Still Trying

Yesterday was a great day . I had to drive Kathleen to work in the AM so when i got back i sat around trying to make contact with all the newspapers and sports networks in Toronto . Sent out probably 10 emails asking to see if anyone would be interested in getting the Argentine hockey players on tv or in the newspaper ...unfortunately nobody responded :( , actually i am lying . An old hockey buddy here that has some media influences showed some interest . 

As i said yesterday these guys flew all the way up here to experience hockey in Toronto , with their hard earned dollars . They are here for a hockey camp with the other 16 skaters due to show up on Jan. 29 .... i am hearing stories about some of the old equipment they use and the fact they don't have a zamboni and have to go out every night and shovel the snow off their rink to keep the ice good and that they have a small old tv as their scoreboard ... and it kills me , i wish i had the money to send them a used zamboni down there .These guys have the hockey heart we always talk about and it really tears me up that they don't have this stuff that we have :( 

So we went to see the Leafs practise in the morning at the MasterCard Center and they were so excited to see 4 rinks in the same building ... there is a HHOF office in the rink so we went in and i told them about their story and asked them if they could get us any media attention and they basically asked me to contact them via email and they will give the Argentine team discounted entrance to the hall when they choose to go .The big thing is that they are going to donate a jersey to the hall of fame and it will be placed in the international section :) i am sure Javier wants his #7 to be in there .

 After that we went to my favorite hockey store in Toronto ! Toronto Hockey Repair /Goalie Heaven , i love this place so much  .It is not a big name shop , family owned and its always had the best service and they have always given my friends great discounts on gear when i bring my overseas hockey buddies that are visiting . Javier & Anita bought brand new gear head to toe ! It was their first time ever in a hockey shop as they don't have that luxury in Argentina ... mainly they do all their shopping for gear online and repair their own equipment , they have no choice ! So think of it , they have never tried on gear and then bought it !!!! you could only imagine the looks on both of their faces when we walked in there . 

After they got all geared up we went by High Park as it was snowing out and it looked really beautiful and i wanted to show them an outdoor rink . They saw a zamboni took some pics and were really excited ... we then went back to my place and ordered some Chinese food and decided to go for a skate . I called Mike Takacs and a few other buddies ( that did not show or respond) and we walked over to the rink down the road from Mike's . There were a lot of skaters out there , i think there was a good 20 or so skaters . We played for the full hour and Anita scored twice :) she was pumping her fist and all the guys at the rink were amazed to be playing with 2 people from Argentina . To be honest i was quite surprised with their skill level as it was not that bad . I skated out which for me is super duper odd ... not my cup of tea but i wasn't gonna suit up outdoors LOL . 

Today i think our friends are going to try making their way to Ottawa to see the nations capital . If anyone reading this knows anyone in the media please let them know about our hockey friends from Argentina ! If we can help them in anyway i know it would be very much appreciated ... their local gov't does not do enough for the people that really love hockey ... the game that we all love ! 

Can Anyone Help ?

Last night 2 of the Argentinian hockey players arrived in Toronto :)

I went to pick them up from the airport and brought them back to my place to stay the next few nights . When we arrived we began talking about Ushuaia and the Argentine Federation . It sounds like i will be going to play for the host team when i go to Argentina in July to play in their tournament ! The one thing that really stuck out for me was when they were explaining their rink and what they need to maintain it ... i want to help these guys as much as i can .

Javier & Anita told me they have to shovel snow off the rink which is the only Olympic sized rink in South America , and that their scoreboard was a small tv screen they have . Immediately i started to think that it would be great if someone would donate a zamboni and a scoreboard for their outdoor rink ... unfortunately i can't think of anyone that has any of these to donate off hand .... but how awesome would it be if i could help them find someone who could help them ????

