May 31, 2006

 

A bigger, faster, bigger Kitchener team teed off on the Bantam Hawks last night 7-1 at Maplegrove. As I said before these guys are a level higher than our team so we knew it would be a test. The warm conditions didn't help and players on both sides were wilting by the end of the second period. The team is off to Orangeville tonight for an 8p start and then in Arthur -- wherever that is -- for a weekend tournament. They'll have to do both without me as I will be devoting some time to the other lacrosse player in the house who has a practice tonight and a game Saturday.

 

On another note, I've regaled loyal readers with GO transit stories in the past. The latest adventure was yesterday, the hottest day of 2006 thus far. I arrived at Union Station to find it packed more than usual -- a main CN switch had resulted in gridlock on the Lakeshore line. That was corrected shortly after I got there. The bad news is my train was standing room only. And then about 30 seconds after we started moving the auxiliary power failed, meaning no air conditioning. So we're jammed into a train car like so many sardines (and smelling just about as fine) with no air conditioning and no place to sit on the hottest day of the year. You just can buy fun like that. It was suffocating. Life in Toronto is so glamourous, sometimes I just have to pinch myself to see if I'm dreaming.

 

On another, another note: big win for the Sabres last night. With the Oilers win over Anaheim I'm now 9-4 in calling playoff series. I picked the Sabres over Carolina and I'm still expecting that but the series is so close it could go either way.

 

May 30, 2006

 

Nothing like the hottest day of the year (so far) to spend the evening sweltering at Maplegrove Arena watching the Bantam Hawks vs. Kitchener. The kids are in for a woefully hot game. Plus, like Clarington it is another 2 team, so we expect to have our hands full.

I am the (sometimes) trainer for this crew and the one time I actually feel useful is when it is hot. Water, ice, soaked towels on the neck. I can do that stuff. Luckily for me, we have a medical doctor and two registered nurses among our parents, so the second something tricky happens, I can just yell (and I do), "Hey Doc, am I f**king this up?" Lacrosse trainers are WAY WAY WAY busier than hockey trainers.

Hockey trainers at this level usually have two major jobs. First, when a kid goes down, go out on the ice and tell him he's not really hurt. Second, stand on the bench and tell the coach all of your ideas for making the team better. Coaches LOVE that.

Lacrosse trainers actually deal with a lot of injuries. Cuts, scrapes, bruises, fractures, concussions, heat stroke, wind chill, you name it. It's not all just leaning on the glass and drinking Diet Pepsi. In novice house league this year I've called in an ambulance and a kid on our team had a concussion.

Meanwhile, Laura gets to go to River Oaks for hockey. Cool, refreshing River Oaks. A selection of chilled juices afterwards. Sigh.

Early games, so we'll be home early too. We the pool-less rely on the kindness of others on our street. I supply the beer.

 

May 29, 2006

 

The Hawks lost 7-1 to Clarington in Bowmanville last night. We came out a little flat and it was 4-0 at the end of the first. After that, the game was fairly competitive and the boys looked much better. In the arcane world of minor lacrosse, the Clarington team is a 2 and we are a three -- think AA vs. A for a rough comparison. Anyway, we knew they would be tough, they were, and we learned some things. Coach John is now no longer unbeaten, so he joins the ranks of, um, everyone else who has ever coached.

 

May 28, 2006

  • Was up Saturday at 5a ET to check out, meet my parents in Halifax for breakfast then catch my flight home. Too many late nights this week "networking" but it was fun to be in my hometown. My mother cooked enough food for for the Princess Priscilla Light Infantry and I ate enough for all of them. Uneventful flight home.

  • Got home to an empty house as Chris was just finishing his lacrosse game and Pad was timekeeping. Then Laura took them to their school Fun Fair, so I napped.

  • Last night we went to a small Toronto night club (because, that's what hipsters like us do with our weekends!) and attended the launch party for Oakville hockey mom Susan Aglukark's new CD, Blood Red Earth. We had a blast along with about 200 other people, many of them from Oakville. Then, in the exotic lifestyle of the contemporary pop singer, she boarded a bus for the bright lights of Temagami, Ont. Susan --three-time Juno award winner, Order of Canada recipient, mom of budding NHL goalie -- is an enormous talent and it was really fun and interesting to hear the stories behind her music. Learn more about her here.

