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Oct 29, 2010

End of the work week for many out there.

If you have kids of a certain age, it’s also trick-or-treat time.

As a kid I was a fan of the treats, but less a fan of the dressing up and going door-to-door. But I was a weird kid and I’m now a strange adult.

Go figure.

But my kids – both teens now and confined to quarters on Oct 31 – loved Halloween almost as much as Christmas, enabled as they were by the folks in our neighbourhood who decorated their houses with all manner of scary (well, sort of scary) stuff.

We had a great neighbourhood for that sort of thing – we dads would amble around a safe distance behind the kids, pretending to watch and care for them, and every few houses someone would offer a can of beer (to us, not to the kids. At least I think that’s how it worked. Frankly it was a long time ago and I was drinking beer so it’s all a bit fuzzy. But come to think of it, the kids did really sleep well that night.)

Anyway.

We don’t get the crowds we once got at our house. It might be the neighbourhood is maturing, or it might be the big electric air horn that goes off if anyone walks in the driveway and causes ear drums to bleed. It could be anything.

But where we once received 175 kids we now might see 35, all crying and asking for tissues to stick in their bleeding ears.

So that leaves us with a lot of unclaimed packets of Lipton Cup o’ Soup to go through on our own.

Happy Halloween. Broccoli anyone?

- - -

Pete C., a great guy, 80s movie nut and one of Oakville’s finest over-40 ice dancers, writes to offer an important correction.

In the film Fargo, Steve Buscemi was the guy being pushed through the wood chipper, not the guy doing the pushing. I feel so silly. Teamoakville regrets the error.

BTW, if you have any questions about wood-chipper-related body disposal, Pete’s your guy.

Drop me an email and I’ll be happy to set you up for a free consultation.

He also has a pretty good collection of lightly-used ice dance dance outfits (44 tall) if you’re in the market.

- - -

If I ever get out of work I will be at 16 Mile Sports Complex tonight to watch Chris and the bantam Jets take on the power house baker’s team. I’m not sure of their nickname but I know their sponsor makes a hell of a cupcake, and if that doesn’t strike fear into the heart of the opposition, well, you just don’t know Old Time Hockey.

Tomorrow is tyke hockey at Kinoak, timekeeping at Joshua Creek and then junior action in the evening in Mississauga. Sunday is relatively quiet with an afternoon junior game in Burlington.

We might even have a regular meal on Sunday. But for the time being that’s just crazy talk.

Sorry again for the inconsistent and somewhat sparse postings in the last few weeks. I expect this will get worse before it gets better. If you’re bored, you could start at the bottom and read everything backwards to the top. Send cash, I’ll write more often.

Enjoy the weekend, and watch out for the trick-or-treaters all through the weekend, as I’m sure various forms of satanic rituals will play out all over town for the next few days, just as they do every weekend in Oakville, only with more frequency at this time of year.

Get out and go to a hockey game. Cheer for the home team. Drive safely.

Hug the kids.

 

Oct 28, 2010

I’m not sure that "better late than never" applies to the Internet, but forgive my absence. I even missed Tyke practice this week.

I missed them, but I’m not sure they missed me.

Bring back the 6a practice. The 5p ice time kills me, because my day never finishes at 5p.

- - -

Much mirth from the red-wine classes on the 16 Mile Sports Complex rink assignment issue. I told you I’d raise it (the issue, not a glass of red wine) and I did.

- - -

The latest conspiracy theory to sweep Al Gore’s interwebs is an alleged clip of a woman in a 1920s Charlie Chaplin movie apparently talking on a cell phone.

The filmmaker who assembled the Youtube sensation offers a completely rational explanation: the woman is a time traveller.

Yes. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?

Jeez Louise. Do you ever want to reach through your computer screen and smack a guy in the head?

If you want to read a story about this, click here.

Additional research:

Possible explanations can be found here.

Here’s the video, documented in frame-by-frame Zapruder film-like deconstruction.

Honest to God. Doesn’t anyone have anything better to do? This video may soon get pulled for copyright violations, so email me if the link doesn't work.

 

 

 

- - -

A noted educator and Friends fan may be distressed to learn that my fascination with Jen Anniston is passing.

Teamoakville is preparing to name a new icon for mindless daydreaming.

I will accept nominees but I have to warn you I have one in mind.

But I’m always interested in what the chattering classes have to say, so email me here.

Seriously.

I’d nominate my lovely bride in a MOHA moms’ fleece. But she’d punch me.

So I’ll go Hollywood again and so should you.

- - -

Worst. School. Band. Ever.

Every now and then you hear/see something at a school concert that rattles your faith in  everything.

The rendering of the overture of the iconic theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey by this particular band achieves new levels of entertainment.

Bad entertainment, but entertaining in its own cool way.

Listen at your own peril.

 

- - -

And speaking of bad, I was telling Laura the other night about the worst local TV news report I think I have ever seen.

I was a local FOX TV news channel in the States, reporting on a black bear wandering into a residential neighbourhood.

The trouble is, there was no video of the bear.

Even the most green news people know that TV is all about pictures – moving pictures especially – so the enterprising team at FOX WJW News 8 went to work.

You really have to see it to believe it.

If you’ve seen the Will Farrell movie Anchorman, I’m here to tell you it ain’t that far off the truth.

Just press play.

 

 

Oct 26, 2010

Toronto gets Rob Ford for mayor. Ever see the movie Tommy Boy?

It should prove interesting. As I’ve said before, as a journalist I can’t help but believe the mayor’s office is going to be a more newsworthy place in the days ahead. We’ll see!

- -  -

Rob Burton easily won re-election as mayor in Oakville last night, whipping rival Ann Mulvale by about 25 per cent – 25,000 votes to 20,000.

I voted for Burton, who I’ve never met.

Why?

Two reasons.

First, he said he’d build a new four-pad rink and recreation complex in town in his first mandate, and he did. Under the previous administration town services didn’t keep pace with town residential growth. Hopefully residents of the town with young kids will be better off than I was when my kids were smaller and trying to use over-booked facilities.

Second, I don’t want my taxes paying development fees for new construction in town. The developers can pay the fees and charge them back to buyers. If they can’t make the math work, then that’s their problem.

I have no axe to grind with Mulvale. She barely won in 2002, and she lost in 2006 and 2010. The trend seems clear.

