Smurfs Team Dinner - Osaka Sushi

We organized another team dinner for our Cornerstone Sports Night team. Originally we had nine people who said they could come out. But, Annie and Dan had to back out because they had just returned from vacation overseas and their baby was a bit cranky.

As well, Mike, lost his wallet right before we were supposed to meet, so he had to go look for it. So it was just Lily and Lemei, Chuan and her husband, Anthony, and Derek and I.

Since I had AYCE sushi the week before I suggested either going to Amaya the Indian Room or AYCE meat at Korean Grill on Highway 7 and Leslie. Derek suggested Osaka Sushi on Highway 7 west of Markham Road. He found it on Yelp. He didn't think the girls would be interested in AYCE.

After looking through the menu at Osaka Sushi and seeing that it was a little pricey we all agreed AYCE would have actually been better. Next time.

For the six of us we ordered a large sushi/sashimi boat, plus a couple of their specialty rolls - the $16 Toronto Roll and $15 King Spider Roll.

The food was good for sure. But, we weren't quite full and didn't really want to spend much more money there. So we hit a Chinese dessert place at Midland and McNicoll afterwards.

Oh... and, Mike... he eventually found his wallet. Whew.

Smurfs Rock Floor Hockey

First it was volleyball, now floor hockey. Our Cornerstone Church Sports Night team, The Smurfs, have prevailed once again.

Cornerstone Church has been running a winter sports league for many years. Traditionally we play three sports - volleyball, floor hockey and our version of European handball. For variety we might throw in a night of dodge ball or basketball or soccer now and then.

Originally we started with three teams in the league. Two teams would play first while one rested and then we would rotate. Later on we switched to a high school with a double gym. This allowed us to expand to six teams which was great.

In the fall the captains gather at one of the organizer's homes to pick teams. The games begin shortly after. We usually play each sport 7 or 8 weeks.

The first one we played this year was volleyball. It totally makes sense because none of the teams has their shirts yet (they're on order). For volleyball each team is on opposite sides of the court, so it doesn't matter what colour shirt you have. You automatically know who's on your team.

After six or seven weeks our team, The Smurfs, languished in 4th place. In the playoffs none of that mattered though. Everyone was given a fresh start.

We were put in a round robin group with the 1st and 6th place teams, while the 2nd, 3rd and 5th place teams were in the other. After playing both teams in your bracket the first place team in Group A would play the second place team in Group B and vice versa. The winners of those games would meet in the finals.

Well, wouldn't you know it, but our team actually won the whole thing. I guess anything can happen on any given night. As long as you're consistent and, perhaps, have a bit of luck on your side you always have a chance.

Floor hockey was a different story. Like last year, our team was pretty dominant from the start. Though we didn't win as many games as we did last year when we went undefeated in the regular season, we still went undefeated until the second last game this year. Along with that singular loss we had a fair number of ties to go with our wins.

Like last year we put a girl in goal. Last year it was Frida, this year Ellen. That allowed us to have an extra guy out. We were counting on our offence to win games and, generally, it worked.

This round we were the top seed going into the finals. But, as I stated before, anything can happen. We learned that the hard way in the second last game when the then last place team beat us. So we knew we couldn't take anything for granted.

Also, our goalie, Ellen, had a sore hand so she couldn't play net. We substituted our stalwart backup, Dan, for her. But, that would mean one less guy playing out. We would have two guys and two girls playing out instead of three guys and one girl. Defensively we would be stronger, but our offence would take a hit.

The set up was the same as in the volleyball playoffs. Group A would be the 1st, 4th and 6th place teams and Group B the 2nd, 3rd and 5th place teams.

All the games were very close. We won both ours, but by only one goal each. The other teams were even closer. Many of their games ended in ties and had to go to a shootout.

Through each round we kept winning avoiding having to go to a shootout until the finals. I believe we tied 0-0. This is when having a guy in net made all the difference.

The same thing happened to us last year. We won all our games until we reached the finals which we ended up tying. Having a girl in net versus a guy at the other end was the difference maker. We lost the shootout and, therefore, the finals. That's the one thing I was quite concerned about this time too.

The shootout was really close. Each team picked three shooters (two guys and a girl). Our first three shooters failed to score. But, none of their first three shooters were able to score either.

But, then it was Ken's turn. He's quite a good player on the Monday Blues team. He ran up and deked around Dan and put the ball in the back of the net. Victory looked certain for them.