  • The Oilers finished off the ducks last night, which sort of surprised me. While I expected Edmonton to win I thought the Ducks would win last night. Tough to win a series when you lose three games at home.

  • Off to beautiful Bowmanville with the Bantam Hawks today for lacrosse. Coach Maguire's lifetime unbeaten record is on the line.

May 26, 2006

 

Well, been busy here in Halifax and having a hard time finding time to fit in recreational blogging. But the week has not been without interesting moments.

  • A personal favorite is when my friend dropped his Blackberry in the toilet. Be advised that they don't float, nor do they work upon retrieval, nor do you want it back anyway.

  • I ate my weight in lobster on Wednesday night. Or it felt like it. And then drank my weight in beer.

  • You can still have a good time at the Lower Deck pub, but the young people look at you like "How did you get out of the old folks home?" They still carry around trays of draught and you still have to buy them two at a time.

  • I knocked over a chair at our gala dinner while the Governor General was being introduced, which made everyone turn and also made the guy next to me jumpy because he thought her RCMP guards might try to take me down and he'd get caught in the crossfire. But we all agreed that for next year's dinner I'd continue the traditional and just hurl a chair into the middle of the room and whoever it hits gets to keep their centrepiece.

  • Otherwise it's been the usual whirl of meetings, drinking beer, and meetings. My mother is cooking me breakfast tomorrow morning then I fly home. For a nap, and then a night on the town in Toronto. Why not? Lacrosse on Sunday!

May 24, 2006

 

Well, me and some of my shirts made it to Halifax. Sunny and relatively mild here, at least compared to the near winter conditions at home on the long weekend.

Highlight from the home front is that Chris apparently scored twice last night at Swamp hockey.

 

May 23, 2006

 

Off to Halifax again, so I'll miss Swamp Hockey tonight. Last night we barbequed steaks, because it was so nice and warm and sunny -- not!! What a miserable long weekend. Anyway, the sun did poke through late in the afternoon and the rabbits came out and there was a cardinal in the tree and then I opened the barbeque up and there was a mouse in there. Wildlife everywhere. Yes, I flinched -- I wasn't really expecting anything to be looking back at me.

I wanted to just light the BBQ and cook the critter but the kids were watching so I just banged on the BBQ until Mickey ran off.

Packing for the trip was more fun than usual because the dry cleaners lost my shirts. So I was facing the prospect of buying new dress shirts that I didn't really need until they called this morning to say they had found some of them.

Usually I forget something -- like pants to my tux, or of the jacket of a suit -- and people I work with routinely insert time into the agenda for me to shop for whatever it is I forgot. At this point I don't know what I forgot, but when I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Just another day.

 

May 22, 2006

 

Chris, to me, out of the blue Sunday morning:

"Dad. I think I want to play for the Leafs."

"Good plan. But I don't think they're in the market for a house league left winger right now."

"I don't want to play for them now -- later."

"Oh, OK. You've got 10 years to get their attention."

"That's a long time."

"You have no idea."

 

May 22, 2006

 

Gotta love those Oilers. Six wins in a row. And six straight against Anaheim.

 

May 21, 2006

 

Aside from Chris' lacrosse team finally winning a game, there were two other dramatic events in the sports world on Saturday.

The first was Barry Bonds hitting his 714th career home run. There may not be a more controversial character in sports right now than Bonds. Steroids aside, 714 is a lot of home runs. The rest of the world can debate the legitimacy of the figure, and his character, and all those other things. But that's a lot of home runs.

Second, and more compelling, was the disaster in the Preakness Stakes when Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro shattered his leg only 200 yards into the race. Laura and I -- we are not horse fans, but just happened to be watching -- were literally agape at the tragedy as it unfolded. It was true drama, moving and scary and emotional. I hope they can save the horse's life, but it doesn't look good. And it will never race again. A sad day for that sport.