I think two terms as mayor are plenty for anyone and Mulvale had five.

Terms limits prevent the creation of career politicians (five terms as mayor makes you a career pol), but you need to get the career politicians to vote in favour of them to make it happen.

So until that happens . . . any bets on whether Mayor Burton will go for a three-peat?

- - -

Our weekend was the usual stuff – Chris’s bantam squad won another one-goal game, Pad’s team split a pair and my tykes got scorched on Saturday.

Oh well. Clearly they need a better pre-game speech than the one I conjured up.

A great bunch of kids though. Every time I walk into the room with them, I try hard to remember how much I looked forward to playing my one game a week when I was that age. It was the centre of my world just as I know it’s the centre of theirs.

If as a coach you can capture even a slice of that memory, it’s a lot easier to make sure that hour or so we spend together on Saturdays is the best hour of their week and why, win or lose, everyone has to go home smiling. (And they did.)

The Blackhawks are awesome. Win or lose.

- - -

The Leafs are less awesome, and more so by the day.

And today they play Florida, who are actually better than you might think.

I’m going to say this slowly and tentatively, but I don’t think we have any hockey tonight.

So, maybe I’ll watch hockey on TV!

Laura loves that.

- - -

Speaking of watching TV, on Sunday night we watched The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town.

It’s a documentary on the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1970s album of the same name.

I’m a pretty big Bruce fan – not as big as a lot of people, but probably bigger than most.

And other than the final 20 minutes I felt the film was a big disappointment.

Bruce fans will watch it and probably come away with not a lot more than they already knew.

Non-fans would be better off coming to my house to review game film of the Tyke Blackhawks weekend loss.

- - -

If you want to watch something new, tune into HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. It’s the new “buzz” show that everyone will be talking about.

It stars Steve Buscemi (the guy in Fargo who shoves the body through the wood chipper.)

When you see him, you say, “Oh yeah. That guy. I love him.”

Great actor.

- - -

In the category of “Good Point” the mail room here at teamoakville has been deluged with correspondence maligning the venue for Friday night bantam white house league hockey.

The games are played at the new 16 Mile Rec Centre and people love the facility. The rink isn’t the issue.

The issue is which rink the boys play on.

The division plays on rink 4 – an otherwise lovely new pad which suffers one major problem. And that is, one can’t sit in the pub and see rink four. You can only see rinks one and two.

Now, your loyal correspondent is a teetotaller at games – Diet Pepsi, please – and truth be told, I’ve only been to one bantam HL white game this season and found myself seconded into bench duty.

But . . . the moms issuing the complaint (and it’s always the moms, right? Don’t get between a mom and Friday-night red wine) make a good point.

And that is, on Friday night the Blades play home games in Rink 1, the big bowl. Fair enough.

But rink two is skating lessons for very young folk. And if their parents were cramming into the pub to enjoy a socialable drink for that hour, no one would care.

But last Friday night (horrors) the pub had exactly four people in it during Chris’s game, two of whom left when the Blades game started.

So, if the pub wants to make money and have a chatty, wine-swilling crowd on Friday nights, convince someone to move the MOHA action to Rink 2.

And don’t get caught between the moms and the bar, or you could get hurt.

- - -

OK. I gotta go. I’ll try to be more entertaining soon.

 

Oct 22, 2010

Unlike last Friday I will make a token effort to say hello today. Fridays aren’t what they used to be but then again, neither am I.

There is an odd bit of irony in our household this week around the Graham James case.

Regular readers will know I was very involved in assembling and reporting the story last spring about how this convicted pedophile was granted a pardon for his crimes while he was a hockey coach in western Canada.

One thing that journalists like is when their work triggers change. And in this case, there was lots of change, including but not limited to a change in the way vulnerable sector screenings are done on volunteers as part of our routine police checks for people working with children, the elderly, etc.

You have to appreciate that given my time as a reporter in Ottawa and my travels in close proximity to the prime ministers of the day and other cabinet officials, I’ve had tons of background checks done on me over the years. So, I have no secrets as far as Ottawa is concerned.

But the new protocol for vulnerable sector screenings has been expanded and includes, among others, people who have been granted pardons.

In my own case, other than a speeding ticket when I was 17, I’ve never been charged with a crime at any level, let alone convicted, let alone convicted and pardoned. I’m pretty boring, except at parties after four Coronas.

But like many, many other people, some combination of my name and birth date triggered a hit on the RCMP system.

So now I have to go get fingerprinted so they can rule me out as a possible threat.

On the one hand, it’s mildly irritating – like I said, my record is pretty boring. I’ve been pardoned for beer belches once or twice but otherwise I have never been convicted by a jury of my beers peers.

So dragging myself in for fingerprinting seems overkill.

But the flipside is that the system has actually changed and as parents, we can all take some comfort in knowing there’s more rigour at work here.

And for me, that seems like a small price to pay.

No – I’m not worried about the government having my fingerprints.

By the way, I asked the person who I had to make my fingerprinting appointment with whether my circumstance was relatively rare.

She laughed. No. In fact the Hamilton police web site says they expect about 15 per cent of all applicants will get called in for the fingerprint screen, which seems like an unusually high error rate to me.

But what the heck.

All for a good cause.

- - -

The Leafs lost last night. That’s more like it.

- - -

Tom Bosley died earlier this week – he was the avuncular dad – Mr Cunningham – on the hit TV show Happy Days way back in the day.

Happy Days was spawned by some ill-placed nostalgia in the 1970s for all things 1950s, which I never understood enough though as a kid I liked the show.

Being older and cynical now I can remark that it was good of Happy Days to overlook some things from that era like the Korean war, polio, and the struggle for racial equality.

But that’s not why I’m remembering Mr. C.

He was a great TV dad, a great TV parent. Wise and comforting in ways that we real-world parents never seem to get a chance to be.

On that point, I think if I ever put on a cardigan sweater, swung an arm over Chris’s shoulder and called him “son” he’d probably run in another direction. I don’t think I’d blame him.

Anyway, click here to look at a galley of some of the great TV parents of all time.

- - -

Both my boys lace it up tonight, both at the same time. One in Oakville, one in Milton.

So, I’m gonna miss someone’s game. That’s the way it goes.

As it stands now Saturday is a busy day but Sunday looks quiet.

