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[Wednesday, November 8, 2000: Hallowed Eve.]
Our first game of the tournament was also the first game of the tournament. It was scheduled to start at seven at an arena situated near Sidney (which is a half-hour drive from Victoria. Yippee. We had to wake up around six, which would normally be brutal for me, but with the time change, it would be be like waking up at ten in the morning for me. (Not too bad, although still a bit early. =)
We got there on time, and things looked good. We played Australia and beat them by a score of 5-0. I even got myself a goal in that one off a sharp angle shot (we got three sharp angle goals in that game). Seeing as Australia was considered one of the better teams there, this boded well for the rest of the week (we had a three game day on Thursday).
As our next game wasn't until later that afternoon, we had brunch at Denny's and then took a nap. At least my room did. My roommates were the napping type. They nap during the day and party all night long. (Something that's pretty foreign to me.) One of the guys brought along his laptop, so during nap time, I was able to connect to the internet and check news and such. Unfortunately, his proxy server would not allow me to set up a telnet session so I was unable to check my mail or update my page. Phooey.
Our second game was against Minnesota, and they were considered our most powerful rivals. We beat them by a score of 3-2, so we knew that our work was cut out for us during the playoffs. It was a hard game, despite the flukey goals that Minnesota got. Fortunately, I was on the bench for all five goals so my plus/minus wasn't affected (I was playing left wing so it doesn't really matter for me, but hey).
After the game, I saw that in one corner of the arena complex (it was more of a community centre), some kids were setting up some sort of haunted house thing. There were two girls who were dressed up for Halloween. One of them (who looked Chinese) was wearing a kimono and looked absolutely stunning! Actually, I think she would've looked good without the kimono as well. *blink* Wait, wait.. you know what I mean, and it's not what I'm insinuating! Gee.. what dirty minds..
You know, she reminded me of this girl that I met when I was much shorter.
<- debating something.
Okay, I'm going to talk about this girl I met when I was younger. I can't remember the first time I saw her, but when I was still in elementry school, my parents had a lot of friends who they played MJ with. These people all had kids, and most of them were a few years younger than girl and I. There was one family who showed up every now and then and their daughter was only four years younger than I. I always found her kind of cute, but I never did talk to her much until one day, I think I was fifteen, we had these arm wrestling matches. Being the oldest, I tended to win my matches. I eventually got to wrestle against her and (being the conniving rascal I was) I didn't try to beat her. Of course, I didn't let her win either. After a few minutes, she gave up trying to push my arm down, and we fell into a rhythem of smashing our fists down on any poor kid who tried to put their hand in the way. This went on for a long time until our hands got too hot and wet to keep holding on to.
That was just the beginning. I was obviously interested in her, and she seemed to be interested in me, but we were still kids, so what the heck was I supposed to do? I had no idea. Anyway, I got a better indication of how she felt when we went camping. A number of families from the MJ group went camping somewhere (the Sandbanks?) for a few days. There were a lot of kids around, so we did a lot of kids stuff. Play cards, throw rocks on the beach, run around, play with the fire, etc. One night (the last?), we were all sitting by the fire in our lawn chairs, and I happened to be sitting next to her. Curious, I placed my hand on her leg to see how she'd react. Well, she didn't. I was kind of freaked about that beacuse I didn't want any of the parents to see, and I was to chicken to hold her hand, so we sat there for a while.
Later on, we were invited to a house warming party. Her family had just moved into a new house somewhere in Richmond Hill and we were invited to the party. As our car pulled up to the house, I saw her looking out from the bay window on the second floor of her house. When she saw us drive in, she rushed on down to greet us. I can't remember if we were first or not, and I'm not sure if she was waiting there just for us. I never did ask her, but we had a good time that night.
We also had the same piano teacher for a few months. Our lessons were right after her's and although girl and I alternated, I always really wanted to go second so I could spend some time talking with her. I found out a little while earlier that there were some.. problems between some of the families, which meant that I would never see her again at any of those MJ gatherings. This made those piano mettings that much more important. It didn't last long though, she either switched piano teachers or stopped playing piano soon afterward.