The only way i can see myself helping my friends from Argentina would be to get them on TV or some form of press ( newspaper or online interview ) and then maybe someone out there would see this and see how much they love the sport of Ice Hockey and help them out .... today i am writing this and then i will send some emails out to some tv stations to see if there is any interest in helping these guys and gals :)

If anyone reading this has any connection to anyone that can help me help them it would be greatly appreciated , we should help our brothers and sisters that love the game as much as we do !!! We are all one big international family when it comes to the game we all love . Please leave a comment below if you know someone in the media or someone with a spare zamboni kicking around and hopefully we can help our friends in Ushuaia make their ice rink more complete .

Team Argentina

As most of you know i do a lot of travelling and i also do what i can to make other hockey travellers comfortable when visiting Toronto . I will be heading out to Argentina in a few months so these next few weeks are pretty key to me . You see i will be in Patagonia for up to 10 days between Argentina and Chile in July , when i go there i really don't want to get caught in the tourist traps as i am sure there will be those opportunities . There is a group of hockey players visiting Toronto beginning Jan.24 .... i am hoping to make sure they have the best time possible here .... and i am hoping to extract as much information about their home cities to find a good place to stay and great things to do . The best part of it all is that i will have about 19 new friends after they visit here , which usually makes my trips more fun as locals will show you the best way to have fun in their cities AND most of all the cheapest :)

Javier and Anita will be the first 2 to land here and i am pretty sure that Javier is the president of the FAHH which is the ice hockey federation in Argentina . I am hoping to keep time off work to go pick them up and take them to the place they have booked to stay at . There is a bit of a language barrier between us but i am sure we will work it out in person as it is much easier to communicate with facial expressions and hand movements :) From the sounds of it they are travelling without a goalie so i am going to try joining their camp as much as i can and in fact i am trying to find a goalie to fill in for them .... apparently i might have a goalie coming from Montreal as he is very interested in playing with the Argentinians as his bloodline comes from there but we will see what happens ...

Also have to take them hockey equipment shopping and have booked some icetime for them to play against/with my Ghetto Blasters which should be a great experience for everyone . I am really looking forward to having some guests here in Toronto . Still not sure when the rest of the skaters show up here ....  hopefully all goes well while they are here and they enjoy it enough that they will want to return . I know there are 2 friends of mine really hoping i can extract as much info for our trip as possible .... Andi , Timo i will let you both know when i know more ..... then we can start booking our flights !

Today i have a Ghetto Blaster game mid day then i have to get ready to go to London tomorrow for that commercial i will be in .... the next few days should be very exciting ! i hope all of you are having as good a 2013 as i am ....

Peace ! 

Another Commercial

Friday morning here in Toronto , i have the day off as my shift was cancelled last night ... under 24 hour notice of cancellation means a day off with 4 hours of pay to stay home :) that my friends is a really good way to start a weekend ... unfortunately i am not so young and spry anymore and i really don't go out and party too much when i am home in Toronto . I much rather pocket that cash and save  it for my next trip ( south america ) .

The shift that was cancelled is not my film work , it was a staging job ... we are actually shipping the show Warhorse to its next destination via shipping containers . My next day of work will be on the ice !!! Yup you heard it right i am getting paid to step on the ice with some former pros and act ... Last year i did a Smart Car Promo which aired online under the name Smart.Studio  that happened because someone i work with in film ( Dennis Beier ) knew of my blog and all my travels playing hockey and was in need of some hockey players for a hockey segment they wanted to shoot so he contacted me . I put him in touch with an old hockey buddy named Shane Nuttley-Kirby who played pro in Germany , the crew was from Germany so it made sense that they all might have something to relate too ... Dennis actually asked if i knew any pros that played in Germany so it made perfect sense .

That was last year ... move to the present and Dennis contacts my friend Shane now to do another one , Shane in turn calls me for doing him the favor last year and blam !!! Monday i will be shooting this unknown commercial and hopefully i will be able to share the link with you all in a few weeks :) There is a good possibility that i have to wear my own gear , but in all honesty i am hoping to get the chance to score some new pads ... i know that whatever they buy will be much easier to give away rather then returned . Keeping my fingers crossed but not getting my hopes up .