 

Canada kinda went limp at the World Hockey Championships. Read about it here.

 

May 20, 2006

 

Pad's three-on-three team tied 8-8 last night. For the first half of the game my boy looked like a guy who had been off for eight weeks with a broken leg. In the last half of the game he started looking more like his old self. Anyway, no pain then or now. And he ran three kilometres today to continue working on his fitness.

 

Meanwhile, Chris' novice lacrosse team won their first game of the season 10-2 today, so much high-fiving and smiling there. Winning isn't everything, but it's more fun than losing.

 

Also, I promised photos of the Abbey Lane school band and their gold medal trip to Ottawa. Click here to look them over.

 

May 19, 2006

 

Oh yeah -- eight weeks to the day after Patrick broke his leg, tonight he returns to game action. It's just three-on-three, so no big pressure except to have fun. Eight weeks is a long time when you're 12.

 

May 19, 2006

 

OK, fearless predictions for the conference finals:

Eastern Final

I like Buffalo. I think these two teams compare well -- young, fast, explosive, good goaltending. Carolina took apart the Devils who were the hottest team in hockey. The Sabres blew past the Sens, the eastern powerhouse. So, not much to choose. I think it will be long and tough but the Sabres will prevail in seven.

 

Western Final

The Oilers swept all four regular season games from the Ducks. But that's not why I'm picking the Oilers. I think the Oilers have something special happening that is bigger than the sum of their parts. I think winning four straight against San Jose is the sort of thing that makes ordinary players believe they are capable of great things. Anaheim won't roll over but my first son was born in Edmonton so for that reason and others I'm going with the Oilers. It will be a wild ride.

 

May 19, 2006

 

The Oakville Hawks edged the Orangeville Northmen 4-3 last night in an entertaining bantam lacrosse game at Maplegrove. John Maguire is now unbeaten and untied as a head coach, and his cool, stoic presence on the bench . . . no wait, that was someone else. John is a very enthusiastic guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve and the parents are lucky to have him running the team. I confidently predict he will never make his fortune playing Texas Hold Em'.

Anyway, the  Hawks trailed 3-2 heading into the third last night and tied it only 20 seconds in to the final period. They went ahead with about four minutes left and then promptly took a double minor for a hit from behind. Orangeville pulled their goalie but could not find the equalizer in what was a very frantic final minute of play.

Way to go, Hawks! Anytime you beat Orangeville is a good day.

Footnote: apparently being one of the only parents who is a certified trainer, I am the sometimes trainer for this collection of players. But no one has yet acquired a proper trainers' kit, so I was last night holding something that was a sad representation of medical preparedness. The kit I had was to trainers' boxes what figure skates are to power forwards. The situation will be corrected before the next game.

 

May 18, 2006

 

With the 2nd round of the playoffs finished, it is safe to say my high-flying success as a soothsayer in Round One is but a distant memory.

It went 2-2 in the 2nd round (making me 8-4 overall to this point), correctly picking the Sabres over Ottawa and the Ducks over the Avs. But New Jersey didn't deliver for me, losing badly to Carolina, and the Oilers surprised a lot of people by dispatching San Jose in six games. I need to scratch my chin and think deeply for a bit, which consumes a lot of energy for me. I'll get back to you shortly with my conference final picks.

 

May 18, 2006

 

Laura and Pad rolled in around midnight last night after their whirlwind tour to Ottawa and back. Everyone is very proud of the band's gold-medal performance, but the kids and parents are truly baked with fatigue. Laura took a bunch of photos and I'll try to figure a way to get some of them online for viewing. Meanwhile, Pad's lacrosse team plays their first game tonight -- he's sitting out but is expected to be cleared for a return to action in lacrosse and hockey by tomorrow, in time for three-on-three. Biggest challenge he faces now is getting his wind and cardio back, but he's working on it.

 

May 17, 2006

 

The Abbey Lane Public School Concert Band, featuring among many others one Patrick Arnold on tenor sax, won the gold medal at the national musical festival in Ottawa. Music to my ears!! (OK, sorry about that last remark.)

