{"id":64620,"date":"2012-03-05T22:01:12","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T03:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/?p=64620"},"modified":"2012-03-05T22:01:12","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T03:01:12","slug":"hockey-night-at-christie-pits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/05\/hockey-night-at-christie-pits\/","title":{"rendered":"Hockey Night at Christie Pits"},"content":{"rendered":"
He shoots She scores!\u00a0 that\u2019s what we said on the bench all the time! We had skaters of all ages come out to play and even skilled women who showed there \u00a0hockey skills. The local park Christie Pits (Christie and Pool) has\u00a0 baseball diamond, swimming pool, soccer field and basketball courts<\/div>\n
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\u00a0December\u00a0 through February the ice rink is best place to be in town. Men and women and kids come out for pleasure skating and shinny hockey. A time to have fun and enjoy the winter weather.<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s a special and memorable spot for me, because back in 1986 (day\u00a0 the Space Shuttle disaster), I \u00a0had been skating with friend and\u00a0 fallen and badly injured two front teeth. (required severe dental work).<\/div>\n
Fast\u00a0 forward\u00a0 to\u00a0 February 2003 and my brother and I decided to take beginner skating lessons to finally enjoy the sport of hockey the way it\u2019s meant to be played. (excerpt of story is below)<\/div>\n
Had played ball hockey for\u00a0 10 \u00a0years and had won two championship with two teams in two different leagues in the same week. ( experience to share another\u00a0 time!)<\/div>\n
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It\u00a0 had been a few years since I had taken the beginner lessons and felt ready that wanted to continue on my skating journey. Had gone out to play hockey with full equipment with a friend who has indoor shinny game that they play couple time a month up at the north part of the city, had not done very well playing there so needed \u00a0to go back to the hockey basics.<\/div>\n
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Began to participate \u00a0in local indoor family skate(on Sundays)at\u00a0 Bill Bolton arena (Palmerson and Dupont) and began to work on my stamina at the local gym.<\/div>\n
Winter had finally arrived and was excited to start playing hockey more consistently so Christie Pit skating rink was the best place to go play and practice. There were also few other rinks in the neighbourhood that I visited occasionally (Dufferin Grove near Dufferin Mall).<\/div>\n
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It was great pleasure to watch talent skaters would showed their talents night after night. There were spectacular goals, passes and team co-operation.<\/div>\n
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We had a few special nights that were worth remembering. In mid-December the Red-Bull mini cooper car showed up near the rink (the one with the Red bull can on top of the car!) Two young ladies walked down the concourse and entered the room where we get changed, we were not sure\u00a0 what \u00a0they were doing, we figured\u00a0 perhaps \u00a0refilling the pop machines! We could see the two \u00a0City of Toronto workers talking\u00a0 to the ladies (by the way Anderson , Jermaine and John were great in providing pucks an light hearted fun throughout\u00a0 the evening)<\/div>\n
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They ladies exciting the room and headed toward the outside the rink near the where the benches were. The were carrying the cylinder like cooler bags filled with drinks. They asked us \u201cAnyone want\u00a0 some Red bull?\u201d\u00a0 We all said \u201csure\u201d. They started throwing the cans over the fence, which wasn\u2019t the best of idea for a few of the cans! The cans were small so they passed them through the fence, which was better and faster!<\/div>\n
Everyone was happy and full of energy we had a very spirited game after that. I only had half a can and didn\u2019t up sleep until 3:00am (the stuff is full of sugar and caffeine) not a great mixture to take late in the evening.<\/div>\n
As the days and weeks passed I began to find my skating groove and got better and stronger on the skates. Playing in such a high skilled and fast paced game on most nights was the best exercise and environment\u00a0 to learn and play.<\/div>\n
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Leadership and systems also played important part in having an evening\u00a0 that we required participation by everyone to make the skating a success.<\/div>\n
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Someone had to separate all the \u00a0sticks into teams sometimes as many as four teams! Many nights \u00a0line changed system had to be used because we so many players show up. 5 on each side and 12-15 players on the bench.<\/div>\n
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On a few nights we had so many players we had three to four teams in order to get the game started, it was an amazing site to see how everything flowed so easily. Whichever team scored first the losing team would be out and the next team would play.<\/div>\n