Now Derek, from our team, was under the gun. The weight of the world was on his shoulders. If he didn't score we would end up losing in the finals for the second year in a row. Well, guess what?... he scored extended the shootout further.

The next few players from both teams couldn't put the ball past either goalie. It was getting really tense. There were only two guys left on our team who hadn't taken a penalty shot yet, Mike and Curran. I chose Curran to go next, but he didn't want to go. I made him go anyway and it paid off. He ended up scoring and we won the game!

It was too close for comfort, but we were all happy about the results. We'll have a week off for March Break before returning for our final sport of European handball.

Smurfs Potluck Dinner

We had our Cornerstone Sports Night team dinner over the weekend. Ellen and Chung-Yen graciously opened their home up to us.

I suggested having potluck which everyone seemed to think was fine. Though the only people who actually cooked anything were Ellen and Chung-Yen and Curran and his wife, Jessica (purple team). The rest of us bought things (mostly desserts).

Ellen and Chung-Yen made pork brisket for pulled pork sandwiches and also they had a cucumber frittata (egg-based dish); Chuan bought some Samosas. For dessert Curran and Jessica baked an apple crisp, I bought an apple pie and Derek bought banana bread. Lemei and Lily bought some fresh cut fruit.

Annie and Dan couldn’t make it because their newborn baby was sick. Mike was unable to make it because of family commitments.

Dinner was good. Ellen and Chung-Yen set up some tables in their dining room so we were all able to eat at one big table. We got to know each other a little better. The only really new team members were Lemei and Lily. The rest have played on various other teams over the years. Lemei and Lily were invited out to Sports Night by their friend Crystal. Actually, they’re somehow related. Maybe Lemei and Lily’s older sister is married to someone that’s related to Crystal.

After dinner we played some games that I borrowed/took from my nephews. A few of them tried Camouflage (one of my favourites). While they were playing I read out questions from the Logo game that my nephews got for Christmas this year. We didn’t actually play with the board and game pieces. We treated it more like trivia with someone reading the questions and the rest of us yelling out the answers.

Our team is doing pretty well at Sports Night. We won volleyball (which was the first sport of three sessions). Now we’re playing floor hockey. After four weeks we’re undefeated. Though a lot of our games have ended in ties.

Go Smurfs!

Curling with the Monday Sports Night group

I went curling a few weeks ago at the Richmond Hill Curling Club. It was my second time. Our Monday Sports Night group organized it.

This time we received more detailed instruction which was helpful. We were told the function of the skip is to direct the person who will be throwing the stone. He also guides the sweepers in telling them when to sweep or when not to.

We were told the three things to remember when throwing the stone. The skip will tell you where they want you to throw it. He'll tell you which way he wants you to spin the stone by sticking his arm out in that direction. For instance, if he sticks his right arm out you have to turn the front of the stone to 2:00 and turn it to the middle upon release. The stone will curl left then. And we have to try to determine the weight of the toss. Too hard and you’ll throw it through the house, too soft and you won’t make it pass the hog line (resulting in the stone being removed).

Sweeping helps speed up a thrown rock. If it doesn’t have enough weight the sweepers can sweep hard to make the stone go further. The skip will direct the sweepers on whether or not to sweep depending on where he wants the rock to go.

Anyway, we had a fun game. It was pretty close we actually ended up tied 3-3 after four ends. We had a one stone toss to determine the winner. The team with the person who throws the rock closest to the button (the dot in the middle of the rings) would win. Unfortunately Philip from the other team beat us after his wife, Michelle, who threw for our team ended up short of the rings.

Dinner with the Pink Flamingos

Our Cornerstone Sports Night team, the Pink Flamingos, had our team dinner at Rob and Kathleen's place at the beginning of the month. It was a potluck dinner. Since I can't cook I brought a caramel cake and four bottles of pop.

I was the first to arrive. Early. I came straight after my boarding home visit. Rob and Kathleen were still getting their food ready. Rob made ribs and Kathleen was working on a variety of appetizers like Jalapeno peppers stuffed with cheese.

Not everyone could make it. Ricky was out of town. I believe some people were sick like Freda and possibly Andrew. Either that or he was busy. Winnie made it out though. So did Philip, Derek, Josh and Kim.

Dinner was good. There was a lot of food. We had to take the leftovers home.