 

May 17, 2006

 

I have not commented yet on the demise of the Senators, which is the big story of the week in the NHL, at least until the Oilers win. AS much as I don't like the Senators, I grudgingly acknowledge their talent. John Muckler would be a fool to let this team fall apart. Yes, they need a goalie (not Hasek.) Yes, they need a gritty proven forward -- not Gary Roberts. But remember how many great seasons the Red Wings had that ended in playoff disaster before they won three Cups. If the Sens can tinker without renovating, they could win not just a championship, but several. Then again, the "new" NHL allows teams to change and compete much faster than the old system under the old CBA. If the Oilers win tonight, all four semi finalists will be teams that missed the playoffs in the last previous season. That's never happened before in NHL history. Get used to it.

Go Leafs Go.

 

May 17, 2006

 

The International Brotherhood of Bloggers and Boring People will take away my keyboard for allowing this long quiet spell on the blog. So, I will try to make amends.

  • Sunday was Mother's Day and I had grand plans to write something about the quality of the Mothers in my life. Here's the shortened version: My wife is an exceptional mother, and as many in Oakville know, not just to her own kids. She works tirelessly to make things better for a lot of kids in a lot of ways. My own mother was similar back in her day and was always ready to encourage, support, defend and love us, and sometimes slap us upside the head when needed. My mother in law is the antithesis of all those hoary old mom-in-law jokes. She is witty, literate, generous, and caring -- I hit the jackpot in the mother-in-law lottery. My sisters are great moms too. As an aside, I've been riding a GO train to Toronto since late 1998. Every spring, a pair of swans on the Credit River near the bridge build a nest and like clockwork the little ones appear, grow up, and leave. The cycle repeats itself every year. The other day in the cold, driving rain I saw one of those swans, whom I presumed to be the mother, thrashing about in the reeds, struggling to either build a nest or protect the one that was already there. Nearby, the mate was tooling about on the river, getting out the ducks, swimming and socializing. That had to be the male. Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms.

  • Laura and Pad are in Ottawa for a music festival -- they had to get up at 3:30a Tuesday to catch a bus to nation's capital with about 120 others from Abbey Lane Public School. Making things worse, I had to bail out on Sunday (Mother's Day) for Halifax for a meeting early the next day and arrived home -- after stops in Toronto, and Ottawa -- at 11:15p Monday night. Laura waited up for me, so obviously she didn't get a lot of sleep. The band performs today. More later on that.

  • So me and Chris are living the high life batching it here -- junk food and all-sports TV. He had lacrosse practice last night followed by three-on-three hockey and has swimming tonight. I'm thinking Swiss Chalet for dinner. Pass the ketchup.

  • Oilers are on TV tonight. I picked them to lose the series, but I hope they win.

May 11, 2006

  • The Senators edge closer and closer to the edge, the brink . . . scan the papers for your own cliché.

  • Oilers climb back into their series in triple OT. No, I wasn't awake for the winner. Patrick was born in Edmonton, so we'll cheer for them as far as they go.

  • Commuting in Toronto holds its own unique basket of joys and frustrations. Mostly frustrations. If you drive into Toronto every day, you must be nuts, or at least someone who either leaves for work very, very early, or enjoys reading the paper while stopped in traffic. If you ride the GO train, like me, most days it's OK. Except for when the trains are late or cancelled, or the trains are late and cancelled and it's raining and/or snowing AND you have to pick up your kid. Or, if there are no seats and you have to stand the whole way into town. And back. Union Station holds its own unique pleasures. Most days at rush hour you feel like mooing as you get pushed along with the crowd. The thing about Union Station that always cracks me up is the vendors' table. They have this section, more or less right in the middle of the GO foyer, where these people sell . . . stuff. Useless stuff. Some days it's t-shirts. Or costume jewelry. Or fuzzy polyester blankets with white tiger images on them. I swear if they sold ragged pieces of drift wood with rusty nails sticking out of them, people would line up up to look at it. Usually women shoppers, too. I guess it's part of the Venus-Mars thing. Just like if you walk past the small bar at the other end of the station, its pretty much always men in there drinking. Maybe they're waiting for their wives to finish up buying all the driftwood and rusty nails. What has this got to do with sports? Nothing. It was just one of those mornings and it's my blog. So there.

