Okay, a secret:

Here in Scooterville - okay - TWO secrets. ONE: Scooterville is actually called Hamilton. The word Hamilton, as far as I know, is an Iroquois term meaning He who rides through burger drive thru on a scooter with case of beer on his lap [citation needed].

Hamilton has many sports teams calling it home. Famously, the Hamilton Tigercats of the Canadian Punting League (since 1950), Forge FC of Canadian Premier League Soccer (otherwise known as football by humanity) and the Toronto Rock of NLL lacrosse who is officially Toronto's team but they're currently playing out of a Hamilton venue for shits and googles.

Other Hamilton hockeyball highlights include the Steelhawks, Generals and Real McCoys of Ontario Sr. hockey, and the Blues, Rangers and Kilty Bees of Junior hockey (Kilty Bees literally referring to bumble bees wearing kilts. I shit you not). Add baseball's Cardinals; Soccer's Hamilton United, Hamilton City SC and Chantilly Forever FC; Rugby's Camels R.F.C. and Hornets R.F.C and Australian footballers' Wildcats.

But wait. Secret number two today is Hamilton's best-kept sports secret: The Hamilton Bengals. If you want to see some of the most talented athletes in the world while they are young, just before turning pro, for 5 to 10 bucks admission, the Bengals are the obvious choice. Every year multiple Bengals players graduate from Hamilton to affiliate Jr. A team Burlington Blaze before getting drafted to the pros. We are a hotbed of lacrosse development in this country. Hamiltonians are missing out on such a treat it's crazy.

A potential story part 2: the two towers

There is a new fellowship running the Affiliation. LaxMastermind has officially stepped back into an advisory role and a humble, selfless one-time Enforcer has stepped up, taking co-coaching reigns with a host of supporting characters including a 20-something junior record-breaking sniper with whom I'm also very familiar and a quiet fuzzy old-timer who I'm meeting for the first time.

More introductions: Our new full time GM and the same from our Junior A affiliate. They are both young and seem free of ego and give off the greatest vibes. And there are new-to-me brass from the Junior C's here, of the same bent. How different an environment from those of other regimes I have once known. I love the widespread selflessness of this organization. Everyone seems to be doing it for the kids and not for ego. I love it.

There has to be at least sixty youths at this late-stage tryout. Perhaps a couple will be relegated to an Intermediate rep team. A few will be disappointed, signed to the C's rather then B's or to B instead of A. But this way they'll get the valuable development they need, get promoted a couple games to cover injury absences and get a good shot at a full promotion next year.

Talent galore. I struggle to take notes and start learning who's who. A couple lads stand out but of course I learn that they are A players who showed up for some floor time. Floor time, we say. For love of the community are not the words spoken but the smiles on their faces give something away.

I'm constantly aware of my physical discomfort while internally I feel a deep comfort. I feel home again. And needed. No one has been shooting promotional video. No highlight reels, no player bios, no pump-up videos. This has to be corrected. Too many tiger town players are up for US scholarships and pro careers They need film! It's the norm in scouting and recruiting. And its video of course which grabs social media attention which leads to game spectator attendance. I hope.

My video-editing skills and instincts have been really coming together. But to actually do the physical shooting is frankly a terrifying prospect. I'll have to find a way to do it from my walker and make it work. Maybe low angles will be our... look. A brand even?

At the end of the night I tell my fellows, "No promises. I have to go home and see how I feel. I have to see if I can even get out of bed tomorrow. I'll be in touch." They know that this was just my first tentative peek at things. The lacrosse season is one heavy grind. A jam packed summer. And a long one given the constant playoff presences of these teams.

Our new GM is nodding and smiling. He's been taking note of my comments this night. "Hey is this a younger brother of so and so? How's he doing? Did he graduate from that prep school yet?" Every return to lacrosse welcomes you with familiar names; brothers and sons of former charges and teammates.

I like this new GM and I learn that like me, he once got burnt out and fled lacrosse but was drawn back in. It probably began with LMM as it did with me. Nodding and smiling when I say, "no promises."

"You'll be back," he says. "You're gonna do this." I'm surprised at his sudden boldness. He's still smiling. "I can tell. You love this."

*no actual two towers were harmed in the making of this sequel

A great potential story ruined by an invading rant

Toddled to the bus stop, survived a transfer and discovered a long walk was to be had to get from the local stop up a long long parking lot to the arena. Put on my big boy pants and began the journey.

Plenty of time to kill. I'd arrived two hours early. One can never be too safe when you're the Slowest Man On Earth. Plus I may have been confused about the time.