After dinner Philip brought out his board game, Ticket to Ride. I believe it's an award-winning game developed in Germany. The idea is to gain points by either building sections of train routes and completing longer routes between various cities on the game board from the route cards you pick up.

I believe up to five people can play at once. The game board gets pretty crowded at that point. You can build train routes by picking up coloured cards (up to two) on your turn. Route sections on the board are colour coded. To build a section you have to collect the number of coloured cards between the two cities. It's pretty simple. The problem is if someone else builds on the section you want. Then you could be in trouble.

Anyway, we played two games. I won both. At first everyone was employing the same strategy - trying to building the long sections of track connecting to distant cities.à

In the second game I tried something different. I didn't concentrate on connecting the long sections of track between two distant cities. Instead I noticed that a lot of points were awarded for building long sections of track (15 points for building a six section track as opposed for 1, 2 and 4 points for building one, two and three section tracks).

So I concentrated on building random six section tracks around the game board. Though I didn't get many points for connecting distant cities, I built up such an immense lead that no one else could catch me. And I finished all my trains before people could connect their distant cities. So they actually lost points for the distant cities they didn't connect.

I have to admit that strategy probably strayed from the main idea of the game, but it was a sure way of winning. Oh well.

Anyway, it was nice for us to get together to get to know one another a bit better over the holiday season. Our team is pretty strong overall. I think we'll do well this season.

Skating @ Harbourfront

Our Cornerstone Sports Night team went skating at Harbourfront on Saturday. Well, at least four of us did. We had asked people to pick a day that suited them best and this was supposed to be it. But, there were some last minute cancellations and one person forgot and another just didn't show. So there ended up being four of us.

It was still good. I like skating outdoors. And the Harbourfront is a great place to skate outside. The scenery is nicer than Nathan Philips Square where you're surrounded by concrete and buildings. At least you have Lake Ontario nearby when you're by the waterfront.

After skating we went to dinner at Gonoe Sushi which was just across the street. We ordered a huge 80-piece sushi boat and split it between the four of us. It was impressive looking I have to say. Maybe we'll try again soon and see if we can get a few more people out.

Water, O how I take thee for Granted

Not my photo

After playing floor hockey at Cornerstone Sports Night a couple of Mondays ago I arrived home shortly before 11:00. Instead of jumping straight into the shower I returned a missed call to one of my friends. We ended up chatting a bit longer than both of us probably intended. After hanging up I went to wash up.

I went to my ensuite shower and turned the tap and... nothing. No water... not a drip. That's when I remember... they turned off all the water in our condo for maintenance at 11:00 p.m. and weren't going to turn it back on until 5:00 a.m. the next morning. Oh my goodness!

After the feeling of self-pity dissipated, I started thinking about how much we take having running water for granted. When you don't have something, that it is when you really value it. I couldn't wash my hands, brush my teeth, flush the toilet... nothing. And I was only inconvenienced for a few hours.

I thought about the folks in New York and New Jersey that were affected by Super Storm Sandy. They were without water and power for days. I thought about people in developing countries who have to walk great distances to wells or rivers to get their water. It's such a precious commodity to them while we just flush it down the toilet without giving it a second thought. How crazy is that?

Atomic Green Beans

Danny, me, Andrew, Joe, Winnie, Holly, Karen and Jennifer

Atomic Green Beans - No, it's not some post apocalyptic food item, it's the name of our current Cornerstone Multi-Sport team (aka - the Beans). We're so named because of our bright, lime-green sports jerseys if you must know.

Our season began at the beginning of October. We played a variety of team building games. The following week was Thanksgiving so, of course, we had it off. After that we started eight weeks of volleyball.

Our team did well in volleyball. We had the best record during the regular season. The playoffs were a different story. We skipped directly into the semis where we lost the best of three series 2 games to 1 to Michael's Yellow Team (the eventual winners).

We ended up winning the rest of the games we played that evening unofficially ending up in third. That's alright... it was fun. We put in a good effort.

The picture (above) is from our team dinner at Holly's place. We met up on the first Sunday in December. It was hard finding a day where most people could make it especially in December (close to Christmas). Unfortunately Ken and Brian couldn't come. Freda came late.

Dinner was a little sparse. We didn't really coordinate it as well as we could have I suppose. Winnie and Andrew bought duck and roast pork. Jennifer made a vegetable platter with some dip she bought at the One-of-a-Kind Show,  Holly made some pork and a pot of rice and I bought a tray of sushi with the $50 the Multi-Sport organizers gave us.