The boys want to go see Jackass 3D. That may be a drop-off and return later for me.

Unless their mom wants to go!

Have a great weekend. Drive safely.

Hug the kids!

 

Oct 20, 2010

The newspapers and websites western Canada, not to mention the Oakville community blogosphere, have been buzzing with news of an initiative in Calgary to force minor hockey parents to complete a mandatory anger management course before their kids are allowed to play.

It’s not just a five-minute, tick-a-box exercise and it seems the vast majority of parents are taking it seriously.

And those who don’t complete it?

Their kids don’t play.

Bottom line is that anything that makes the game safer and more fun for kids – and volunteers – is a good thing.

Read more here.

And read still more on the Calgary program here. Seriously. Click and read this if you have a kid in hockey.

- - -

Speaking of abused volunteers, while talking to my folks last night on the phone they pointed me to the story of a long-time minor hockey volunteer near Halifax who has quit after enduring more abuse than he cared to take.

His crime?

He was rebalancing house league teams and some parents went over the top in their objections – going so far as to harass him at work as well as home.

There are lots of tough jobs in minor hockey, unfortunately.

One of the toughest is rebalancing house league teams – the only thing worse than rebalancing is NOT rebalancing. Ask any kid who spent a winter on a winless house league team.

There’s a dynamic that takes place on a minor hockey team after the teams are formed. The kids bond with each other, they bond with the coaches, and the coaches bond with them. It’s not some touchy-feely theory, it actually happens and smart coaches take it seriously in the days before teams are locked down.

So when after three or four weeks someone’s kid has to be moved to another team to make my team less strong, or to make room to add a stronger player to help us a little, it can be disruptive and to the players involved, painful and upsetting.

The guy who writes the other Oakville hockey blog had a humane rule about these things when he was VP of HL. And it was basically this: once the decision is made to rebalance (after appropriate consultations with conveners and coaches involved) it was 100 per cent final, non-negotiable, done. Finito.

That may seem harsh, but what that rule did was end debate with parents before it started.

I have literally spent 90 minutes on the phone with a parent of a player being moved – all I did was listen and tell them they could petition the board, or go to the Supreme Court, but the decision was final.

When people get rude or belligerent, you politely tell them where they can get a refund for their child’s hockey registration.

There’s no room in hockey for abuse, unless you’re a defenceman abusing attacking forwards into the glass, or forwards abusing defencemen on the forecheck.

A feel bad for the volunteer left with no option but to walk away.

Read more here.

- - -

Speaking of defencemen abusing forwards, here’s an item on young hockey players breaking into the NHL.

The stunning conclusion appears to be that size matters.

Physically immature teenagers playing in the NHL against actual 30-year-old men is a tough recipe for the kids, apparently. The bigger, more physically mature ones do better but there’s no substitute for overall maturity.

I’ve seen a microcosm of this myself this year in tier-2 junior A, where most teams have a small number of 16 and 17 year olds and a lot of 18, 19 and 20 year olds.

Now I know where the saying “a man among boys” comes from.

A 20-year-old – whether a hockey player or fry cook – has a swagger, a life experience, a maturity that the 16 or 17 year old doesn’t. (Did I mention the rookie party?)

I have a kid who is barely 17, but stands 6-4 and 202 pounds and can squat lift 500 pounds. And while lots of his older teammates don’t have his physical gifts, as a rookie he doesn’t have their game or life experience and it shows.

Put it this way – if you have a 16 year old daughter, would you be thrilled if she was dating a 20 year old? Exactly.

There are always exceptions, but read more here on size matters.

- - -

I know we haven’t had Halloween yet but I have finalized my Christmas list.

Thanks to loyal reader Deb for tipping me to this. I may never get off the sofa again once I have my beer-throwing fridge.

Click below and roll the tape! It takes two minutes, but if you love beer it's worth it.

 

 

 

Oct 19, 2010

Sorry for the absence – too many things going on in our real world. One way or another I expect to get back to something like a routine by early November.

For now, it’s catch as catch can.

- - -

Last night Laura emailed me (actually, she Blackberry pinned me, for those of you who use those things) from a far-flung corner of Ontario where she was at a speaking engagement and asked me “how are things there?”

I was sitting in a cold rink with the laptop open – ultimately fruitless, as my fingers started going numb – but I started counting backwards (as best I could, I get confused when I reach double digits) and selfishly lamented that as far as I could tell, things were good, as long as you considered that last night made either eight of nine, or nine of 10 of the last nights were spent in a rink.

I like hockey as much as the next guy, but sometimes you need a night to just curl up in a ball in the fetal position and shake.

I think I’ll do that tonight.

I was asleep when Laura got home. She was asleep when I left.

Rinse, repeat. It’s just that time of year.

- - -

23 years ago today was Black Monday. We had been married less than 48 hours and were riding the subway in Boston en route to Arizona (there’s no “Phoenix” stop on the Boston LRT just past Harvard Square – we were killing a few hours during a layover at Logan.

Anyway, it was an interesting day.

- - -

A highlight of the past weekend was the 90 minutes I got to spend with the tyke Blackhawks.

They rolled to another win, obviously benefiting from the wisdom and insight of a veteran bench staff.

Ha! As if.

Because these games are considered pre-season exhibition, we haven’t worried about who plays centre or defence. We just send out the next five guys on the bench (carefully tracking numbers of course to make sure there are no line jumpers!) and tell them to have fun.

That last bit of instruction is a tad redundant. Telling tyke hockey players to have fun is like telling Rob Burton to go shake some hands. It’s just going to happen.

After the game we had a great meeting with the parents and talked about our coaching philosophy (it’s all about having fun), our plans for the season (have fun) and tried to explain some of the mysteries of the hockey universe like team balancing, fixed playing structure and bowling parties.

We have a great bunch of parents, all supportive of the goals.

We have a dreaded 5p practice tonight – I’ve given fair warning that my attendance is unlikely, but Coach Dave will be there this week and I’ll be there Saturday.

Go Hawks!

- - -

Older son Pad had three games in three nights on the weekend and given the way these guys punish one another on the ice, he was very happy to see the sofa on Sunday night when we got back from Newmarket.

I dropped him off at home and immediately took Chris to practice at Kinoak.

Friday night was spent in Markham, with a junior A home game sandwiched in between.

