Sports Night is Over

Photo by Alan

We had our last night of Sports Night with Cornerstone Church last Thursday. Our team turnout wasn't very good. I guess no one on our team liked volleyball.

When we first started out last fall our attendance was among the highest for European Handball. That continued on through floor hockey, our best sport.

But, when it came to volleyball not a lot of people on our team liked it. Out of the three sports we played I think it's the one that requires the most basic skills. If you can't volley or bump then you're pretty much lost.

The group above were pretty much the only guys on our team who showed up regularly. It made it a little more difficult against the other teams who usually had four guys and two girls on the court. For us, we had three and three.

Still we held our own. Our players were pretty solid overall. No really strong players, but no really weak ones either. That certainly helps a lot.

We were in last by a few points coming into the last day. But, I believe we may have pulled into a tie for second with the green team after pulling off a few victories.

I think all the teams won one sport so that was good. The green team started off winning at European Handball. We won in floor hockey. And the red team pulled it out in volleyball.

Dinner at Seoul House

Not my photo

This past Thursday I went to dinner with my gym night team, Tropicana. We have a couple of weeks off because I believe the high school gym we rent out is being used by the school.

We planned to meet at Seoul House, a Korean restaurant on Steeles, west of Yonge at 6:30 p.m. It's not far from where I play hockey on Friday nights. I noticed when I drove to hockey that I passed a Subaru car dealership and an Active Green + Ross garage. Since my car is basically a Subaru Impreza (it's a Saab 9-2x) on the inside I thought I could go by for an oil change before dinner.

I contacted the Subaru dealership and their basic oil change was $50. A bit steep as far as I was concerned. The Active Green + Ross had a deal for $19.95. I called them in the morning and asked if I should make an appointment. I said I wanted to come by at around 5:30 p.m. They said I didn't have to make an appointment, just to come in.

At a little after 5:00 p.m. I left my place and headed up Yonge to get an oil change. As usual the traffic was terrible. It took longer to get to the garage than I expected. I didn't arrive until 10 or 15 minutes to 6:00.

When I went in to the Green + Ross it was empty. The fellow at the counter was on the phone. I waited a short time until he finished speaking with the person on the end of the line then asked him if I could get an oil change. He told me that I had to come back because they were busy. I thought he was joking, but I guess he wasn't. The garage was pretty small. I think they had three bays. He said there were two mechanics there and that they would be busy the rest of the night (until they closed at 8:00 p.m.). This sort of annoyed me because I called earlier asking if I should book an appointment and the person said I didn't have to. Anyway, what could I do? I just left. But, I was still too early to go to dinner.

I headed north towards Steeles. I was close to Centerpoint Mall, so I figured I could go there to kill a bit of time. When I drove into the parking lot I noticed a Canadian Tire there. I decided to go in and inquire about their oil changes. The girl at the counter said they were $30 and that they could do them pretty quickly. I told her I was meeting friends for dinner soon, so I didn't have much time.

Well, of course, they took longer than expected. I watched as the clock in the waiting room hit 6:30, then 6:40, then 6:50. It wouldn't have been that bad if I could contact someone from our team to say I was going to be late, but I didn't have anyone's phone number. Anyway, I finally paid and was able to go.

I headed out as quickly as I could from the mall. I knew the restaurant was on the north side of Steeles a bit west of Yonge. Unfortunately I didn't check the exact address. I thought I would be able to see it driving by. Well, that didn't quite happen. It was situated further in off the road. I ended up wasting a few minutes driving around lost.

I arrived at the restaurant at 7:00. Half an hour late. To my surprise no one had ordered yet. And I wasn't even the last person to arrive. I was relieved about that. One car with three people (Andrew, Winnie and Wendy) came after. They had been stuck in traffic they said.

We ordered soon after that. Sang Hee (who organized the dinner) ordered some traditional Korean appetizers for everyone to share. Of course they brought all the little small dishes of appetizers too. The items on the restaurant menu were quite wide and varied. They had Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Probably too much as far as I was concerned.

I ordered Dolsot Bibimbap. It's a Korean rice dish with meat and vegetables in it. I figured since I was in a Korean restaurant I'd order Korean food. It made sense to me. I've had Bibimbap before and it's something I know I can handle. Some Korean dishes are too spicy for me. This one had spicy sauce on the side. You could add as much or as little as you want. Of course I hardly added any.

Dinner was good. We chatted about a lot of different things. Rupert told us about this TV quiz show he likes. We saw a clip on their iPhone. It was pretty crazy. They ask and answer the questions so quickly.

We also chatted about old television shows that we liked. Most of the guys spoke about shows they watched in the 80's. I suppose you can get a feel for how old our group is by the stuff we talk about.

All in all the evening was good. I think we all had an enjoyable time out. Thanks go out to Sang Hee for sending the Evite out. We have one more week off from gym night. So, I'll see the gang for floor hockey the following Thursday.

Tropicana Team Dinner

back: Rupert, Wendy, Grace, Winnie, Anthony's girlfriend, Anthony

front: Steve, Sang Hee, Chris

This is our "Sports Night" team, Tropicana. Every Thursday night over the winter we get together with the other two teams in the Cornerstone church league and play different sports. For the first seven weeks we played European Handball. Since the school is closed over the Christmas/New Year's holidays we decided to get together for dinner.

We met up at Kam Toa off Leslie Street, north of Highway 7 for Hot Pot. We were going to go bowling across the street at World Bowl afterwards, but we ran late. The food was good, but service was really slow. We ended up staying over three hours because of that.

While there we had an "Evil Santa" gift exchange. Everyone bought presents that cost about $10. Then we drew numbers and picked from the gifts available. Normally being the first pick would be the most advantageous. But, in Evil Santa being last is best. Because each successive person can steal any of the gifts they see from people picking ahead of them.

I was fortunate enough to be number 10, the last person to go. Normally I'm not that mean when it comes to Evil Santa. But, this year I "stole" a gift that I thought was pretty decent. It was a Bailey's gift box that Chris bought. Sang Hee was funny. She stole the gift that she brought from Grace. It was a mug that she really liked. I don't know if I would have ever done that. Stolen the present that I brought myself. Anyway, we all had a fun time there.

Until we meet again in January... have a Happy New Year.

Tropicana

Back row: Johnson, Anthony, Sang Hee, Steve, Sang Woo

Front row: Me, Winnie, Andrew, Rupert, Wendy

Tropicana... that's the name of our Gym Night/Sports Night team. Grace (who's not actually in the picture because she had to leave early because Sopheak hurt his ankle) suggested that name and the team picked it. We have orange coloured shirts, so it seemed appropriate.

Gym Night is organized by the folks at Cornerstone Church up in Markham. They're the same people that organized the Ultimate League I was in in the summer.

I've been going to Gym Night for at least five years now if I remember correctly. I think we've been up at the Unionville High School gym for at least three or four years now. We play different sports over the course of the winter. The three main ones are European handball, volleyball and floor hockey. Often we'll throw in dodgeball and sometimes soccer or badminton. It's fun and you get a little exercise for a couple of hours once a week.