, I went inside again and thought, "Well, this is God's way of telling me to have a nap." So I did. A lovely breeze was wafting in from the backyard and off I dozed. I woke up an hour later and the power was still out, so I called Oakville Hydro, just to confirm there was an actual outage, and it wasn't just my house. They confirmed there had been a hydro pole snapped off, but they had no idea when it would be fixed. The very second I hung up the phone the power came back on. By now though it was after 5p and I had a stupid post-nap groggy buzz. So I said screw it and settled in in front of the TV for another movie. The bottom line is that on Sunday, I didn't actually interact with another human face-to-face until the Swiss Chalet delivery guy showed up later that night. Some days -- very occasionally -- that's perfection.

• Laura has a birthday coming up soon -- she'll be 31. Anyway, for her birthday this year I cleaned the crispers in the fridge. Women go nuts for a guy who cleans the crispers. She only THINKS she wants jewelry or clothes. What she wants is clean crispers.

July 23, 2006

Well things are really rockin' around the household these days as week two of faux bachelorhood sets in. Some examples:

• You know that Brickbreaker game on your Blackberry? I reached level 31 the other night. There's only 34 levels. Talk about pissing away two hours.

• During the 3rd round of the Open yesterday I rolled all the coins in the coin bowl on top of the fridge where I empty my pockets every evening. $102 in coins. That's two 24s of Corona and then some.

Anyway, it's not as bad as it sounds. Getting a lot of work done, eating OK, etc. etc. The Hawks had an outdoor practice yesterday at 8:30a and I went to help out, even though my Hawk isn't even in the same time zone. We were on for an hour and another group of Mississauga rep players -- Tykes -- had been waiting for half an hour to use the same outdoor facility. About five minutes before it started to pour we let them take over. Nice guys!

Rented The Matador on Friday night. Simply awful. Truely dumb movie.

Last night I rented 16 Blocks, a Bruce Willis shoot-em-up directed by the guy who did Die Hard. Can't miss action movie, right? Wrong. It was brutal. I bailed out and resorted to something I taped --  The Forty Year Old Virgin is a classic.

And of course, the Open Championship is on TV today, the Jays and Yankees at 1p. So, I have a full day.

Jul 21, 2006

Well, the Bantam 3 Hawks winning streak is over at two. They lost 6-4 last night in Mimico but the scoreboard doesn't really tell the whole story.

We were down 5-2 after one, and 6-4 after two. So, we lost one period, won one period, and tied one. The shots were almost even. We were missing two of our bigger more physical guys and one of our most tenacious runners. So, it was a good night in my book -- good, if you can get past the flaming tanker and the traffic jams on the QEW and the Coach blowing a tire on his way home and . . . you get the idea.

This team beat us by nine goals about six weeks ago. We are closing the gap. Provincials are a month away.

July 19, 2006

• The penultimate Swamp Hockey session was last night, the numbers of atom players ravaged by the perils of summer vacation schedules, minor baseball and soccer. Still, the inside of the rink was a good place to escape the heat.

• All is well in Cape Breton. After 14 hours of sleep Monday night to recover from the 3:45a start that day for the journey east, the boys rebounded with a vengeance yesterday, feasting on the local delicacy (home-made chocolate chip cookie, not lobster) and a suitably wrinkled from their time in the pool, the bay, the pool, the bay, the pool . . .

• Michael Peca is a Leaf. I'm from Missouri on this one I'm afraid. He had a great playoffs but was invisible for most of the season as an Oiler. He's a leader, a gritty competitor and all of that. I hope he delivers as the number 2 centre.

• The best sports story of the day -- perhaps the best story, period -- is what is happening with the Islanders on Long Island. Garth Snow woke up Tuesday as just another journeyman NHL second-string goalie. By the time he went to bed he was the team's general manager. That's sort of like me going from my job at CP in the morning to finish the day a few hours later as the winner of Canada's Next Supermodel. Which is to say, it is bizarre. Neil Smith lasted six weeks in the job, which is less than even the most skeptical observers of Ted Nolan's career as a supposed "GM killer" might have expected. Allan Maki of the Globe has a good piece on it here. No matter whose version you read -- the New York Times, the Toronto Star, Newsday (the Long Island daily) -- the writers all use the same adjective. "Bizarre." It is.

July 17, 2006

Was up very early to take Laura and the boys to the airport for the summer journey to the sacred sod, Cape Breton. The flight was at 6:20a, so I was home and exhausted by 5:30a -- it was a charter airline so we had to be there earlier than you would for Air Canada, for example.

The boys were beside themselves with excitement. They haven't seen any of their grandparents for a year and are looking forward seeing both sets as well as sorted cousins, aunts and uncles.

Me? Well, the day they take off is an odd combination of liberation and melancholy. I am, all at once, possessed of the urge to dance through the house like Tom Cruise in Risky Business and struck by how the lives of the boys are the engines that push our family through life. And when they're not here, one finds one's self eating toast over the sink and counting the hours to the next Blue Jays telecast.