The weekend was a grind against three good teams. There’s no other way to describe it.

One casualty of Pad’s schedule is that one of us has to miss a lot of Chris’s games and that’s probably going to be me.

Chris is playing bantam HL white after a season up in red and while he was disappointed to move out of the “hitting” division, he’s not the sort of guy who dwells on things and he’s off and having a blast with his new team, which has a number of guys he’s played with before.

After his team’s pre-season exhibition game and their first regular game he’s notched a pair of goals so far, and there’s nothing like goals to make a guy smile.

It made me smile, too, and I wasn’t even there for one of the games.

- - -

The Leafs lost in OT to the Islanders last night, but so far as I can tell no one twisted an ankle jumping off the bandwagon.

Still undefeated in regulation time, right?

Right??

Come on! Get with the program.

Read more about John Tavares spoiling the party here.

- - -

Given the day in front of me and the boorish lout next to me who clearly doesn’t understand the GO train morning protocol of “shut up” I’m going to bail out on the blog here.

But before I do, a link from a loyal reader on – what else? – the Leafs and their inevitable march toward immortality.

This was written before last night’s loss, so keep that in mind while appreciating the tongue-in-cheek brilliance of the words. Click here.

I’ll be back . . .

 

Oct 14, 2010

The Leafs won again last night.

Look, we’re all scared. It’s not just you. But it’s during times like these when we have to be brave together and not fear what could happen next.

In case you’ve been under a rock, you can read about last night’s game here.

And I just have to love whoever it is at the Globe who has the great sense of humour and is keeping the “Leafs undefeated” thing going.

If you don’t live here, and if you are not a life-long Leaf fan, then you can’t relate to any of this.

But if the Leafs win tomorrow night in New York the city may well be set ablaze.

Never mind that there will still be 78 games left to play.

Mere details, people. Mere details.

We like to get out in front on our rioting.

From today’s front page of the Globe:

 

- - -

The Chilean miners are all safe. Praise be for that.

It’s a remarkably happy story populated with real people – genuine characters who no sooner could have imagined fate thrusting them to the top of the global news agenda any more than they could imagine going to the moon.

Among them, my new hero is Pablo Rojas Villacorta, a 45 year old miner who must now feel like he is immortal.

Why?

Well, he was brave enough to emerge from the mine and declare that he wanted spaghetti with sauce – the way his mother makes it, not the way his wife makes it.

I think you need uncommon bravery and composure to endure what this group endured.

To publically favour your mom’s cooking over your wife’s?

Maybe he should head back down to the cave.

Meet more of the personalities behind the headlines here.

- - -

I’ve got about 100 meetings today, plus a Tyke practice tonight followed by the Ontario university fair at Abbey Park.

So, I gotta go for now.

Later.

 

Oct 13, 2010

I’m kicking at the blogosphere until it bleeds words, as Bruce Cockburn might have said.

Wow.

Is that tortured prose or what?

Sorry.

- - -

When we turned in last night the rescue workers in Chile were just getting ready to remove the first miner from that mine after more than two months.

This story is so off-the-chart remarkable that it leaves one at a total loss for words.

As a younger guy I covered more than my share of disasters. It comes with the turf. Few of them end well – that’s why they’re called disasters.

One that did, though, was the sinking of the Rowan Gorilla offshore drilling rig in December 1988 (is it just me, or am I old?)

That rig was being towed from Halifax to the West Indies (I think) during the worst time of year to do anything in the North Atlantic and – guess what ? – a bad storm came up, pounded the rig, eventually sank the thing and forced the small crew into a life capsule.

Miraculously, everyone survived that incident and it was one of the first experiences I ever had in this business writing about people who, in all likelihood, could just have easily perished.

It was a pretty emotional scene at the hospital in Halifax as families reunited barely a week before Christmas, but it was nothing compared to what’s going on in Chile.

I made both my boys take note of what was happening under the floodlights on the bottom side of the planet last night. One was quite keenly aware of it, the other had never heard of the disaster.

He has now.

What a great story.

- - -

Another form of a great story is the news that a Canada-wide warrant will be issued for serial sex predator Graham James.

James is the convicted pedophile who abused young hockey players in his care, including NHLers Sheldon Kennedy and Theo Fleury, among others who’s place in this story should not be diminished because they didn’t play in the NHL.

James was last known to be in Mexico, so it seems unlikely that he will voluntarily come to Canada to face trial.

And while there’s little comfort for the victims in knowing that this guy is living in tropical land doing who knows what, at least there has to be satisfaction in knowing their stories and their ordeal is being taken seriously here.

I am proud of the work CP has done on this story, which is mostly a credit to someone who has refused to shut up and trusted us with key information. People like that change laws and change the world.

For me, my involvement with this story has put in sharp focus the awesome responsibility people in minor hockey have to protect the kids and make their participation in every practice and game the highlights of their week.

Read more here.

- - -

The Leafs play Pittsburgh tonight and a win would pretty much sweep the Chilean miners off the front pages of the newspapers here.

I’m not counting on that.

But tonight should be a decent test of what’s real and what’s a mirage, vis-à-vis the Leafs.

- - -

Regular readers – some of you have been with this blog practically since Day 1 – are well familiar with the comings and goings of my boys. They have always been different sides of the same coin – rep and house league, driven and relaxed, etc., with a passion for hockey at the core.

For both it started with a love of the game that they came by honestly, just as I did before them. Their mother learned to love the game.

When the boys started out and still wore pyjamas with feet in them, I’d read them a story at bed time and we’d talk about hockey and look at the pictures on the walls of their rooms – Tucker, Domi, Lindros, Sundin, Clark, Koivu and others.

And there were always four little words tagged onto the end of a discussion about having fun and doing your best.

“You just never know.”

As their careers in minor hockey spun in different orbits, those words have remained a constant. Whether preparing for a house league championship game, or showing up as a rookie at a major junior training camp, I always said “have fun, work hard. You just never know.”

There have been successes and failures, big wins and terrible losses.

But as a dad, I always believed that there’s more to being a hockey player or a rugby player or a lacrosse player or a journalist that what happens on the ice, or the field, or during an interview.

I’ve always felt that how you prepare for anything, how you conduct yourself, will be a big factor in whether you succeed, and whether other people get interested in you as a person.