2013 is definitely off to a good start now if i can only get my Ghetto Blasters a win .....

2012 The Review

Happy New Years Everyone :) hope you all had a great time out and i hope you all have a great 2013 !!!

2012 was a pretty decent year for me ... it started off with me heading out to Germany to meet Rainer on Jan . 2nd and jumping onto another plane to fly to Sweden to catch the ferry to Tallinn ,Estonia to play in a tournament there ... The trip to Estonia itself was awesome , getting really drunk over 2.5 days of travel and meeting a bunch of interesting people on the way . When we got to Estonia we met our friends and won a pretty tough tournament by beating a division 1 club twice in 1 day to capture their trophy ( which i broke ) . That was truly the highlight and start of 2012 , great way to start the year .

I stayed out in Europe going to Estonia,Latvia,Sweden and Germany on that trip for 3 weeks of debauchery ... we played in every country on that trip and honestly it was the best vacation i have ever been on :) After that trip i came home and played some good hockey but overall hockey in 2012 ( in Toronto ) was not a good year for me as i had a personal record below .500 and didn't have any trophies to show off :( but this isn't really about my hockey life in Toronto ... this is about the Travelling Goalie !



While i was out in Europe we found out about this tournament in Iceland and we all decided to head there in October so when i got home i was pretty focused on saving up for this trip , my second trip to Europe during 2012 . This trip originally was going to be BIG , but it got dumbed down to basically the new experience of going to Iceland and playing in their tournament ... which totally sucks and i still don't recommend anyone going there to play in this particular tournament !!!! I got sick there and we headed back to Berlin , there was a lot of drinking and watching pro sports which was totally amazing , don't get me wrong Iceland was amazing too , just that tournament kinda ruined a lot of stuff for me there but whatever LOL ! The rest of the trip was composed of us travelling too Iceland , Germany, Czech Rep. & England which i played in all over the place had a great time in Plzen at a hockey camp and got to meet and have a fun night out with the Maltese National Football Team !

That 2nd trip to Europe was not as good as first simply due to the fact that we didn't win the tournament , and i didn't really go to anywhere new that i haven't been to before aside from Iceland and Berlin i had been everywhere else before ... i mean there were a couple cities in Germany i haven't been too before but all i was doing was visiting the hockey rink or football pitch :) It didn't help also that i lost and never got to say bye to my travelling companion ... you all know who he is HAHAHA !!!!

The year was not over as i had a tournament in Victoriaville , Quebec to travel too at the end of November :) that tournament was ridiculous hard !!!! Toughest and best competition i have ever been involved in , and to my surprise i did quite well :) First game was rough had to get up to speed but the rest of the tourney i did quite well helping to get my team to the semi final ( which we lost in a close one ) the team i played for was an honour to be with ... the team was Les Stingers and they all had played for the Concordia Stingers . It was also an honour to play with former Montreal Canadiens and Augsburg Panthers defense man Francois Groleau . Unfortunately as i mentioned earlier , we did not win but the winning team sent us a message saying that we were much tougher competition then the team they beat in the final ... which was definitely a consolation . I brought home some awesome poutine and made some really great friends , gotta thank fellow Ghetto Blaster Alex Charette for hooking that trip up for me .....

2012 started off AMAZING but as you can see the slope went downward at the end :( i was planning to go to Puerto Rico to play in December and i couldn't do to monetary situation i am tied into back home with my hockey club .... when you run a hockey team you are responsible for the teams payments , when a skater misses a payment then i have to pay . Unfortunately i have some friends that have fallen behind on their payments and that costed me my trip . I am hoping and planning to make it there in October ,2013 before there rinks disappear ( bad politics ) l.

I hope you all have an amazing 2013 , i am really looking forward to the trips i am planning on going to this year .... The Travelling Goalie will be making trips to South America and the Caribbean this year , breaking new horizons .