The Bantam 3 Hawks have a game in Mimico on Thursday night and I'll go to that. But otherwise, it's just workin' and putting up with the heat for a couple of weeks till I catch up with the rest of them.

• Funny aside that almost wasn't funny: we had to be at the airport REALLY early. I set my alarm for 3:15 a.m. Or at least, I thought I did. It was actually set for 3:15 p.m. But a good reporter never trusts the alarm so I set the alarm on my Blackberry, too. I got that one right. Laura never knew the difference. It was early either way.

July 13, 2006

We were in Newmarket last night for a game with the Bantam 3 Hawks and came away with a 9-7 win.

The evening started off on the wrong foot -- we were almost rained out. Wednesday's torrential rains resulted in a roof leak at the posh digs where we were supposed to play. So our game was moved across town to a much older facility.

The game was kind of flat -- the rink where we played has the stands sealed off from the floor, so you can't hear any fan noise. There was plenty of yelling from the benches, but the game still had the feel of being played in a loud library for me.

Anyway, our kids didn't play great but still won and now sport their first ever two-game winning streak. And now they will be, in many instances, scattering like leaves for summer vacations.

Rep lacrosse is a different dynamic (for us, anyway) than rep hockey. With many rep hockey teams, the coaches will tell the families at the outset of the season -- no March break vacation. But even kids need a break, so no one gets too hard assed about time away on a beach with your family.

There will still be some games and practices but I doubt the full team will run together again until the provincials in mid-August.

Some parents have access for a good version of the team photo from Sunday. Right click on this link, then "save target as" to your desktop or desired folder.

July 10, 2006

OK, the details.

The Ottawa tournament was for B, C and D teams. There were seven Bantam teams altogether. We finished 5th in the round robin. The top four teams played for the B and C titles, the bottom three would play for the D title.

Since we finished 5th, two other teams (Northumberland and Akwesasne) played off to see who would play us.

We beat Akwesasne in the final 3-2 with a Will Glover goal with 18 seconds left. We were up 2-0 after the first and they clawed their way back with some great goaltending. We dominated the shots but only the goals count, right?

It was a very rough, hot, humid game but everyone survived and we were presented with a cup and medals. So, it only goes to show that some grit and work go a long way, even for a D team.

Our goaltenders, Dylan Maguire and Mitchell Kelly, were heroes of the weekend. In sweltering heat wearing all that gear, they never gave up. Three cheers for them. Other guys played hurt, sacrificed their bodies to play the ball, and kept their heads when all about them were losing theirs. It was a real team effort.

Do I have a team picture? Of course! (No Coleman coolers were injured in the making of this photo.)

July 10, 2006

Meanwhile, as we were playing our game in Ottawa, the rest of the world watched soccer. So, I missed the whole thing. A loyal reader and first unofficial contributing correspondent offers this view of the game, won by the Italians on penalty kicks:

OK, so Zidane is now my favorite soccer player of all time. The Italians spend the entire game plunging into the turf at the first hint of physical contact, faking injuries like girls in a school yard looking to show off for boys, and playing turtle in front of their own net trying to get to a penalty kick shootout for the biggest trophy in world sport, as if that's any way to win a sporting event. In extra time Zidane gets mauled in front of the Italian penalty area, clearly wrenches his shoulder, but doesn't even get a free kick. He calls for a substitute, but they freeze his shoulder and he stays in to try and score the winning goal on a beautiful header with about 8 minutes left. Then somebody says something nasty to him (probably something like "watch me squirm on the ground <insert pejorative adjective here>"), he snaps, and delivers one of the all-time greatest headbutts square into the chest of the honourable Mediterranean gentleman, who, shocked at the feeling of actually being knocked to the ground by physical force, flops on the ground like a quail filled with buckshot. And for that they throw Zidane out. France loses, Zidane gets brutal headlines, but he's the only honest athlete in the tournament. Should be a hockey player.

I know there are other views of the game out there (having just spent an afternoon with my Italian godchild in Ottawa, I know this well.) Send it in.

July 10, 2006

A last note about Ottawa. As previously mentioned, Christopher wasn't the happiest camper Saturday night, so Sunday morning was a blank slate for him to decide how we would fill. Off we went to Parliament Hill for the Gerry Arnold Walking Tour (" . . . over here is where Liberals lied to me. Over here is where Tories lied to me. Over here . . .")
We went up the Peace Tower on a spectacular summer day, walked through the Centre Block and generally behaved like tourists. I'm sure I've been in that building a thousand times and every time it blows my mind.

When we came down from the Peace Tower we went into the Chamber of Remembrance behind the tower where Canada's war dead are honoured. The walls are engraved with poems and military insignia and the dates of Canada's conflicts and wars. The floor is inlaid with brass plates commemorating the great battles, like Ypres. Books contain the names of those who died so people like us can go to lacrosse tournaments with our kids.

It is a very moving place, dimly lit with soaring stained glass windows and the aura of a cathedral. It is the type of place that would soften the hardest heart and similarly move a child to emotions he didn't know he had.