And with that in mind I was very interested to read a story in the Star earlier this month (sorry, I’m just getting around to this one now) the essence of which is, “you just never know.”

I hope all the parents on the Tyke hockey team I help out with remember that and remind those guys that it’s okay to dream big.

And maybe some of those guys with the pictures of Deon Phaneuf and Thomas Kaberle and Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby on their walls will make an effort to add Tim Brent too.

The first four guys on that list are household names in hockey-mad southern Ontario.

But it’s hard to imagine after reading this that anyone’s family could be prouder than Brent’s. Read more here.

Have fun, work hard.

You just never know.

 

Oct 12, 2010

I spent too much time driving on the weekend to actually produce anything interesting to tell you about here. I saw some hockey in between the driving, including watching the older son drop the gloves for the first time at this new level (his mom says she was glad to miss it).

For those scoring at home, this tilt was a decisive win for the guys in stripes, who were quick to step in and stop things before anything much happened, much to the displeasure of both benches and a couple hundred fans.

The participants seemed resigned to their fate and looked at each other and shrugged before heading off to the box.

- - -

Meanwhile, the Tyke Blackhawks won on Saturday without me behind the bench. Cause and effect maybe?

- - -

Pad survived his team’s rookie initiation party on Saturday night – I think it was tougher on me than him because I had to drive deep into the heart of Toronto to retrieve him in the early hours of Sunday.

As a parent you are always inclined to worry about things like this – and as a rookie on a junior hockey team we honestly had no idea what the veterans would do to him and the others. I just assumed it would not be good.

It would seem everyone exercised some restraint and proceedings, which I won’t review because I don’t have a lot of details, were more silly and comedic than I expected or worried about.

His hair is the same colour and still attached to his head. His eyebrows are still intact. No piercings, tattoos or other signs of maiming.

And when I picked him up he was sober and happy, which made two of us in that state.

I’m glad that particular hurdle is behind us.

- - -

Chris didn’t get to play this weekend -- a massive Oakville Hornet’s tournament took over much of the weekend ice at 16 Mile Arenas, so he happily ate a lot in between bouts of digitally killing all manner of creatures and beings on the xBox and PS3 etc etc.

Because Sunday was a total “down day” on the weekend (the only down day, actually) that’s when we had our turkey dinner.

Which meant last night we had a great meal of hot turkey sandwiches and fries.

As much as we all love the big turkey dinner with all the trimmings, is there anything better than a hot turkey sandwich and fries?

- - -

The Leafs have already won two games in October, which is more than they could say at this point last year.

While I don’t think beating Ottawa and Montreal is a litmus test for reality, it sure beats losing. Ottawa looked simply awful on Saturday night, so that was a nice gift.

I’ve probably never mentioned it before, but I don’t care for the Senators.

Catch up on your post-weekend Leafs reading here.

- - -

There was a time when we let the kids eat almost weekly at McDonalds.

Chalk it up to bad parenting, laziness, or succumbing to pressure but it was an easy solution on a busy Saturday or Sunday.

When they were little (which is getting harder and harder to remember) they would have Happy Meals, complete with the little toy promoting whatever movie of the day had just been released.

We’re not idiots. We knew that eating McDonalds food wasn’t a great idea. And we really didn’t need any more Toy Story action figures. But, we bought the stuff anyway, even though we wondered what was really in it.

McDonalds makes only a rare appearance in the house now.

But we’re still wondering what’s in it, and we’re not alone.

A New York artist bought a happy meal and stuck it on a shelf.

Six months ago.

The meal has been photographed every day for six months and shows no sign of decomposing. No sign of mold. No sign of  . . . anything.

It stopped emitting an odour after a couple days. In the weeks since, the only discernible change in the food has been that it’s become as hard as a rock.

Assuming that you’ve already eaten, you can read the story and see the pictures here.

But there’s really nothing off-putting about the story or photos.

It just looks like a Happy Meal.

Are you Lovin’ It ™ ?

 

Oct 8, 2010

Weren’t we just marking Labour Day, like, two weeks ago? Sheesh.

Where is the time going?

- - -

I didn’t get to see one second of the Leaf game last night as I was busy watching my kid’s team lose in overtime.

But I loved the front of the Globe sports section this morning, with the clearly tongue-in-cheek headline over the photo:

 

If you’ll recall the way the team started last season, this is major progress.

- - -

Incredibly I didn’t mention yesterday Roy Halladay’s heroic playoff debut, where he pitching just the second no-hit post-season game in the history of Major League ball.

It was all people were talking about yesterday on the sports call in shows, on the TV panels and even David Letterman gushed about the former Jays ace.

Few guys work as hard as Halladay does to get every bit out of his natural talent, so it’s great to see a nice guy do well.

Read more here.

- - -

On the local news front, the Ontario government announced on Thursday that there won’t be a gas-fired electric generation plant in southeast Oakville after all.

I wish I could say this makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, but it doesn’t. I think we’re all hypocrites. Some bigger than others, but all to some degree for sure.

I think it’s a clear example of the moneyed class executing a perfect NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) three-pointer (with a swish!); I think it’s a government looking to save a seat.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m not at all in favour of a gas generator in the town. It was world-class dumb from the get-go and they picked the wrong throats to try and jam it down.

But I’m also enough of a hypocrite to say I like my creature comforts and I know the juice to fire those toys has to come from somewhere. I’m also not in favour of brown outs, or black outs, or leaving the cover on my home air conditioning unit all summer because I can’t use it.

I don't want to set my air conditioner to 27.

Just like gasoline and cars we have an addiction to electricity. And, to quote Mr. T, I pity the fool at OPG when southeast Oakville goes dark and someone’s stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator can’t keep the beef tenderloin chilled until they fire up the 48,000 BTU gas barbeque and pump enough CO2 into the lower atmosphere to punch their own personal hole in the Colombia Ice Field.

Somewhere, Al Gore just clutched his chest.

I’ll say it again. We are all such hypocrites.

Southeast Oakville – and southwest, and northeast, and northwest, and central– is going to continue to need more electricity (especially where people buy small, old houses and bulldoze them to built hideous, giant boxes filled with power-consuming toys.)

And, yep, my household is as bad as the next one, for the record.