There was one special night where it snow so much that we \u00a0used three shovels and clean half the ice so we can play. There was great teamwork\u00a0 in getting it done so we can have a mini game of hockey. Everyone was smiling and enjoying themselves. We still had a very competitive game, as it kept snowing. Even after I left they got the shovel out again and kept shovelling!\u00a0 They were determined to play until 11:00pm (that\u2019s when the lights turn off)<\/div>\n
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It was great 90 days of hockey and made some new friends and learned \u00a0some new moves to apply in my journey of becoming a better skater<\/div>\n
Moral of the story- Go out and learn\u00a0 a new skill and at the same time you will learn more about your own abilities and make new friends along the way<\/div>\n
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Thanks to everyone to make Hockey Night at Christie Pits a great experience.<\/div>\n

Youtube video:\u00a0 Christie pits Skating rink (http:\/\/youtu.be\/GHiqREithkQ<\/a> )<\/h1>\n
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Exerpt from my book \u201cHow to Attract a Mentor for Business life and Success\u201d<\/div>\n

Coach<\/h1>\n
\u00a0The key focus of a coach is they give you \u201cspecific direction\u201d, great example of this is a few years ago my brother and a friend and me decided to learn how to skate. So we signed up for beginner lessons and were very excited about the experience. The months prior to lessons we began to assemble the necessary equipment that we required. Most of the equipment we purchase new from skates to helmets, hockey pants etc.<\/div>\n
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Prior to starting the classes we got dressed up with our hockey equipment to get used to the equipment, we felt like \u201cgladiators\u201d on skates! Very soon the lessons were to begin the excitement was growing as the days got closer.<\/div>\n
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We had assembled at the first practice and got to meet out teammates, we had variety of ages and backgrounds on our team. We had to pick a representative for our team to convene with the league and to my surprise they chose my brother and I provided some computer assistance.<\/div>\n
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As we got on the ice I quickly realized that this was going to be a very challenging experience. I had skated very briefly prior to this and did have many happy memories. The coaches put us through some drills and I and few other participants were lagging behind. Frustration began to set and I was beginning to have doubts. During the second lesson I had a friend come and watch me practice and this where I had a significant experience. I ended up falling on the ice very heavily headfirst and suffered a brief concussion and was in bed ridden for three\u00a0 days. This was a turning point for me. My brother and his friend ended up quitting the three practices, and I also had a choice to make after suffering the concussion.<\/div>\n
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I had a lot reasons to quit but many more to stay I wanted to learn how to skate and was willing to put the effort to do so<\/em>. As I continued to go the lessons the coach\u2019s made this statement. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to learn how to skate coming on day week. You are going to have to go on your own time and practice\u201d. I took his statement very seriously and that\u2019s exactly what I did. I went to indoor family skates on Sunday\u2019s and to open skating arenas in my neighborhood. We got some practice times at the local arena with our teammates and gradually we got better. Got some great tips from my co-worker who had been skating for many years. He told me to practice skating with puck and learn to control it also to overextend my skating to allow the body to feel the extra tension.<\/div>\n
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Began to apply this tips and suggestions and through practice and persistence my skating got better and better. Confidence and self-esteem began to grow and was more balanced on my skates when I was in front of the net. It worked because that\u2019s been I scored most of m goals!<\/div>\n
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Great personality I like to watch is Don Cherry he does a first period rant with Ron McLean on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday Nights. Don Cherry was a coach for many years and share some great examples and highlights of players are persistent and achieved their goals.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He shoots She scores!\u00a0 that\u2019s what we said on the bench all the time! We had skaters of all ages come out to play and even skilled women who showed there \u00a0hockey skills. The local park Christie Pits (Christie and Pool) has\u00a0 baseball diamond, swimming pool, soccer field and basketball…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metroactive.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}