Found a good spot for my first intermission rest, settled in to my rollator walker seat and lo and behold here comes an SUV and a familiar driver. It's Coach; the Guru, previously known here as LaxMastermind. I see him squinting at me. Is it me, he wonders. I was not expected. I wave. He pulls over. There is much to talk about. It's been a few years. Immediately I must warn him that I been off my meds for a few days. Because I feel the emotions welling already.

We do some catching up. Some real shit has gone down. One could say that LMM and the new world organizations he works with, are not held dear by the ruling class of the Provincial Lacrosse Regime who, some might say, are loyal to their old friends, the pale-faced traditional lacrosse hotbed communities whose names share the record halls with those such as Powless, Bomberry or Montour for instance, who kept white lacrosse barely alive in its meagerest decades, who kept the Western Nemesis Province from winning too many national titles and threatening the Big Baby egos of these old boys who do what they do for themselves, for old boy adolescent pride, for the reptilian joy in making other's kids suffer because they have the POWER! One might say that power is the default end-goal of every brain-stunted greying psychopath who can't think of any other pursuit with which to disguise himself as an actual adult. One might blame this exact phenomenon for the completely deranged state of lunacy that is North American politics and the corporate maceration of society and humanity.

Aw shit, have I digressed into a rant already? I need to take a break and come back to this story from a concise and personal angle. And by the way, dear diary, no one is actually saying any of those things: Certainly not LMM, and not me either; not officially. And to be fair, I am not as intimate with the Provincial Lacrosse Regime as I used to be or as I should be before making any kind of accusations. But I'd have to be pretty blind not to notice how innocent kids, who the PLR has been charged with nurturing, keep getting their lives fucked over by old men who explain their punitive sledge hammering habits by saying "That's my decision! My MY MINE! I DECIDED! How dare you QUESTION my RULING...! now go away; you are ruining my beer-guzzling pursuits! Glub-glub-glub-glub-glub-glub-glub... " rather than with any coherent interpretation of actual rules and how "MY RULING" somehow benefits kids in the long run.

Cause they don't.

False start: Day 1

Here’s a little suggestion for the few of you who still come peeking around here now and then: If you’re home from work now or otherwise diminished from the COVID19 business, keep a little isolation diary. It’s a healthy pursuit for different reasons, and a chance it will help you learn from the experience by facilitating reflection. Solitude is critical to real learning.

The virus has stormed into my life like Ganesh and bulldozed nearly everything in sight:

My security shifts
Circle meetings
Dismas gatherings
“Poetry Corner”
Write-Ins
Movie Club
Regular visits with Gramps and the Flaming Liberal
“Tigers” training camp
Scheduling and preparation of video shoots and Trivia Night fund-raisers
Sponsorship endeavors
Family gatherings
A paycheque...

Oddly my cell phone has been simultaneously knocked out of commission which prohibits still other activities!

It has not bulldozed:

Work on the kids easy-reader storybook.
Work on the Crazy Legs race horse novel
Blogs (I have another anonymous blog)
A ton of other writing and research projects
Work on Tigers web site, social media, articles, research etc.
Prep for April A-to-Z, Camp NaNo and Story-A-Day-In-May
Reading
A plethora of video pieces and board game projects
Bedroom restructuring
Sleep improvement project
Diet change
Exercise (no pools though)
Several other self-improvement endeavors…

Somehow it has forgotten to knock out Mindcrack and the youtubes. Day-one I did too much of these things. My only productivity was in correspondence and failed attempts to fix the cell-o-phone.

Perhaps it is up to me to manage the distractions and diversions and to make use of this golden opportunity to put some of my life back on the rails.

And I wonder… I dare to wonder… could solitary confinement be part of the answer that allows me to re-engage spiritually again; to value people again; to retreat from some of this contempt, back toward pity, back toward love. I know the wisdom of it. I have not forgotten.

Absence has made the heart grow fonder before.

G is for Gutted

Last season our tall tough ace defensemen Riggsy and Grace were gradually absorbed into our Junior A affiliate team and were not around for our historic playoff push to the conference finals and not beyond. After a Scooterville Tigers executive meeting the other night I am told we will lose the following this coming year: Junior B leaders L-Robb and (goalie) Naggs; Our fan-favourite ace defenseman Downtown Brown; the occasionally-brilliant and always-entertaining Aggador-Spartacus and… the Wizard.

The Wizard. The guy who is worth the price of admission every game. The guy whose stick skills alone were enough to make me fall in love with this game again - though I do credit that to the whole team.

“How is he not in Junior A?” I once asked an assistant coach.

