Here's the start of a new journey
Background
Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated with sports. Was fortunate enough to grow up in a great suburban neighbourhood in North Vancouver, BC Canada minutes from the forest but also had a built-in friend group on our block and basically every block around.
Street hockey, football, basketball, soccer and mountain biking
Most kids in the area played on our streets. Randomly everyone seemed to show up between the end of the school day and dinner time. We had hockey nets setup on a side street or someone had a football. It was usually the older kids that dictated what we were doing and what the teams where. We all started with wooden sticks until the blades broke and then you asked your parents to get a plastic one. Each of use had our unique curve that worked for your shot or stick handling. I was a terrible skater and weak ankles and flat feet didn’t help the matter. My parents weren’t upset at all that I didn’t take to ice hockey. Neither wanted to wake up at 4 am to get to 5 or 6 am practices. So street hockey it was for me.
Football was our other big sport. Sometimes it was just 3 of us, 1 QB, 1 receiver and 1 defender. Most times we played 3v3 or 4v4. There were also times when on the asphalt road it was 2 hand tag and then on everyone’s grass yard it was tackle. I was better at throwing than catching; though I liked catching touchdowns more than anything. I played 2 years of high school football but it wasn’t the greatest experience.
First I was coming off a broken collarbone from a skateboarding accident the summer before grade 9. I needed the doctor’s approval to tryout. Our high school hadn’t had a junior football for program for a couple of years so the equipment was old, damaged and basically terrible. I had shoulder pads that didn’t have the proper straps. Most of us wore our soccer cleats. The helmets didn’t fit. You get the picture. My friends asked me to play QB cause they knew of my street football skills. In the back of my mind I said no way as I figured that playing QB behind an offensive line of guys who never played football before would be a disaster. Well it was. We couldn’t pass the ball, we could run the ball up the middle but no chance of outside tosses or sweeps. Fortunately the coach picked two other kids to play QB. I for some reason had a bad tryout for receiver so ended up playing defensive back. That was fine by me as I preferred playing on defense once I was in grade 9 and you can intercept passes. On run plays you didn’t have a responsibility other than pursuing the ball carrier and delivering hits.
Basketball was one of my favourite sports to play. I started probably in grade 5 in an afterschool league at my eventual high school, Windsor Secondary. It was a spring league with about 8 teams. The coaching was good and it definitely prepared me for high school basketball. Funny enough I didn’t make the grade 8 team. The coach and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on the fundamentals of the game. I thought I was a good enough athlete to play, had better than average dribbling skills and my defense was good. My shot could’ve been better but the coach didn’t like my 1 handed passes. I was so upset about not making the grade 8 team I ended up playing ball everyday at the local elementary school and it was all about that playground style. I didn’t even want to play with the 2nd B team at the school. Playground ball allowed me to compete against better older players. The only issue was we played on 9 foot hoops that ruins your shot. That extra work and practice allowed my to make the grade 9 and 10 teams. We had elite players and athletes, the grade 8 team won the Lower Mainland AAA title and when I joined for the next two years we made it to the finals and lost close games to RC Palmer of Richmond, BC. Bad reffing might’ve contributed to those losses but that’s another story. I had a good view from the bench as our coaches basically ran our starters for all the game and tired them out in the championship games. Bad strategy vs an equally skilled team who played their whole bench. Either way it was difficult to lose the finals in back-2-back years.
I had a late start playing soccer, as I was in piano lessons and german school 2 nights a week starting in kindergarten. It was my next door neighbor who said I should play on a team. We usually played in his backyard and he being a goalie wanted someone to take shots. Soccer was big in North Van so when I signed up to play for the Mount Seymour Soccer Association I had to start on the C team which was the third level when I was 9 years old. Honestly it was a bit too easy to score at that level but I played there for a season before moving up a level. The Silver or B team was competitive and had better players. As I improved I played on the A team and maybe the metro team but at 12 and 13 years old we all knew who were the influential parents who had their kids on those teams. All learning experiences for me. From watching losts of pro soccer as a kid I understood the game more than my teammates. I ended up playing centre midfield and was more of a distributor of the ball making attacking plays and passes. My big issue was my flat feet. I started wearing foot orthotics at 10 years old. I often had hamstring and calf cramping during games. During tournaments there was no way I could play 2 games in a day. This was a struggle my whole teenaged years until my early 20s when I started martial arts. I played soccer until grade 10 when I fell in love with mountain biking.
My parents bought me my first mountain bike in grade 8 and yes I had bmx bikes before than so rode just like most kids do. My first mountain bike was a 15 speed BRC High Gear. In grade 10 it was different, as we had 2 mountain bike shops to choose from in North Van. For me anyway being a Blueridge kid we had the legendary Deep Cove Bike Shop and in Lynn Valley was The Great Bicycle Company. My friends started getting better bikes so I had to as well. Somehow I saved money from a newspaper route and working in a restaurant, I bought my first Rocky Mountain which was an Avalanche in 1988. I rode it for a year and actually traded it in to the shop I bought it from and upgraded to a Rocky Mountain Hammer in late 1989.
Sports fandom
For me it started from a few fronts. First it was my parents who were big into watching sports on TV, whether it was tennis, CFL football, Hockey Night in Canada, NFL, figure skating, olympics and soccer. My mom being German meant we always watched the world cup and later we had a German channel that aired Bundesliga games. I was 6 years old when we had the 1978 World Cup on TV. Argentina (the host nation) beat the Netherlands in the final.
