Final skate with ashes a tribute to hockey player

Family and friends provided a fitting, final tribute to a special person - and talented hockey player - who lost her battle with cancer. They took her cremated remains for a final skate. CBC has the story.
Funerals should reflect the person and provide comfort and reflection for family and friends. Mandi Schwartz's family did it right.

Hockey gear being collected for kids in Israel

For those in the Toronto area who have surplus or outgrown hockey gear, here's a chance to be generous.
Toronto Sun sports writer Steve Simmons tweets that stuff in good condition is being collected at 4600 Bathurst St., Toronto, on Sunday, April 10, from 10 am to 3 pm. Equipment collected is being sent to kids in Israel.
Needless to say it should be washed or submerged in Febreeze before being donated. Think of the poor person in Israel who has to open the shipping container.
For blog readers not in Toronto, I'd suggest hanging on to your outgrown gear and donating it to Goodwill next September as we ramp up for another minor hockey season. Let's get all the kids who want to play in the game.

Minor hockey no cheap trick

The Toronto Sun is reporting a poll that points out how much parents are paying for hockey. But spending $1000 a season seems a little on the light side based on my experience. A "grand" season would be playing in a local or house league with one tournament and used equipment.
This season, our midget started with tryout fees, a league upcharge which totalled about $700. Then added was a team levy of $1000 for tournaments and other expenses. Add to that the cost of travel to school night league games and travel and overnight accommodation at tournaments ... and you've got yourself quite a pastime.
The only break you get once your son or daughter reaches midget age is that they stop outgrowing their equipment. Buying skates every year when they are younger gets onerous. Teenagers, however, are hard on sticks and nothing short of a stylish composite at $100 a pop will do - never mind that most of them can't really get the flex advantage working for them.
Is it worth it? Well, duh, it's minor hockey! No better way to blow the family budget.

RCMP investigate head shot

This sort of thing should never happen, especially in a non-contact peewee tournament. But a hit to the head left a 12-year-old boy in New Brunswick convulsing on the ice and led to police investigating it as an assault.
William Theriault is recovering, but suffers headaches and has little ability to concentrate, CBC reports.
Minor hockey organizations can brace for more police invovlement - or civil lawsuits - until such time as hits to the head are taken more seriously. Deliberate contact to the head has no part in minor hockey and happens as the result of poor coaching, questionable sportsmanship and can accelerate during the course of a game due to soft officiating.
Parents, for the most part, want hits to the head eliminated from the sport. If it doesn't happen, they'll start taking action themselves by choosing other sports and activities for their kids.

Life saved at arena

Kids usually don't have to worry about this, but those hanging on to the minor hockey dream do. Here's how a life was saved at a Sunday night huff and puff game in Dundas, Ont.,, as posted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Penguins pay for kids' concussion tests

Kudos to the Pittsburgh Penguins for stepping up by helping local minor hockey monitor concussions.
Fox News reports the NHL team's foundation is funding baseline testing for young players - the same type of testing minor hockey organizations in Ontario have sometimes offered for free.
Of course the Penguins know all about concussions in hockey. The world's best player, Pens captain Sidney Crosby, has been sidelined for months because of a stupid hit that resulted in a concussion.
Still, their concern for kids and captain Crosby doesn't stop the Penguins from employing perhaps the dummest, most reckless player in the NHL. If the Penguins really wanted to make a statement that would lead to some common sense in pro and youth hockey, they'd turf Matt Cooke today.

West London Hawks Midgets at Toronto Avalanche tournament

Enemy of arena toilets

Love this story out of Aylmer, Ont., by London Free Press reporter Deb Van Brenk in which the reason for clogged arena toilets are traced to people flushing skate laces down the toilet.
Not sure what people are thinking and the arena in Aylmer is pretty spiffy, not one of those Toronto downmarket wrecks that might inspire such bad behavior. (Hockey kids do two things: Their play rises to the level of the competition and their dressing room behaviour rises or sinks on the niceness and space of their surroundings.)

No Cinderella ending

Well, so much for Cinderella endings. This final tournament for my son's team will be remembered not for a career-capping trophy, but with a teammate's surgery, crazy penalty calls that thinned out our already sparse bench, and a dicey, winter drive home from Toronto - on April 3!
The boys won all four round-robin games at the Toronto Avalanche tournament, but the third and fourth games proved costly. Game 3 saw a referee influenced into giving one of our most gentlemanly defencemen a two-game suspension for kneeing. Game 4 saw one of our assistant captains hit awkwardly into the boards and breaking and dislocating his wrist. He left the game for a nearby hospital where he was soon in surgery. The same game saw another of our forwards tossed and suspended for a game for reasons not apparent to spectators.
All that left us with 11 skaters for a semifinal game against Espanola, The game was scoreless going into the third when Espanola scored a pretty one. A few minutes later, they added a second that I'm sure our goalie would've loved to have back.
We had a goal in the second called off because the referee thought it was deflected by a high stick.
If the game could've been scored like a boxing match, we might've won as we held the edge in play through most of the game.
And speaking of boxing, that's how the game ended. Espanola's goaltender and one of their skaters taking punches at one of our forwards while the linesmen inexplicably declined to intervene. One said something like, "If they want to fight, it's their choice."
Ah, the drama of minor hockey.

Minor hockey career almost a wrap

This is a bittersweet weekend. After 11 years in minor hockey, it's the last tournament for my older son. Wins and losses, first goals, learning to bodycheck, championships lost and championships won ... it all fades to black after this weekend in Toronto.
This season's team was a good one, but prevented from advancing to the Ontario championship because we were parked in a combined AA-A midget league. The playdowns yielded the predicable results: An excellent AA team from the London Jr. Knights organization is playing for the provincial AA title. And the AA team from Sarnia gets to play for the Ontario A title.
When I entered our team in this week's tournament, I was hoping for great things - to exit minor hockey in a blaze of glory, winning one last tournament against a field of excellent opposition.
But one by one, key players bowed out for one reason or another, from choosing golf instead to hockey fatigue after playing in a high level high school tournament to injuries or school priorities. So we're left with a short-staffed team where the kids will at least get a lot of ice time, if not a trophy.