May 10, 2006

 

Long time, no blog. Things are kinda quiet on the home sports front and kinda overwhelmingly busy on the work front which makes recreational blogging a luxury right now. But I can bore you with a few things:

  • If you're having a dinner party anytime soon, consider inviting people of Irish heritage. I'll refrain from naming names or going into details, but this strategy made for a very entertaining Saturday evening (and Sunday morning) at Chez Greenbriar. It was a very, very good time.

  • Three-time Juno winner, Order of Canada recipient, Oakville hockey mom and good friend Susan Aglukark has a new CD out -- Blood Red Earth. Some of the music has a very jazzy feel, while other songs are melodic and introspective. The Irish dinner party guests, and everyone else, really enjoyed it. The CD also features a terrific cover of the Christine McVey tune Songbird, which -- unless you've lived under a pile of pucks since 1976 -- you will know off by heart from the Fleetwood Mac album Rumors which only sold a gazillion copies and of which you likely own two. Blood Red Earth will be in stores soon and it is well worth investing in. Susan is remarkably talented and ridiculously modest person who gives back a lot to her community and country.

  • Pad was back on skates last night for the first time since he broke his leg and while he didn't attempt a triple lutz or try to land a quad, he skated briskly for 15 minutes with no pain. The broken bone healed fine. The ligaments are still being stretched back out after a six-week hibernation so he's doing physio three times a week to get him back on the lacrosse floor and playing summer hockey soon -- hopefully by next week.

  • Chris was home sick yesterday and missed Swamp hockey. He wasn't pleased. The up side, he said, was he missed school

  • I'm positively heartbroken that the Senators lost two in a row at home to Buffalo. Devastated. Crushed. My favourite teams are the Leafs and whoever is playing Ottawa.

May 5, 2006

 

Relatively quiet weekend on tap -- I think. Three hours of lacrosse convening tomorrow as well as Chris' game, plus Pad and Chris both have practices on Sunday.

And um, that's it.

Which means the TV might get a good workout as we all tune in for the second round of the playoffs. If something funny happens, I'll check in.

 

May 4, 2006

 

OK. Even Nostradamus had bad days.

I was 6 and 2 calling the first round of the playoffs. I swept the East, but even with my shockingly accurate (and lucky) predication of a Colorado upset of Dallas, I managed to blow two others -- Edmonton over the Wings (I had lots of company) and Ducks over the Flames.

But, overall 6-2 isn't bad -- Maggie the Monkey, TSN's prognosticating primate, went 4-4, and she's the high water mark for this sort of silliness in Canada. No one on TSN's human panel was better than 5-3. So, I did OK.

 

So, let's take a run at the next round:

EAST

Ottawa vs. Buffalo: Are you kidding me? Buffalo ran Philly out of town in game seven and are playing with a lot of confidence. The Sens -- well, don't you get the feeling that they were relieved to get past Tampa? There seems to be a tentativeness to the Senators play that I can't define. During the regular season, Ottawa owned Buffalo early in the year. Later, it was Buffalo, including beating them twice in three days about a month ago. I'm picking the Sabres in seven.

 

New Jersey vs. Carolina: The Devils haven't lost a game since . . . no one can remember it's been so long. They have won 15 in a row. That's astounding. Sooner or later they will lose, and the 'Canes will likely win a game or two. But this Devils team is way, way better than the one that sleep walked through most of the season. The return of Patrick Elias has changed everything. Carolina is playing better after a slow start against Montreal. But they can't afford to play like that now. Devils in six.

 

WEST

San Jose vs. Edmonton: Could the Oilers be on a roll? Could they be the Cinderella story of 2006? Could they make a run deep into the playoffs a la Calgary 2004? Well, they could. But don't count on it. San Jose (for anyone who wasn't able to stay up late to watch) was very impressive in rolling past Nashville. Deep down the middle, fast, tough, they look like the real thing. I have a lot of respect for what Edmonton did to Detroit. I'm betting the party's over. Sharks in six.