My older half-sister and brother-in-law started to gift me Vancouver Whitecaps seasons tickets when I was a kid for my birthday. If I remember right we had seasons tickets from 1978 to 1983. I always had to hold my sister’s hand when walking through the big crowds at Empire Stadium so I wouldn’t get lost. We watched many games in the cold and rain sitting just far enough under the grandstand cover. But once and a while a gust of wind would sprinkle us with water in a windy rainstorm. The Whitecaps had great players who even made impacts on the international stage for their countries; Rudi Krol, Peter Beardsley, Phil Parkes, John Craven, Trevor Whymark. And then the Canadian contingent who qualified from the 1986 World Cup, Bob Lenarduzzi, Carl Valentine, Tino Lettieri, Dale Mitchell and Ian Bridge.
Hockey Cards and Basketball Cards
Remember when a pack of hockey cards was 25 cents for 5 cards of O-Pee-Chee in the late 1970s? The hard-as-a-rock stick of gum was usually brittle and broke in pieces. I started getting cards in 1981. My neighborhood buddies had older brothers who had cards from the early 70s. Most of the time we didn’t take care of them. It was mostly about completing a set and also collecting your favourite players. We played games at school with the cards to a point of the school banning us from bringing them to school as it caused fights at recess. I collected hockey cards till the early 1990s and started to take care of them in 1985 when I realized they had some value. 1986 changed with the explosion of Michael Jordan. Then it was a mission to bus downtown to Super Dave’s collectibles with my friend Stephen to pick up new packs of hockey or basketball. Super Dave’s was in a old building downtown where you had to walk up 4 stories of creaky stairs.
Vancouver Canucks and New York Islanders
As North Vancouver kids we were kinda Canucks fans. Why? Well firstly the team was terrible and the jerseys were just ugly. There’s no other way to describe it. Unfortunately the Canucks didn’t have many skilled players and didn’t win much. The popular players were the rough guys; Harold Snepts, Tiger Williams and Curt Fraser. At that age you gravitate to the best teams and I liked the New York Islanders colours. From hockey card collecting Mike Bossy was my favourite player. They’d already won 2 cups in a row before facing the Canucks in the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals. Somehow the Canucks caught fire, made the playoffs and got to the finals. We all knew they were in trouble vs the Islanders. I was secretly cheering for Mike Bossy and the rest of his star teammates to win. They won in 4 straight and lifted the Cup at the Pacific Coliseum.
BC Lions and Niners
At the same impressionable age I was watching football on TV. The BC Lions had good teams in the 80s with so much talent both Canadian and American. Every year I went to a bookstore to buy the annual CFL guide which had the rosters and statistics of every team which I read through multiple times. I don’t know how those guys played on that old Empire Stadium turf. I was equivalent to the cheap carpet in your unfinished basement with no underlay. Basically those guys played on concrete. And when it rained heavily that field had terrible drainage. Outside the numbers on the field was essentially an inch of water. Those Lions teams had Roy Dewalt who had a strong arm as QB, Mervyn Fernandez was a receiver almost too good for the league who ended up going to the LA Raiders of the NFL. Jim Sandusky was the opposite wide out to Fernandez and running back Keyvan Jenkins was dynamic. Coach Don Matthews defense was a terror with allstars all over the field. Nick Hebeler, Rick Klassen, Mike Gray and Quick Parker was a devastating D-line. At linebacker there was Ty Crews, Mike Ulmer and Glen Jackson. The defensive backfield was also elite with Darnell Clash, Mel Bird, Larry Crawford and Keith Gooch. Too Good. That 1985 Grey Cup team was great and they should’ve won a couple more championships during that era.
Locally in Vancouver we had all the Washington state TV stations so we had ample access to watch the Seattle Seahawks, but for me there was nothing for me as a kid to latch on to. Joe Montana and the flashy 49ers where the team to watch on Sundays and Monday nights. The battles the Niners had with the Cowboys, Giants and Redskins during that era in the 80s were great games to watch. The Niners just had so many exciting players to watch; Jerry Rice, Roger Craig, Tom Rathman on offence. On D there wasn’t a harder hitter than Ronnie Lott. Watching the Niners win their first Superbowl in 1982 secured me as a fan.
Kickboxing and Boxing
I started kickboxing in 1993 with a friend and had to train for a year before joining the school. I couldn’t afford the $90/month being a student at BCIT but I knew the curriculum up to orange belt before I did my first white belt class. I was immediately hooked on the challenge of learning a hybrid kickboxing and karate style and Champions Martial Arts in North Vancouver. My dad and I fooled around throwing punches at each other when I was a kid which was more or less play fighting. But somehow that stuck with me though I’d never consider myself a fighter. I was that shy kid if I didn’t know you and always tried to avoid any confrontation. I’ll expand on my kickboxing experience in a future post but it was my introduction into watching K-1 and UFC with the guys.
My dad was a boxing fan and we’d watch most fights that we’re on free TV and was lucky to be a teenager during Mike Tyson’s prime. A friend at school had a betting chart in his locker. There was a big grid and it was a $5 bet to pick the round when Tyson would knockout his opponent. He fought monthly in those days so there were kick build ups to fights and it was a big conversation piece as we all bought the boxing magazines.
That was my start as a sports fan and now’s the time to write down my experiences and perspectives on what’s going on. Thanks for following along if you made this far.