That power is going to have to come from somewhere, possibly also combined with all of us being told to stop whining and use less power. (That sound you heard was me dropping to my knees and doubling over with laughter.)

Like that will happen.

How many people in Oakville do you think disconnected their air conditioners to underline their opposition to the generator? What about abandoning their electric leaf blowers? Saunas? Pool heaters? 55-inch flat screen TVs? Alarm system? Garage door openers? Beer fridge (shudder!)

Exactly. We’re not just hypocrites. We’re spoiled hypocrites.

So new transmission lines will be built to pipe in that power from some less affluent and powerful rural area where a power station will eventually be built. When you add demand for electricity, you have to add generating capacity. Or you get brown outs and black outs. It’s that simple.

So, maybe they’ll expropriate a piece of land near you or me for a transmission tower – and coveted green space will get trampled and the breeding ground of the rare single-breasted red-crested warbling lower Great Lakes maple finch will be disturbed or destroyed.

I can see the lawn signs now. And a candlelight vigil. A fundraiser at the Oakville Club! To arms!

Wait! Don’t forget the protests about the electromagnetic dangers of hydro towers!

Quick. More lawn signs! (Recyclable please!!)

Another option would be to quadruple the price of electricity to force people to conserve. A bit harsh, but it wouldn't bother the rich folks, right? All in favour, say "aye."

Nothing was won or solved with this decision. It just created new problems and it would be really naïve to think those aren’t ours too. So, what are we doing about those?

Better put Erin Brockovich on speed dial. You’re gonna need her again.

- - -

I won't even go into what this weekend is like for me/us. A lot of hockey and Chris isn't even playing.

Drive carefully this weekend. The daylight hours are shrinking away.

Enjoy the games.

Hug the kids.

 

Oct 7, 2010

We managed to get the birthday ritual done – it was a complicated piece of schedule coordination but Chris was happy and that was all that mattered.

Onward toward the weekend.

- - -

One of the educational things for me about staying involved with minor hockey at the younger ages is that it’s a reminder of how much the new folks just entering the system don’t know. That’s not a criticism. There are just some things that are learned along the way.

Our Tyke team’s co-coach (a similar grey beard) wrote a note this week to the other Tyke coaches that was really good – covering team budgets, tournaments, exhibition games, team social events, and a bunch of other little things that seem self evident to us, but only because we’ve been doing this so long. It just impressed me because of the amount of useful information it transferred efficiently.

Coaches here all this stuff at MOHA meetings with conveners. But Dave’s note added context that might not be readily apparent.

For example, parents of tykes were in IP last year. I think we asked for an extra $25 a kid last year to cover putting names on jerseys and a bowling party.

This year, the prospect of tournaments, extra ice, exhibition games, etc., can push that number way higher (within association guidelines of course) and smart coaches will manage expectations appropriately (both their own and the parents’, because they’re not always the same.)

The information transfer from old dogs to new dogs is important. Inevitably there will be house league coaches who are keener, better at fund raising, and more focussed on global hockey domination (as it was when I coached in Tyke the first time – remember, this is my third pass through the mystic portal of Tyke) and there will be others who are a little more laid back.

There’s no ‘right approach.”

I always thought that the most important thing was to make sure the kids had fun, and to make sure they got as much time on the ice as was reasonable – weighing time, budgets and parental expectations.

Here’s a free tip. Tomorrow is a PD day for Halton schools. If I had a kid playing tyke and I wanted extra ice, I’d make sure my kid got to one (or more) of the FREE public skating sessions being sponsored around Oakville tomorrow by RBC.

Hockey is all about the skating and you don’t have to have a stick in your hand to learn it.

Free ice is free ice.

Take your kid and at least one other to the rink. Turn them loose. Watch what happens next (it’s called fun.)

Plus, their skating will get better.

Read more here about the free ice time. And buy an old coach a hot chocolate – if you can catch him!!

- - -

Dave writes good notes.

One of the parents on our tyke team pulled me aside last weekend.

In the pre-season note to our parents, Dave noted that he and I have been involved in minor hockey almost since ice was invented (it just feels like that.)

We both have 1993 and 1996 sons and between the two of us we have been involved multiple times in Initiation Program, white house league, red house league, AE, A, AA and AAA and now junior A, as well as a peek through the window of major junior. Not to mention some wild experiences with lacrosse and rugby, too.

This particular dad asked me, was that all true? Did we really experience all of that with our kids – white house league to junior etc.? Is it OK to wonder if that could happen for kids on this team?

I said, you bet.

I told him the one thing for sure about the boys on the ice in front of us was that their hockey careers weren’t going to be defined by anything they do in tyke or novice or atom. Relax. Enjoy the ride. Have fun.

Some may be career house leaguers because they’ll like basketball or guitar or lacrosse more.

Some may not aspire to rep until peewee or bantam – the legendary late bloomer with which I am familiar.

And some may end up wearing Ranger blue very soon and quit hockey at Grade 10. There’s no magic bullet.

They’re kids -- like the sports store slogan says – just add ice.

One other thing is true – it goes by very, very fast.

Savour it.

- - -

A bit of a heavier topic now.

Every now and then you hear about tragic circumstances involving a young athlete.

The death two years ago of Windsor Spitfires captain Mickey Renaud from an undiagnosed, previously existing heart condition stunned the hockey world.

Sadly, while it’s rare it still happens too often.

Alex Corrance was a talented young Oakville hockey player who died during a rep game under similar circumstances on Boxing Day 2006. His family and friends play a ball hockey tournament every spring in his memory to raise funds for the foundation that bears his name. Read more on that here.

And just last week, a junior hockey player from Cambridge, ON, died from complications arising from an undiagnosed liver problem that was complicated by his high-protein diet.

You can read about that case here. Ben Pearson was only 20 and as usual, it’s tough to look at the photo without seeing the faces of the mob of teens one of my guys skates with now: loud, laughing and immortal, bouncing into the rink like a bunch of young bears.

With all of that in mind, the Globe features an interesting item today on how a relatively simple test – an ECG – can turn up heart abnormalities in otherwise healthy young people that would go undetected forever, or, until it’s too late.

It’s a sobering read and worth your time if you have an aspiring athlete in your house.

An ECG is not routine for healthy young people. But in this day and age, you can get an ECG at a private clinic for about $50. It takes about five minutes and is completely painless.

