I have had countless memorable moments in my life! Don’t we all? The following took place during the Christmas Break (off school) in 1997…25 years from when sharing this.
A father arrived at our Canford Sports facilities….while I was about to make more ice after scraping the ice surface as clean as possible…(ice chips from skaters that would sneak onto rink even though posted signage boldly states PLEASE: NO SKATING ALLOWED!
And that may have you pausing and thinking…WHAT? No skating on ice rinks? What’s that all about? Here is a short explanation for now!!! When I began Canford Sports (chose the name CANFORD….because I wanted to provide for all whom wished to play the sport of spongee..their OWN rinks…seeing that foot hockey (spongee) was not allowed to be played at the over 70+ community centres in Winnipeg! So I took it upon myself to build an 8 rink site to accommodate those that wanted to participate! And when I was asked why I was so committed to doing so…. I simply shared… “Because I CAN- do it -FOR- the community at large…and I am -D etermined to make Winnipeg the SPONGE HOCKEY CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!! THUS the name CANFORD!
Back to this special and memorable moment! That father arrived in his huge station wagon with 14 kids jammed inside!!! LOL~ I was just about to put down several icings (floods) when this father got out of his wagon and leaned on the rink ledge to hopefully get my attention! HE DID with his warm smile and HI!!!! I put the hose down and walked over to him. He mentioned that he was driving around everywhere to see if they could go skating!! It was his daughter’s birthday party!! And he had struck out at the four community centres he tried!! I looked into the jammed station wagon …packed with soooo many smiling kids!!!
I could NOT say no!!!! I opened up our bldg and told him to let the kids put their skates on inside while I pulled the hose back inside!!! He was soooooo apprec iative and even offered some money. I said “NO!!! JUST LET THE KIDS PLAY”!!! And as you may well see…within the pics….it was ME…that had as joyous a time as those precious kids!! I had often thought back to that special day…memorable moments…and wondered how many of those girls were or are NOW Moms…planning birthday parties and recalling their telling of a special birthday outing they had back 25 yrs ago!!!
Pictures yes …are worth a 1000 words! I asked the father is I could take photos of them at PLAY and he said SURE!!!!! I put out a couple chairs for the less that professional skaters (lol) to hang onto while they tried to skate!! But the pic that has never failed to give me “Misty eyes” is the departing photo! If you see it….please focus upon each and every one of their faces in that station wagon!!!! And the hands and arms hanging out the open rear window!
In short…it was Johnny that was gifted with something sooo very special that day! And I had become a grandad just months before…and now 25yrs later…I have 15 grand kids and yes…plan a lot of birthdays …and yup!!! misty eyes are not only allowed… but welcomed!!
JUST LET THEM PLAY!!! ARE WE NOT ALL FAMILY~ YES WE ARE! WELCOME HOME~