The last time I saw her was at a recital. Our piano teacher got each of her students to play a song, and I was one of them. (I ended up playing the Dave Ma song and fumbling it even worse than he did.) Anyway, on the way out, we bumped into each other and she looked at me and I guess she couldn't help smiling. It was that "I'm glad I could see you" type of smile. I couldn't help smiling myself (even after I asked her why she was smiling so much). I didn't know then that it would be the last time that I would see her face.
That was.. what? Oh.. maybe eight or nine years ago now. I haven't seen her since. I haven't even heard any news about her either. I think about her every now and then. The one that could've been. I hope she's doing well.
Okay, enough with depressing memories, let's see now..
After the game, there was much drinking and revelry taking place in the hotel. I was warned that if we won the championship that they would cut off my tail. I.. wasn't sure if they were joking or not, but when you're drunk, anything can happen.
I also was asked what my name was by someone. When Holly heard that, she told me, that she'd been calling me "Benning" all this time! I told her that it was alright, since I only heard the "ing" part anyway. So she told me that she'd be calling me "Ing" from now on. It stuck. I can't believe how well it stuck, but it did. (You can imagine the number of jokes you can make with that name.) Anyway, as one of them mentioned,
It's better than "Jen".
After drinking, the team wanted to go out to party. JCS, JD, and Brad (my roommates) had already planned a costume. JCS brought in a plaid skirt, white blouse, blond wig, stockings, and a couple of balloons so that he could dress up as a school girl. It even had a name tag:
Dirty school girt
Yes, they were drunk when they wrote that name tag.
![[Team Edmonton at the 2000 World Broomball Championships.]](../Pictures/2000-05-14/2000-10-31.jpg)
During the week of Haloween in 2000, I went to Victoria to participate in the World Broomball Championships. Since I didn't have a team to play for, the powers that be hooked me up with the NWT mixed team. Unfortunately, they bowed out of the tournament so I was thrown in with the only remaining mixed Canadian team in the tournament: Edmonton.
They are a friendly and very outgoing bunch of people, and I was quickly welcomed as part of the team. They are a little on the rowdy side, but it makes for much more interesting stories to tell your friends and family afterwards. The team (except for a me) got pretty hammered on Halloween and decided to go out together dressed as the "Pumpkin Patch". We took quite a number of pictures before we left.
This is a picture of the "Pumpkin Patch".
Unfortunately for him, JD and Brad didn't bring anything, so they decided on a different group costume. They went out and bought some orange pumpkin garbage bags and some make-up. The idea was to wear the garbage backs, and put on makeup so you looked like a carved pumpkin (or Jack-o-Lantern). They were even able to convince everyone else on the team (except for me) to dress up to form the "pumpkin patch". Oh my, that was a riot.
I ended up driving them downtown to one of the bars (after following a taxi that they called), dropped them off and went back to the room. I was too tired to do anything but sleep that night.
I was woken up at around six in the morning when JCS and Brad came back to the hotel. JD made it back an hour later. Boy did I have a good sleep.
On hindsight, I probably should've went out with the group. Did they ever have stories to tell afterward. Well, I might mention a couple of them in the future, but right now, I think I'll leave you all in suspense.
[Wednesday, November 15, 2000: Snoring Matches..]
Two things I forgot to mention. The first was that apparently I was snoring the night before. I do remember hearing one of the guys in the other bed snoring that night, but obviously I didn't hear myself snore. Brad, who was in the same bed as I, said that he didn't want to wake me up because he didn't know me, but he was worried that one of the guys from the other bed would throw a shoe over (and possibly hitting him) to wake me.
Another interesting thing I noticed was that those guys (and the girls) used matches to try to clear out the stench in the washroom. Whether it was to burn off any excreted gasses, or just to mask the odour with the sulpherous smell of the match, I never did find out.
[0 Comments]
Thursday, September 20, 2001 at 01:21:46 (UTC)
"(I ended up playing the Dave Ma song and fumbling it even worse than he did.)"
Damn, you put that in there for my amusement, didn't you? :)
Oafijev <e-mail>
Thursday, September 20, 2001 at 01:49:17 (UTC)
But of course! The Dave Ma song is a classic!
QYV