For dessert Danny bought ice cream and pie, I bought pie and Joe and Karen bought two tubs of ice cream. Needless to say we had a lot of pie and ice cream.

After dinner we headed to the basement to play board games. I don't remember the names of any of the games we played, but they were fun. Holly has a lot of games.

Our next idea for a team outing is skating at Harbourfront. That ought to be fun.

Cornerstone Sports Night - Angry Birds

Meet the Angry Birds (so named for our red jerseys). This is the Cornerstone Sports Night team I was on this year. Back row (from left) Sang Hee, Ellen, John, Chloe, Sam, Allan. Chung-Yen and I are in the front. Missing are Stephanie and Mike.

We started playing European handball last October. That lasted seven weeks. Next was volleyball for eight weeks. Finally we finished off with eight weeks of floor hockey.

Our team did well. Everyone hustled and played hard. We came first in European handball, first in volleyball and were runner ups in floor hockey. Congrats, Angry Birds!

Angry Birds... No, not those ones

This is a picture of our Cornerstone Sports Night team... well, not exactly. Thanks to the creative thinking of one of our members, Allan, our team name is Angry Birds. I think it's appropriate considering our shirt colour is red.

We started on October 3rd which was a Monday. That was a change from the previous years. In the past we always played on Thursdays. We also changed locations from Unionville High School at Warden and Highway 7 to Milliken Mills Secondary School at Denison and Kennedy. It has a large double gym there. That afforded us the luxury of expanding from three to six teams.

The first week was mainly an introduction for all the new people. We got to meet the members of our teams for the first time as well. The sport for that week was dodge ball (which our team did pretty well in).

The following week was Thanksgiving. So, instead of exercising, everyone stayed at home and ate turkey.

After that we had three weeks of European handball. I'm not sure what happened to the girls on our team the first week we returned. But, only Ellen showed up. We ended up playing short one player the whole night (since each team was supposed to field a contingent of three guys and two girls). Still we did well.

Each of the following two weeks we had three girls turn out. That was better. As usual we had around five guys to rotate through. That's an ideal number to give each one of us enough rest between shifts. Most of us have decent cardio which helps when you have to run so much.

To that end our results have been quite good. We're just a bunch of skinny guys that like running. Hopefully we can keep it up for the rest of the season.

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.

Curling with Cornerstone

Yes, we did it. We went curling... a true Canadian experience. A few of us from our Cornerstone Church Thursday Sport Night group went last Saturday. Ken organized an afternoon out at the Richmond Hill Curling Club on Elgin Mills, just east of Yonge. Out of the sixteen of us who went only two had gone before. Jennifer had gone once and Chris twice. The rest of us were neophytes.

A young lady, who mentioned she just recently started curling, was our instructor. She had a us walk on the ice and get used to the feeling of how slippery it was underfoot. She then had us practice pushing off the "hack". It's sort of like the sprinter's blocks that runners use at track meets. You use it to push off of when throwing rocks/stones down the ice. We practiced sweeping with the brooms and she told us about scoring and a few other rules then let us play.

I have to say, the most difficult part was judging the correct draw weight. In other words, trying to figure out how heavy to throw the rock down the ice. More often than not, we threw it either too hard or too soft. It was tough getting it anywhere near the button (the circle in the middle of the house/scoring rings).

The second most difficult thing was getting the stones to go straight. It was sort of like bowling. If you were a little bit off-line at the beginning it just got worse as the rock slid down the ice. If it touched the black lines on the side it was deemed out of bounds and taken out of play.

Sweeping was a lot more physically demanding than most of us imagined too. You really have to sweep hard and fast when trying to get the stones to slide further. Especially if someone threw too lightly. You could burn yourself out pretty quickly sweeping vigorously trying to get it to go past the "hog line". That's a line 10 metres from the end of the ice that the stone must pass to remain in play.

Needless to say we were all pretty crappy at first. We did improve slightly after awhile. But, we have a long way to go to to even achieve mediocrity. Still it was fun. I know we all enjoyed ourselves.

After the game we headed over to the nearby Kelsey's on Elgin Mills, just east of Leslie where we had dinner and watched the pro's put on a show at the Tim Horton's Brier (Canadian Championships) on TSN (The Sports Network).

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.