From across the room I snapped this photo of Chris, who was clearly just caught in the awe of the place. He stayed like this for 20 seconds, just looking up at that window.

July 10, 2006

Got back late -- we won the D division final and since we're a D team, that's good. We beat Akwesasne 3-2. More details later.

July 8, 2006

OK, I'll admit that LiveBlogging(tm) hasn't worked out the way I thought.

But let me say this -- the people at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario are really, really nice.

It was that type of day.

Day Two of the lacrosse tournament saw Patrick get off to a great start -- his line scored on each of their first two shifts. Then Pad was hit with a clean but brutal hit on his right upper arm and, well, the day went downhill for him.

He hung in till the end of the game, though he didn't play another shift as the Hawks beat Cornwall 7-6. After the game (following examinations by two doctors traveling with the team as or with parents) we decided to go to CHEO for an x-ray just to be sure.

He's fine and he managed to play four shifts in the evening game vs. Shelburne, Ont., (we lost 7-2) but he seems to be improving with each hour. Before the game, when Pad was debating whether to suit up and no one was listening one of Pad's linemates said to him: "I need you to play."

It was a highlight of the weekend for me.

It's a severe deep tissue bruise, or, as moms would say, a bad owiee. He'll live.

Anyway, the weirdness of the draw here has us playing in a D pool final Sunday at 3p. Other teams are actually playing for the right to play us! We're having a bit of a laugh over that.

The air conditioning at the hotel is out and it was 30 degrees, but there's no shortage of beer and ice and the kids are behaving like kids on a road trip. Which is to say, they're having fun.

Coach John didn't kick anything today, Trainer Gerry didn't get a t-shirt, and Chris (left) is sitting on the sofa in our room watching Mission Impossible 2, mightily miffed that Pad is on Parliament Hill with the guys and he's here with me. Tomorrow, we've promised to take him up the Peace Tower but he'll be bitter for years.

July 7, 2006

Greetings from the nation's capital, where the Bantam 3 Hawks got waxed 10-1 by the host Gloucester side. The parents said it wasn't as bad as it looked. I thought that was pretty funny.

Our lone goal was scored on a manic effort by Will Glover who started the third period like his ass was on fire. Pad recovered a loose ball behind the net and hit Will in full flight and he buried it.

The other highlight was Coach John kicking the team cooler (we keep a small cooler on the bench for ice packs and Diet Pepsi). John looked like he was auditioning for the Argos and the kick was good from 46, but the ref wouldn't give us the requisite three points.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day. We'll have pics to post by then.

And Coleman Coolers really stand up to a tough game like lacrosse.

July 7, 2006

Just another test -- things seem to be working.

Another tidbit from last night -- Coach John got so excited in the last five minutes of the game one of his eyes popped out. Well, one of the lens on his glasses popped out, but it's way cooler to say it was his eye.

I'll be LiveBlogging(tm) from Gloucester and Ottawa at a lacrosse tournament this weekend -- stay tuned for updates, pictures, gossip, and tales from the road!

July 6, 2006

New computer here, testing things to see if I can still blog.

Bantam 3 Hawks lost a 5-4 squeaker to Mimico 2 tonight. They beat us 10-1 three weeks ago.

Go Hawks!

July 4, 2006

So, this has nothing to do with sports, but . . .

A couple of times a week I stop en route to my office and buy three small bottles of Diet Pepsi which I toss in a fridge at work. It costs $5.14. Always. Every time.

Today, it was if my world was moved off its axis. The total was $5.10. I had my headphones on and didn't mention my confusion to the clerk although I'm sure it was obvious. But I steadied myself and just went on my merry way.

Then -- a blinding flash of clarity.

The GST is down from seven per cent to six, as of July 1. I just haven't bought anything in three days (except an expensive taxi ride for a set of car keys, but that's another story.)

So, Stephen Harper's big election promise saved me four cents on Diet Pepsi. Cool.

Three times a week, times, say, 48 weeks of the year -- allowing for vacations, etc. -- and I'm saving $1.92 annually.

Laura and I are going to sit down to responsibly discuss how to allocate these monies. Mortgage? RESPs? It's a good problem to have.

July 2, 2006

Back at the ranch after overnighting with friends up north -- golf, swimming, etc etc. We had a blast. I'm a really bad golfer. It wasn't always thus, but I think I'm getting worse. We're home now and like the Queen song of many, many years ago in my youth, we're lazying on a Sunday afternoon.

Anyway here's a pic of Chris and his hairy, hockey playing pal Will enjoying the paddle boat. 

Chris and Will had a great day and even wandered off alone a couple of times to play a few holes of golf together. Chris is the ultimate kid -- he gets along well with almost everyone, is very low maintenance and just wants to have lots of fun. That's what summer and being a kid is for.

Will will be playing his first season of rep hockey this fall and he'll do well. He's a gifted natural skater and he will probably lead the league in . . . hair, among other things.

And here one of Pad, below, which in addition to being one of those classic summer poses also shows what playing a lot of sports, eating well, being young and working out a lot can do for your belly. He's 12, and pushing 5 foot 9.

Show off.