Shawna’s Whimsical Weblog

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Here we were on our red-eye from San Diego to Newark, NJ on Thursday night. Deb Finucane, Heidi Davis and I were all finding our seats very uncomfortable and with VERY little room to recline. It helped that I didn’t sleep much the night before, so I was able to grab a few hours of sleep on the 5 ½ hour flight. Still, we were all wrecked upon our arrival. We still needed to grab our connecting flight to Buffalo and drive the 3 hours up to Barrie. We had ended up renting a mini-van since Laurie Chong and Moriah Alexander would be joining us for the drive.

Deb was quite the trouper, acting as our chauffeur. Laurie Chong was a very efficient navigator and the rest of us acted as amusement for the ride. Laurie’s assistant was dubbed “Greta” a GPS unit we rented from Avis. Crossing the border into Canada was fairly easy, even when a flustered Deb dropped our passports as she was handing them to the customs agent and he was slightly perplexed about how the 5 of us would be coming from California to play in a ball hockey tournament. We stopped at one of the ubiquitous Tim Horton’s for lunch. We would share a giggle over the “TimBits” that were purchased. To be honest, I couldn’t tell where the popularity of the chain came from. Their sandwiches were decent, but I definitely have had better donuts in my time.

After muddling through mid-day Friday traffic in Toronto, we found ourselves at the rink around 2:30 PM. The rinks were empty since the tournament, which would gather 68 teams, started at 3:00 PM. We took a few moments to groggily pass the ball around the court to get a feel for the rink nuances. The surface was a “waffle” grid of plastic tiles. We later found out that they play year round in the rain and snow. Only in lightning conditions do games get called off. The ball definitely moved differently on the surface and rinks were slightly smaller than what we were used to.

Our first game was at 6:00 PM. Instead of driving up to the resort we were staying at (25 minutes away), we decided to stay and watch the 4:00 Ladies B game. Nearly half of our team was from Barrie, and 4 of the ladies in on this “B” team would be playing with on our “A” team, including our goalie Krista. The ladies (Sheila, Dawnn, Elle, Andrea, and Michelle) we would pick up from Barrie were very solid players. The only disappointment was with my ex-boyfriend’s co-worker in Toronto, Erica, who showed up for our first game, but was a no-show for the rest of the tournament. I received an e-mail from her later saying she had come down with Strep throat.

We started rather slowly in our first game, as one might expect from a team that has never played together. In hindsight, I think we could have beaten the Sockets, a local team from Barrie, but it was not be for our exhausted team. We ended up losing 2-0, but still earned a ½ pt for having tied a period 0-0. We did not learn about the head-to-head scoring until after our first game. It was time to go get something to eat and we headed to a local restaurant near the rink with our Barrie teammates. The service was so slow, that Deb, Moriah, and Laurie would take their food to go to be able to go watch the 8:00 women’s game. Heidi, Sabine, Sabine’s boyfriend Paul, and I would head to find the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) and a grocery. We had 9 in the 2 bedroom suite, including our returning defender Wendy from Massachusetts and her 19-yr-old son Jacobus. Some enjoyed 20 Bees wine-in-a-box and Moriah received good-humored ridicule for having brought a trashy romance novel for her reading material. Moriah, Deb, and Laurie ended up sharing one of the king sized beds without problem.
Team Injury status: one strained groin, one dinged forehead (from my suitcase).

We woke up Saturday to be treated to breakfast-ala-Paul, who had been a saucier in NYC. Our suite had it all except salt and pepper (and a roasting pan, which was listed in the room’s FAQ as something that could be retrieved from the front desk if needed). We would later use the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer and jacuzzi tub (though we were disappointed to find the jets didn’t work). After breakfast, we headed to the rink to watch our next opponents play in their 11:00 game. It was raining and we were shocked to find the games were still on. An additional shock was that no one seemed to be phased by the fact that games were being played in this condition. The rain did give us a slight reprieve from the normal stench of cigarette smoke that permeated the area. We were a little dismayed to see the team from St. Catherine’s, called Rectangle Auto Supply, were a far better team than the Sockets. Sabine, Deb, and I headed over to enjoy the resort’s hot tub and pool. Before every game I spent a half-hour warming up my beleaguered groin. There was also time for a yummy home-cooked lunch at a restaurant called Loobie’s near our hotel. We noted that they had 7 desserts on the menu, and we decided we would come back later to get “one for each of us”.