“I think they think he’s too small and gimmicky.”

“Great. Their loss.”

I am kind of broken-hearted. Have I been in denial that this is a development team? And as such we are always at a disadvantage against the outlying lacrosse-first communities who throw all their best players into their junior B program and maintain those kids’ loyalty through to age twenty-one.

We are a team of perennial teenagers, waiting for their shot at Junior A. How am I supposed to market this team as THE elite spectator sport product of Scooterville? (Yes, even better than the supposedly-professional basketball team and supposedly-professional football team and threesome of Junior hockey teams. None of those teams will send more of their players to actual pro leagues then we will send to actual pro lacrosse. The guys I have named will all have a shot at the NLL.) How do I adopt such an elite professional attitude and posture in terms of marketing when few of our best players can really fully commit to us? It seems incongruous to me.

“Don’t worry. We’ll have another good team,” said my old pal; our GM and head coach; our guru, “We’ll just be younger.”

I don’t care how good we’ll be. I was invested in some of these guys. I’ve been planning how to market them. I’m fond of them.

The Wizard. Well god damn it. I’m happy for him if this is what he wants. But I’m sad for me.

E is for Elite

Here we are on the rez. We have the leading goal scorer in Ontario Jr. B. He’s only 19 in a league of 17-to-21-year-olds. Our goalie is either the best or narrowly second-best in the league depending how you interpret the statistics. And he’s only 18. They are both too good for this league; destined to be surrendered to our Jr. A affiliate team next year almost certainly.

Our opponents are up two games to nil in the best-of-five conference finals. We are finally facing elimination after a great run. Our opponents have the game in their blood, some would say. They are loaded with a dozen 21-year-olds. The bulk of our squad are teens. We have a handful of 20-year-olds and one 21-year-old who we picked up at the trade deadline from a failing opposing team because he’s a class act; a young man of substance who deserves one last playoff run. And the guys here love him like family and did so at once because that’s just who they are.

Our affiliate team is going to the Junior A finals. We have not withheld players from them. Our stars are where they are for legitimate reasons. Our opponents have an affiliate too. Right in the same community. But theirs is not going to the finals. No one has pondered, at least not aloud, if their stars are here legitimately or not, and I’m not asking now. It doesn’t matter.

We’re up 3-to-2 on the scoreboard but I think we all know this is temporary illusion and we do not have any such momentum. We have the same fine tools as our opponents but not the same confidence. We have four gears to their five.

By the second intermission we are well down on the scoreboard and a lot of proud Scooterville parents are making peace with things, or else just resigning.

The players emerge for the third and final period. Our boys of August. It is still July but they will always be the boys of August to me though they will not play on that calendar. What you do and who you are, are two different things. August is who they are. They are that quality. No one can possibly doubt that.

I slip into the vacated dressing room and out the back door. I am parked right there. I load the two cases of bottles into the big cooler and then the ice. And I add a bottle of root beer for the VP; an abstainer. There’s enough for two per player and one per attending staff. I don’t give a shit about the government and their rules. This is family. This is the least we can do. I intend to be anonymous about it but if shit flies I will happily take the blame and probably do it again next year if, like this year, it’s the right thing to do.

God the sucker is heavy but I drag it through the door and into the dressing room where suddenly our star scorer is present and readying to shower. So much for the Santa routine. I’m busted.

“You’re ejected? What did you do?”

“I gave the refs some advice.”

I think for a second and nod. “Fair enough,” I say gently and head back toward the floor to give him his space and to watch the game. Not to work it though. Just to watch. And really take it in. There is still joy to be had. When will I see two such fine teams again? “Oh and have a beer,” I say over my shoulder.

“Thanks.”

The third period goes well for both teams. No land-slides. And it’s over. I’ve never elected to participate in the handshake all year but now I go. I have things to say. I praise what few of our players I have the chance to while the new guy holds things up with long embraces. Most of these players have known each other most of their young lives. This team is home grown. But it’s the new guy who garners their immediate concern. He’s 21 and this was his last shot.

In the dressing room I usually visit briefly and just inside the door where I study the brick wall while listening to what the coach has to say and who gets passed The Hammer.

Tonight I am looking and listening to a surprising silence. A few have grabbed a beer already and no one on the staff has said a word about it.

The coach speaks. He speaks well and is kind and full of praise but keeps it real. This team was designed to win it all and no one pretends otherwise. Still we have made Scooterville history and that will have to be enough for now. Coach opens the opportunity for others. The VP speaks with his back to me. He speaks from a historical perspective and I am impressed to hear his voice breaking. I put a hand firmly on his shoulder. Most staff pass on the opportunity. Of course I do not. I speak truthfully:

“It’s been two decades since I was last involved in lacrosse. I did not see many Junior B games back then. I was not a fan of the B game back then.