 

Anaheim vs. Colorado: Now, here's a funny stat: the Avs beat the Ducks in three out of four meetings this year, losing the other in OT. The Ducks finished three points ahead overall. So, what will be the difference? For me, it will be Scott Niedermayer, who I think is the league MVP and the best defencemen. He is to the Ducks what Scott Stevens was for the Devils a few years ago. The Avs are obviously playing very well and are not to be taken lightly. But I still like the Ducks, in seven.

 

 

May 3, 2006

 

Summer hockey -- we call it Swamp Hockey, because it's basically pond hockey played in the summer -- started last night for Chris. It was the brainchild of a friend of mine and he and I and a couple of others (Laura mainly) organize the thing. We didn't like the hours of the summer hockey options at the commercial rinks, so we booked a block of ice time once a week for 12 weeks, divided the cost of the ice and jerseys by the number of participants and voila, summer hockey. We pretty much let our kids invite their friends to play and that filled things up in terms of participants. Older siblings ref the games and work the clock. Dads take turns as gate swingers on the bench, and we use timed shifts so no one has to pay close attention.

It's a three-on-three format, no fixed teams. We switch the lineups every week, trying to keep the right mix of skilled and less skilled kids on each team, depending on who is away for soccer or lacrosse or hang gliding or whatever. The skill level runs from rep A to house league white. All the kids get a Swamp Hockey jersey at the end of the season and all the laughs they can manage.

The kids absolutely love it. No pressure other than to have a good time. No standings, no stats, no teams. Just hockey for it's own sake.

Last night's game was an 8-7 thriller that at times felt like a basketball game because the scoring was fast and furious. And Chris even scored a goal, which he credits to his new stick. So who am I to argue?

 

May 2, 2006

  • Summer hockey starts tonight for Chris. We were watching a hockey game last night and he said, "It's funny dad. I'm really excited about hockey but it's a long way off." When I told him he actually plays tonight, his eyes bugged out. Then he said, "I meant REAL hockey. You know. After the summer. Oh. Real hockey.

  • I'll review my first round NHL predictions in more detail once all the series are over, but so far the only clanger for me (and just about everyone else) was not picking the Oilers over the Wings. However, I was also one of the few, if not the only, person in the universe to pick the Avs to beat the Stars. Everything else is so far, so good.

May 1, 2006

 

Welcome to May.

We managed to get through weekend lacrosse with no major injuries or ambulances called so that's considered a success given the events of last Saturday.

Chris starts playing in his 3-on-3 spring hockey program tomorrow night so, it's also hockey season again. Between lacrosse and hockey we have been watching rep tryouts of one kind or another for several weeks now, and it's been frustrating for Pad because he could not actually try out because of his leg.

He did land on a bantam rep lacrosse team in Oakville, based on what the coaches saw of him last year and in pre-season clinics before he broke his leg. If all goes well, he'll be competing again within two or three weeks.

The last of the minor bantam Ranger tryouts is tonight, but Patrick is going to have to wait until August for the fall skates to see if he's going to make a team. We went up on the weekend to the minor bantam tryouts to watch and the level of talent looked pretty strong to me. But all Pad can do is get his leg back in shape and be ready to work his tail off at the end of the summer.

And you can bet that's what he's going to do.

But the point of this long ramble is Chris, who is not oblivious to the "tryout mania" around the house. He announced on the weekend that he -- a house league white player -- is going to try out for Red next year. I tried to explain that there's not really a tryout process for Red, but if he wants to make the point to people he should do it at 3-on-3 this summer.

Last point on all this -- I hear through the grapevine that there will likely be three house league divisions next year -- not just red and white, but also a third tier (blue?) Meaning, of course, that there will be fewer red teams, but more kids playing against kids of a similar skill level. Meaning they will touch the puck more. Meaning they will have more fun. But also meaning some parents might have to get their heads around all of the above.