June 13th, 2012
Burnaby Play On!
by Jonathan
Hello again, fans of the blog. This week, your intrepid reporter was on the scene of the Burnaby Playon! Street Hockey tournament sponsored by the CBC. For those that need some background information on the event, you can check out my previous introductory Playon! blog.
Anyways, I arrived at Metropolis at Metrotown, the giant mall smack dab in the middle of Burnaby to witness the event. My job was to live tweet, and then write a blog about the Celebrity game that was happening at noon. Local celebs’ from around Vancouver would be partaking in the event, with names like former NHL’er Dave Tomlinson, Canucks anthem singer Mark Donnelly, and current Florida Panther Mike Santorelli being floated around.
When I did arrive at the mall, all I could see were hockey sticks, hockey bags, hockey balls, and rolls and rolls of hockey tape. People of all ages were in hockey jerseys, trucking around hockey bags inside the mall, and outside at the various ball hockey courts that were set up for the tournament. As a kid who spent his entire childhood playing road hockey, it truly was a wondrous thing to behold. As I meandered through the crowd, it was hard not to feel the togetherness, the happiness and the overall feeling of camaraderie that the event had generated. I mean, teams were losing, but they were doing so with smiles on their faces, genuinely just happy to get out of the house and play a little hockey for the afternoon. Now, I was supposed to partake in the event, but due to injury I had to bow out. It’s a real shame too, because I could sense the amount of enjoyment that every single participant was having, and it’s something that I would have liked to been involved in. Oh well, onwards and upwards!
I arrived at the celebrity game and perused the starting lineup. In addition to Tomlinson, Donnelly and Santorelli, other celebs had made the trek out. Keep in mind that when I say celebrity, I really mean “Vancouver” celebrity. For instance, Crazy P, the guy who dresses up like a superfan and goes to BC Lions games (I think he get’s paid for it), was there, and seemed to be having lots of fun. A couple of Vancouver city councillors made the trip out as well, although the game was pretty much dominated by Santorelli and Tomlinson, who were the Captains for their respective teams. Tomlinson ended up scoring, only to be answered by Santorelli. However, Tomlinson scored again to make it 2-1 for his team.
The Surprise of the game had to go to Mark Donnelly, who potted two goals to extend the lead to 4-1 over Santorelli’s squad. If only the Canucks had that type of offense during the Playoffs. (Baddum ching! Thank you, I’ll be here all week.)
Anyways, my hilarious jokes aside, the White team held a 5-4 advantage heading into the final seconds of the game. With only seconds remaining, Crazy P had a wide open net that he literally only had to tap the ball into, but he whiffed, hilariously, and the game ended at 5-4. Adding to Crazy P’s misery was the smart aleck announcers of the game, who callously called out “Did he really miss that open net?” While I shouldn’t have smiled, I did because it was pretty funny. After the match, the celebs stayed around to sign a few autographs, but instead were ushered off by other hockey players wanting to start their own game.
It just goes to show that while a celeb sighting might be slightly exciting for the average hockey player, nothing beats getting on the rink (or in this case, floor), and getting your game on.
Keep checking the blog! Soon I will have to squeeze my doughy body into spandex and go bi-cycling to review some of the cycling routes in Burnaby! Will I survive? Probably not.