“When I came out to see you guys, you blew me away. I had no idea… It has been such a joyful experience watching you guys play lacrosse. Everyone in this room - and I mean everyone! No exceptions - has left me breathless at least once this year from something you did on the floor. Left me in a state of wonder. It’s been such a joy; such a thrill. I’m real grateful you all took me along on this ride. Thank you.”

I’m sorry they did not get what they wanted and worked so hard for, and made sacrifice for, so I don’t tell them how I, on the other hand, received everything I could have asked for. And thanks to them. They made me fall in love with this game again.

I had no choice but to write about the experience, but I deemed it unfit for publication. Too personal a perspective. Too sentimental. The players might feel it an invasion.

It sat on my computer a couple days until I knew that the piece, or some version of it, needed to be on the web site, at least for posterity. I gave it a solid edit: toned it down; eased in a little subtlety, and slipped it onto the web site with no links from social media. My two main media associates with the club were informed, and being coincidentally the last two team officials likely to tolerate sentimentality, they made perfect gatekeepers. If they wanted to plug it online then it had to be safe to do so.

They did.

Here’s the article. It’s brief. I hope you give it a look. Because I’m proud of these guys:

https://www.hamiltonlacrosse.com/news_article/show/1037743

B is for Brocrastination

Okay that was a cheat. But B is for bed-ridden, blurry-eyed and.... Bengals.

Bengals as in Bengal tigers - as in the Jr. B lacrosse team that landed in the middle of my life about the time I disappeared from blog world, and swept me away.

An old pal - we'll call him - LaxMasterMind has quietly become an internationally elite lacrosse GM and coach in the fifteen years since we were associates with the Chiefs Jr A team. Oh wait - I blogged about this two years ago.

Long story short: I was dragged out of my Total Lacrosse Retreat by LMM with the news of a local Jr B team which he was basically running and which I did not even know about (this community has spawned previous junior lacrosse enterprises over the years which emigrated to nearby communities). I saw a game, was amazed at the new elevated caliber of Jr B lacrosse, felt inspired to write about it, but was at a complete loss how to do so. One: I have changed so much in the intervening years and competition, winning and losing have become so very uninspiring compared to such higher-evolved things - like creativity for instance, and generosity, which are for me important elements of lacrosse. And two: I was no longer an insider. I knew nothing of the current lacrosse community and its peoples. How would I write as an outsider?

Fast forward April 2019 and LMM speaks up again: the team is looking to fill new exec positions including Director Marketing and Media Relations. I seize on that one. It's my way back in. I take it on faith that I will find a way to write about it. And god knows I should have the time for it given the 101 important projects I've been blissfully ignoring (B is for blissful ignorance).

"I'll be your director media marketing," I type back after literally about 20 seconds of deliberation. I was intentionally bold. Take it or leave it.

He took it.

The task I took on for myself; the goal, is enormously ambitious. The work I cut out for myself is potentially endless. And I admit I don't know how to accomplish the goal, if indeed it's possible. But I trust in finding useful components and pursuing them on faith that they will be part of the final solution. More on all this some other time.

Was I crazy to take this on given I can't keep up with anything currently? Here's my weird rationalization: To take on a world of work which is unlike most of my current work in that there are tight schedules and outside stakeholders, which means I will be properly motivated to Get It Done, which may be just the thing to re-teach me a proper work ethic. When the season ends in a few months I can move my new work ethic and apply it to my own works.

Well that time is now.

So I'm back.

I say that I am here to stay. Fingers crossed.

And by here I mean blog world, yes, but I mean much more. I want to really be here. Being present again. Being productive. Making a difference. Being the person I should be instead of the loser I have been for the last year and a half.

This morning I arose after 6 hours of sleep (not bad! though sleep remains a critical Needs Improvement Area) picked up Chess Champ, met up with The Healer, journeyed to Station One former fire-house turned cafe and there met Sweetproserpina and the Ponderer for a joyful write-in. Here I am. The Ponderer's partner is beating her cancer. The Healer's mate has finally become employed again by a college where I worked for awhile. And Chess Champ has finally released some writing to the semi-public sphere. A big step. I really look forward to finally giving him a read. Given sleep and eye problems I have not really read for this year and a half. Another Needs Improvement Area.

Continuous improvement. Every day. Am I back? It would be nice if I were back.

Love Fwig