In the context of $300 hockey sticks and $2500 (or more) rep team assessments and $600 skates, it’s something to consider asking your GP or paediatrician about.

Just sayin’.

 

Oct 6, 2010

Not that I ever am actually interesting, but I don’t have a lot to offer today.

But, I have to say Happy Birthday to Chris, who is 14 now and hovering over his mother at about 6 foot 1 inch.

He’s one of the funniest guys I know and can recite entire episodes of The Simpsons off by heart. If we could channel that talent for homework I might win a Nobel Prize for parenting, but don’t hold your breath.

On the night he was born I drove around on my way home looking for takeout food because I was starving. It was a Sunday night/Monday morning and everything was closed.

One of the coolest things about Chris is that he’s totally his own guy. He feels no pressure or compunction to be version 2.0 of his older brother. Nor should he. He has an enormous heart.

Chris Version 1.0 is just fine.

Happy Birthday.

- - -

For the first time in a few years I won’t be participating in a hockey pool, which is too bad for me but good for everyone else because I can say, with some modesty, my track record in these things is quite good.

But the reason I raise hockey pools is that anyone who has ever been in one knows that there are few spectacles in life as boring as paunchy guys in track suits gathered (usually) in a bar with reams of data and binders conducting a hockey pool draft.

Standing inside the cold part of Kinoak Arena for two hours in January listening to that dad from the other team who doesn’t know anything about hockey but thinks yelling louder will help feels like a better use of time.

This is why, I guess, that TSN decided last night to televise the pool conducted by its panel of experts. I guess the All-Europe Hang Gliding Championships weren’t available or they couldn’t get the rights to Youngblood or something.

Televised coverage of a hockey pool? Come on.

You can read more about it here if you want.

- - -

Luckily the MLB divisional playoffs start tonight, so there will be something to watch on TV for those of you not otherwise driving around to fetch kids at practice. Like me.

Roy Halladay finally gets to pitch a post season game tonight, starting for the Phillies at home to Cincinnati.

He’ll win too, as much as it pains me to say it. The Reds were the team I rooted for as a kid – the Big Red Machine of Morgan, Rose, Perez, Bench, Foster, Conception, Geronimo, and Ken Griffey Sr. They won 108 games in 1975, taking their division by 20 games over the Dodgers and went on to win – the with sentimental exceptions of 1992 and 1993 – the most exciting World Series I saw in my lifetime over Boston in seven games.

Anyway, back to Roy. I hope he wins it all. The guy is a class act.

I like the Phillies over the Reds.

Giants over Atlanta.

Tampa over Texas.

Yankees over Twins.

Click here to read more about Halladay’s swell adventure.

 

Oct 5, 2010

Today is the day before Chris’s birthday – Chris’s Birthday Eve, we call it – which means a couple of things.

For example, I know that tomorrow will be the 14th anniversary of Tiger Woods’ first win as a pro golfer. (I missed that telecast. I was busy dispensing crushed ice in a little cup.)

And tonight we’ll hand the stockings by the chimney with care before going to bed. No wait. That’s something else.

Also, I know that it means I’m hoping his mother has a plan for his birthday. We’ve actually spent quite a bit of time discussing The Event, but I have no idea as to what we’re getting him or how we’re going to mark the day. Usually we’d go to The Keg, come home for cake, and act silly. But Chris has hockey tonight and Pad has a practice tomorrow night and a game Thursday night and . . . well, it’s complicated.

But Chris should know that we’ve hired a team of consultants to come up with a solution.

- - -

Apparently this month is a rare one because it has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays. Al Gore’s Interwebs thingy says this happens only once every 823 years, which means I will be pushing towards 900 when it happens again and still wondering when Brett Farve will retire.

But it also could mean that this in the one month in a millennium that the Leafs will have a strong start to the season.

Right?

Come on. Work with me.

Or, read here about how the Leafs have invested in tablet computers on the bench to help the coaching staff pinpoint in real time tangible examples of Leaf suckage.

- - -

Imagine getting on your bathroom scales and finding out you weigh more than you thought you did.

Yeah, the whole notion is pretty far-fetched, I admit.

But a version of this played out at the Commonwealth Games in India when boxers showing up for the mandatory weigh-in found they were too heavy.

What they didn’t know was that it was the scales that had a problem, not them.

But panicked competitors starting running around in 30-degree heat and jumping into the sauna trying to lose weight.

These competitors – who are trained to hurt people with their hands – were not impressed when the hardware problem was identified.

There’s a word for these games. Two words, actually. The first one is “cluster.”

Think hard. There’ll be a quiz.

In the meantime, read more here.

- - -

Oakville hockey dad, trainer, team sponsor, baker and all-around good guy John Ziemba was on the cover of last weekend’s Oakville Beaver. John’s Black Forest Pastry Shop is running a mayoralty poll based on cupcake sales. If you like a particular candidate, then you buy a cupcake bearing their image to support him or her.

So far Ann Mulvale’s supporters were out-consuming incumbent Rob Burton’s supporters – but as leading master baker John points out, the Mulvale HQ is just down the street.

You can read more and see John’s smiling face here.

I don’t care if you vote but you should support John. He makes great desserts and he never says a bad word about anyone. Except Brian.

You can visit his web site here.

- - -

Oakville has a bunch of nice things about living here, aside from the pastry shop. (John has never given me a cupcake, so don't think for a second he's paying for all this free promotion.)

Oakville has a spiffy new rink.

It has (generally) safe streets, many of which are leafy and tree-lined, except north of Dundas where developers seem to prefer removing almost anything that shows potential to sprout a leaf.

And it has a fire department that will show up and fight a fire if you call them.

That last point may seem like a given.

Well, not if you live in Obion County, TN. Home owners there were told they had to pay a $75 fee if they want fire protection. If you don't pay the fee, the fire department doesn't have to respond.

So, as they say in Cape Breton, Buddy decides to save $75 and not pay the fee.

Care to take a wild, scream-at-the-moon guess at what happens next?

Click here for the rest of the story.

Yeah, it actually happened.

 

Oct 4, 2010

The games.

It’s all about the games.

As a cub reporter in Halifax a million years ago I interviewed Howie Meeker when he was to Hockey Night in Canada what Don Cherry is now.