Rectangle Auto Supply ended up beating us 6-1, but the game was actually a lot closer than it sounded. We were all very impressed by the womens’ skill level. They all moved without the ball, passed a lot and had very accurate shots. I could very well see this team contending against a team of men from our league back home on this smaller surface (where speed and break-aways were not as important/common). This second loss landed us in 8th place in the tournament and we would be playing the 9th place team (Dunlop Billiards, another local Barrie team) later that night as a play-in game for the play-offs.
Team Injury status: one strained groin, one dinged forehead, one fat lip, one scraped knee, one girl with strep throat (down to 12 floor players)

We munched on fruit and lunch leftovers under the umbrella of our mini-van’s trunk, since we would be playing in a few hours. The rain had abated for our 4:00 PM game, but it would be sprinkling at the start of of our 7:00 match. The gridded plastic tiles allowed for drainage, but we been warned that a light sprinkle was the slickest of conditions to be playing in. Jason, Michelle Smellie’s husband, had started to coach us in the previous game. Before the third game, he asked if I would play defense. I’m not sure why he decided to put me there, but I decided to make the most of it (even though it would mean I didn’t get to play with my hockey soulmate Deb).

We came out very strong against Dunlop Billiards and the majority of play was in their zone. Most of of the players, sans Deb and Dawnn (whom actually embraced the conditions by sliding on her feet around the court), were playing more hesitantly. Even though we dominated the play, we found ourselves down 2-1 at the end of the second period. Jason had come over to commend me on my defensive skill (he wondered where it had come from which I guess means he thought I was kinda sucky until that point), when Moriah put in the tieing goal in the 3rd period. Overtime went without scoring and we found ourselves in a shootout. Dawnn was our first shooter, and had a beauty of top-corner goal across the grain. It was the only goal we would end up needing as Krista stopped the next 3 shots. Hooray! We were in the play-offs! Unfortunately, this meant we would be playing Rectangle Auto Supply again the next morning, since they had come in first place in the round-robin. We were off to get one of every dessert from Loobie’s.
Team Injury Status: one strained groin, one dinged forehead, one fat lip, one scraped knee, one girl with strep throat, one bruised wenus, one “waffle-butt”, one lacerated labia from an opposing player’s stick blade to the groin (down to 11 floor players)

Loobie’s was closed! Oh no! We ended up heading to the restaurant across the street. John Mousmoules, a gentleman we play with in San Diego, had come out to watch us play that day since he was home visiting family in Toronto and Barrie that week, joined us for a drink while we had dinner. It was after dinner that the injured labia requiring 3 stitches was discovered. One car would head to a nearby hospital and the other car headed back to the hotel to crash.

We finished up our leftover groceries for breakfast, checked out of our hotel and headed to the rink for our 10 AM game. The rain had passed and there was only a little dampness to the ground. We were all exhausted (late night and 3 games of hockeys in hand). Rectangle Auto Supply would quickly prove their dominance against us. I’m not even sure what the final score of the game was (the scoreboard only would show a 5 goal differential, so it sat at 5-0 for the entire game). Tom, the league coordinator in Barrie, told us that the team from St. Catherine’s had won the championship 3 years in a row, minus the last year. He also said no team could really match their fire power in the tournament. We scratched our heads as to why we were slated to play against them in the initial round of play. Tom had coached us in Philadelphia, and had told us he thought we could contend in the A division. In hindsight, I think we should have been in the B division. We all thought that the level play in Philadelphia was more along the lines of play we saw in the B division in Barrie. As it turns out, Rectangle Auto Supply would lose in the finals in the first overtime 1-0 to another local Barrie team, Canada Cartage Beavers. I have to say I’m a little shocked, since I hadn’t seen a team there as good as the Rectangle Auto Supply, and I wonder if any of their players had gotten injured on their way to the final game. They only had 10 floor players to start with.

So-Cal Quakes
Back-row (L-R) Wendy, Sabine, Laurie, Heidi, Michelle, Moriah, Elle, Sheila, Krista, Andrea
Front-row (L-R) Deb, me, Dawnn

Since our flight wasn’t until the next morning, we decided to spend some time at Niagara Falls on our way back to Buffalo. We had a merry ride in the van and arrived at a sunny falls around 4:00 PM. We decided just to view it from the Canadian side since none of use were really up for walking around that much anyways. After snapping a few photos, we stopped in a gift shop for a few souvenirs and headed for the border crossing. The US customs agent was even more stern than the Canadian one. We sat in silence as Deb answered his questions, even though we really had nothing to hide from him.

Our hotel, that Laurie had booked was right next to the airport. It was time for another night of little sleep as we now had to squeeze 2 people on a double-bed, not to mention we all had to get up at 6:30 AM (or earlier in Laurie’s case). We successfully checked our snowboarding bag full of hockey sticks without incident and even though our morning flight was delayed, we made it to our connecting flight without a problem. Home, sweet home.

I think the team consensus is that we won’t be back to Barrie again. It’s just too far to travel. Especially since the ball hockey tournament in Vegas is expanding next year to include a Woman’s division. I’m very curious to see how many woman’s teams will actually make it out that far West. We all had a great experience in Barrie and we do hope that we’ll see some of our Barrie mates in Philadelphia next year. On another positive note, a number of players in the San Diego League have expressed interest in holding more practices so we can continue to improve our play. Who knows, maybe we’ll be champions yet.