GhEtTo bLaStErS

2008/09 season was amazing , playing in my favorite league in the whole world  ( www.gthla.ca ) for a team called the Burritos and another team in another league called the Octagon Capitals. I went to Europe for an amazing trip that season and won the Summit with the Burritos and won the league championship with Octagon then i got hurt ...... lost all muscle in my left arm from a pinched nerve and could not play hockey for 6 months. Asking my teams to hold my spot i let them know that surgery was something i might be looking into and that i would give them 1 months notice to let other goalie know i am coming back . Honestly the other goalie should already know he is replacing someone ???? Well i contacted both squads sometime at the beginning of October that year in 2009 for the 09/10 season and got the run around from both teams . Yeah i get hurt playing for them and this is the thanks i get in return ....quality decisions !

So there i am without a team and i know a few other guys that are without teams and looking so i begin to contact them one by one hoping one of them would want to start a team . Unfortunately i was dumb enough to want to start a team and contacted a few other artists i knew ( this is an artist league) , they were interested and one even had a name a logo and is an amazing hockey player ( Greg Majster ) . So just over a year ago now i started a team called the Ghetto Blasters . In our first year we have done alot of great things as a team even though the roster has changed drastically over our first 64 games ( over 40 skaters ) . We started off by just organizing exhibition games the same night at the same rink with the same refs/timekeeper that our league uses and eventually began entering tournaments ( making semis in our first ever , then winning the Summit of the Arts later that month !) We also entered into a charity tournament raising just under $1000 for the Heart & Stroke Foundation . We will be entering this very same tournament this year and if you wish to make a donation here is the link http://www.hockeyforheart.com/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=441982&lis=1&kntae441982=988CBD52B15045B4818DF768F19E0B41&supId=0&team=3975749&cj=

Since that first winter we have gone on to host our own tournament ( The Ghetto Classic ) which is growing yearly . This year we might have up to 8 teams . We also won our summer hockey league , entering higher level next summer . We have also in our first year added our first sponsor which will be sponsoring  our team yearly , this year using our sponsorship money to get our first set of white jerseys . The Midpoint ( www.facebook.com/pages/The-Midpoint/300817815682 ) is a bar just around the corner on trendy Queen St. W. that you will be able to find myself and some of the other guys on the team there on Saturday nights deep in the corner of the bar near the kitchen ( food is amazing !)

In 2 weeks we have our first road trip as a team , over this time i will begin to introduce you to some of these guys individually. Hope to play some of your teams in the future on our road trips unless you are brave enough to come to our Ghetto !!!!

Rainy Day

Dumpy kinda day out, yeah i know i have not really been doing much Blogging .....you can say i have had writers blo(g)ck  LOL. So i have not heard anything from that team in Hawaii and i think my time frame to book my free ticket is pretty much up , without a solid confirmation i am not going to bother flying all the way there to beg to play hockey . I have already done the begging thing (Ljubljana) to no avail .My time in Hawaii will come .

So at the moment i am planning an alternate trip to a country that has eluded my presence on the ice ..... gonna keep it a secret as the person(s) there might be reading this . If all goes well expect to see me at your door just before New Years Eve LOL!

Today my friends in Europe are heading to Kaposvar,Hungary for a tournament . Good Luck guys ! Hearing of my friends in Europe constantly having these cheap trips really makes me want to move to Europe and travel way more , i do have my Maltese citizenship . Not too sure where i would want to live though , i have kinda grown attached to most of the countries i have been to .

In other news i will be on a road trip that i will blog about . The trip is with my Ghetto Blasters Hockey Club  , we have an exhibition game vs. Crystal Beach Comets ( St. Catharines,Ontario) . They are a team mostly made up of musicians should be a fun day . Have to begin to put together a car pool . And i might as well begin introducing everyone to my Ghetto Blasters, later........

The Wait

It has probably been a while since i have wrote a blog so i might as well use some free early morning time to catch you and you and you too up on what is going on with my life as The Travelling Goalie ( big echo effects in background LOL) . Basically i have my finger on the trigger waiting to book this flight . I have the flights picked out , just waiting to get a solid confirmation from my team rep in Hawaii ( Jason Short ) . Last week i sent out an email and have yet to get a response ( hoping he is on vacay or his comp is broken or something ) and the guys that want to join me have not heard a response from him either . Finding this out in the last couple days has made me queasy about booking a flight as i have some horror stories about booked  flights ( i dodged that bullet ) .

Hopefully he emails me this weekend as this flight might disappear as i am using my Aeroplan pts to book this one , yes i just pay the taxes and it is gonna be DIRT cheap LOL! If i don't hear from Jason in the next week i might have to resort to contacting the tournament organizer again OR just forget about it ......i would say at max i have a month long time frame to get this on the go ;) i guess time will tell and patience is a virtue ....that i don't always have .

I will be making a mini road trip in the next couple weeks to St. Catharines for a hockey game with the Ghetto Blasters .....there should be a story there , maybe .

The Rejects

So at some point yesterday i finally got the email i was waiting for :) I contacted a fellow named Jason Short in Hawaii that was putting together a local team . Apparently made up of guys that no one else would take ....  Timo and Andi from Germany had asked me to see if i could get them on a team in the tournament so i asked Jason and he gladly accepted both of them and then mentioned the team was still short players , so i contacted a fellow i met at the Fussen tournament named Tim Dyer. Tim is from San Diego and has a group of guys that might be interested in playing on our team ( i put Tim and Jason in touch last night )

Jason told me the team we might be playing for might be called The Rejects due to the circumstances of how this team was started :) For me personally , playing for a team of weaker skaters in a lower division is not a problem . More than likely it will be a better chance to let loose and take it easy , no pressure...or at least not as much as when playing for a title ! This should be allot of fun , now it looks like it will happen . More than likely i will be flying out to Hawaii on April 13 and flying back the night the tournament ends :( , trying to get the latest flight out as i need to be at a tournament in Toronto with Ghetto Blasters on Friday morning .

The best part of this trip is that we get to play for a local team . The locals usually know how to have the most fun at these tournaments :)

Dissappointments Con't

Go figure....that Hawaii trip i have coveted for over a year now has hit a bump in the road AGAIN :( . The team from Augsburg can't make it , just found out the other week but this time i have a backup plan and have already put it into play as i JUST sent out an email to a team in Hawaii with hopes of landing myself and possibly get Andi Tanzer onto the team as well . As soon as i found out that the guys from Augsburg were not going to make it i contacted the tournament organizer in Hawaii and told her that i am a free agent now looking for a team , she was quite prompt in sending me a contact and hopefully i get onto this local team .... always way more fun playing for local teams !

 Tonight my team here in Toronto (Ghetto Blasters) has a big game against one of the top teams in our league , and i am chatting with one of my defense man that is travelling overseas now ( HI CHIP ) . I am planning on taking my team to the Czech Republic at the end of April in 2012 for a tournament and eventually i will introduce you all to these wacky guys as we will be causing a lot of ruckus overseas , planning is in process but for now i should stay focused on Hawaii . Need to start looking for a Hawaiian/Polynesian flag for my stick bag HEHEHE . Keep your fingers crossed for me , hoping to get onto a team ASAP so i can book my flight ....