He told me:

“As a coach, the practices belong to me. And God help you if you’re not ready to work at practice. But the games? The games belong to the kids. Always remember that.”

I’ve tried.

- - -

The new-look Globe had an interesting pair of stories on the weekend on Hockey Night in Canada, with the overall premise being that the show has lost its way in recent years and is more about the personalities – mostly Grapes – than the hockey games.

It also suggested that other shows – like TSN’s pre-game show – are eating its lunch.

I’d blithely say that it’s interesting . . . except to most people, I don’t think it is.

People tune into HNIC for the games first, and then for Don Cherry.

And in that regard, the articles did frame an interesting question – what happens when Cherry packs it in? There’s no obvious successor and even attempting to replace him could be disastrous. Cherry is a national institution -- not whether you agree with him or like him, but entirely because you might not. That’s the point.

You can read the Globe articles here and here.

- - -

I enjoyed a rare triple of sorts on the weekend.

On Friday night, Chris’s bantam house league team played an exhibition game – their first match of the season as a team – and the boys rolled to an entertaining 11-6 win at Glen Abbey.

Entertaining? How can a game with that many goals NOT be entertaining? Chris even scored one of them!

I felt bad for the goalies because the evening was long on attack and short on defend, but the boys all had fun.

I was recruited into gate-swinging duty on short notice and I was also really impressed with what a nice bunch of kids they are.

Stage Two of the Triple was Saturday morning at Kinoak, when the Tyke red Blackhawks built up a 4-1 lead and then hung on to win 4-3 over a team to be named soon.

The stars of this one were the goalies at both ends – both players were more athletic than a lot of more seasoned hockey players I know.

Big time fun.

And then Saturday night Pad’s junior squad overcame a couple of two-goal deficits and brain cramps for a win.

So three wins for this hockey fan in 24 hours (more or less.)

I’ll take that!

- - -

I really like the MOHA 50th anniversary shoulder patch on all the Oakville jerseys this year.

I raised the 50th anniversary question almost exactly a year ago and the association did a nice job building a special web site which you can visit here, plus holding a good downtown event, plus the shoulder patches for the players.

The steps highlight the association’s history and put a reminder of the heritage each player carries forward into every game right on their shirt.

Well done.

- - -

The games. Like I said at the start, it’s about the games.

Tyke. Bantam. Junior A.

It doesn’t really matter – boys (and some girls) will be boys.

They were all excited to be at the rink. They all wanted to be on the ice. They all wanted to impress the coaches and the parents and each other.

They all wanted to have fun and play.

Last weekend I walked into our family room and Pad was watching a documentary on TSN called The Boys of Fall, about football players.

It was very well done and it sucked me right in.

There was a clip of legendary quarterback Brett Farve was talking about the players – whatever their age.

Basically he said that players, when they’re playing the game, think they are going to play forever (and clearly he does!)

And of course, he made the point that that’s just not true.

 

“When you're playing, you think you're gonna play forever. I mean, you really do, and, you know, you're gonna look back, and these are -- this is gonna be the greatest time of your life. These are gonna be the greatest days of your life. And if that's true, then act like it. You know, make a memory. Make a memory and enjoy it.”

 

Words to tape to a locker room wall.

 

“Make a memory and enjoy it.”

 

Oct 1, 2010

Not all the action at minor hockey evaluations happens on the ice. As an on-ice evaluator, a convener, a Sherpa for entire divisions of evaluations, and as a parent, I’ve seen and dealt with more than one crisis off the ice during evaluation weekend.

And any parent with more than one child knows the challenges that come with getting one kid through the skating while keeping the other entertained. Or, uninjured.

So with all that in mind, this letter in Oakville Today jumped off the page at us as a newbie Timbit hockey parent flying solo found himself faced with an injured child off the ice while his other son was excitedly going through the paces at River Oaks as a new Timbit prospect.

Luckily for the family in question, lots of folks stepped up – as is invariably the case – to help the family through the ordeal.

The elder son is still enjoying hockey.

The younger son is apparently no worse for wear after having stitches applied to a gash in his ear.

And the family is grateful to all who helped out.

Welcome to minor hockey!

- - -

Still with the local press, Chris’s favourite story of the week is a bit predictable.

As the resident techno-geek, Chris has never seen a shiny, whirling object that he wasn’t immediately fascinated by and equally, didn’t immediately inquire as to whether it was equipped with wifi and 3G capability.

So naturally Chris enjoyed hearing that 105 laptops were stolen from Future Shop in a brazen heist.

Don’t get me wrong – he wasn’t happy that someone made off with $70,000 in goods that weren’t theirs.

No, he was entertained by the fact that they cut a hole in the roof of the Chapters store next door to get into the building and then cut through the wall. And by the fact that the thieves didn’t steal a single book.

Chris has become a fairly avid reader, but his fascination of the written word doesn’t come close to his love of technology.

Read more here.

- - -

I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to travel the new and improved QEW through Stand Still Alley – Ford Drive to Bronte or even Burloak. Legend has it that there are entire families who have raised their kids in immobile minvans perpetually stuck in traffic en route to some western exit on the QEW.

Well, hats off to the traffic engineers because so far, there’s a big improvement.

What feels like nearly a decade of non-stop construction on the highway is finally paying off.

The most notable change I’ve seen is that the westbound access lane to the QEW from Trafalgar now runs all the way to Dorval as a separate lane. So people wanting to get off the west-bound QEW can migrate to the far right earlier, which frees up considerable pavement for everyone else.

The change in traffic flow is amazing. The fact that traffic actually moves is amazing.

Also, the HOV lanes (apparently this means “high occupancy vehicle” not “hockey only vehicle”) both east and west appear on the verge of opening, and that will improve things further.

So this is all good news to people who regularly make the BTNL express trip from Glen Abbey.

As locals know, the only good time to get on the QEW at Dorval is Christmas morning between 3a and 4a. So maybe this a positive thing for us?

- - -

A full agenda of hockey for us on this first weekend of October.

Bantam house league exhibition game tonight, Tyke tomorrow morning, junior A tomorrow night, more bantam on Sunday, plus Chris resumes timekeeping duties on Saturday too.

Somewhere in there the new QEW is destined to get a big workout.

Drive safely and don’t get too distracted by the fall colours, which have really exploded in the last couple of days.

As always, hug the kids.

 

 

 

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