Too many times in our lives, we do not take the time to properly thank those who influence us and make us the better people that we are until it’s too late. I don’t want miss my opportunity, so here’s some of the people who have had the greatest affect on my life so far.
Obviously, we are all the product of our upbringing and I am greatly indebted to my family for making me the person I am today. My parents clearly demonstrated the importance of helping others through countless hours of community service in various churches over the years, offering their time sitting on various committees and boards, hosting and leading various study groups, lending their time at city missions and outreach services, and by visiting the sick and ministering to their physical as well as spiritual and emotional needs by comforting them. While my path has been slightly different, many of my motivations have been similar to theirs.
I grew up watching my siblings excel at sports, which is most likely why I decided to return to those very same organizations later in life to offer my time in appreciation for their efforts in making my siblings the great people in the community that they are. Thanks to the discipline they learned through sports, they grew up to be great workers and family people, which are some of the same things that I try to pass on to the players currently under my watch.
I was too stubborn to be a great student, but nevertheless, several teachers stand out in my mind and still have a tremendous impact on me today. My grade eight teacher, Mrs. Ruth Osbourne, was a stickler for proper grammar, punctuation and attention to detail in general, and I have her to thank that I can still string together sentences that make sense in our electronic age of texts and e-mails.
Mr. Rodney Oakes, who, if memory serves, I had several times per semester every year from Grade 10 to my OAC year, clearly instilled in me a love for history, economics and all of the social sciences. He gets the credit for teaching me how to argue well and prove my point using the point, proof and justification method. Apparently, he must have passed this on to his grandson as well, who I now coach in hockey, because he likes to argue too.
While I could thank products like Ruffles potato chips and Coca-Cola for making me the well-rounded person I am, the one product that held a greater influence on me in the end, was the Upper Deck hockey trading card series of 1991-92. This series of cards was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The images they captured were not your generic hockey images, but featured players stretching, yawning, tying their skates, and in poses never before put on a hockey card. These images excited me much more than the gum offered by the O-Pee-Chee packs, and many of the images I now take as an amateur sports photographer mimic that style. Interestingly enough, I came by my love of sports photography by accident as well, thanks to Shoppers Optimum Points. I had collected points for several years, never knowing what to redeem them for, and then Shoppers came out with several digital cameras in their stores. While I laugh at the simplicity of my first digital camera (the Olympus FE-340), and wonder how I ever managed to take any decent pictures with it, it was enough to kindle a passion for photography.
Then there’s the 11-year old boy, Brodie Barrick, who I saw stonewall a much-higher ranked Halton Hurricanes team during a 0-0 tie in 2006. Who knew in the years since that I would announce his OMHA hockey championship just two years later and then see him be the only player from Welland drafted into the OHL this season? Add to his name the hundreds of others who I’ve cheered, announced, managed, written about, photographed, played music for and my life’s purpose clearly comes into focus and makes sense.
When I suffered vision-impairment in 2004 due to complications from LASIK eye surgery I thought my life was over. Nothing could be further from the truth, as it was only beginning. As I’m constantly reminded by teams like the Welland Ken’s Auto Appraisals Tigers, who captured the city’s first-ever provincial championship at the Major Bantam A level in 2009-10, anything is indeed possible if you believe and work hard enough.
My works continues, as ever, a work in progress…I’m not sure what will come of it, but I know it will be good because I have done my best.
In the end I want to echo the same testimony as the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” That might just be the biggest Championship that I ever get to announce.
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June 1, 2010 Influences
Too many times in our lives, we do not take the time to properly thank those who influence us and make us the better people that we are until it’s too late. I don’t want miss my opportunity, so here’s some of the people who have had the greatest affect on my life so far.
Obviously, we are all the product of our upbringing and I am greatly indebted to my family for making me the person I am today. My parents clearly demonstrated the importance of helping others through countless hours of community service in various churches over the years, offering their time sitting on various committees and boards, hosting and leading various study groups, lending their time at city missions and outreach services, and by visiting the sick and ministering to their physical as well as spiritual and emotional needs by comforting them. While my path has been slightly different, many of my motivations have been similar to theirs.
I grew up watching my siblings excel at sports, which is most likely why I decided to return to those very same organizations later in life to offer my time in appreciation for their efforts in making my siblings the great people in the community that they are. Thanks to the discipline they learned through sports, they grew up to be great workers and family people, which are some of the same things that I try to pass on to the players currently under my watch.
I was too stubborn to be a great student, but nevertheless, several teachers stand out in my mind and still have a tremendous impact on me today. My grade eight teacher, Mrs. Ruth Osbourne, was a stickler for proper grammar, punctuation and attention to detail in general, and I have her to thank that I can still string together sentences that make sense in our electronic age of texts and e-mails.
Mr. Rodney Oakes, who, if memory serves, I had several times per semester every year from Grade 10 to my OAC year, clearly instilled in me a love for history, economics and all of the social sciences. He gets the credit for teaching me how to argue well and prove my point using the point, proof and justification method. Apparently, he must have passed this on to his grandson as well, who I now coach in hockey, because he likes to argue too.
While I could thank products like Ruffles potato chips and Coca-Cola for making me the well-rounded person I am, the one product that held a greater influence on me in the end, was the Upper Deck hockey trading card series of 1991-92. This series of cards was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The images they captured were not your generic hockey images, but featured players stretching, yawning, tying their skates, and in poses never before put on a hockey card. These images excited me much more than the gum offered by the O-Pee-Chee packs, and many of the images I now take as an amateur sports photographer mimic that style. Interestingly enough, I came by my love of sports photography by accident as well, thanks to Shoppers Optimum Points. I had collected points for several years, never knowing what to redeem them for, and then Shoppers came out with several digital cameras in their stores. While I laugh at the simplicity of my first digital camera (the Olympus FE-340), and wonder how I ever managed to take any decent pictures with it, it was enough to kindle a passion for photography.
Then there’s the 11-year old boy, Brodie Barrick, who I saw stonewall a much-higher ranked Halton Hurricanes team during a 0-0 tie in 2006. Who knew in the years since that I would announce his OMHA hockey championship just two years later and then see him be the only player from Welland drafted into the OHL this season? Add to his name the hundreds of others who I’ve cheered, announced, managed, written about, photographed, played music for and my life’s purpose clearly comes into focus and makes sense.
When I suffered vision-impairment in 2004 due to complications from LASIK eye surgery I thought my life was over. Nothing could be further from the truth, as it was only beginning. As I’m constantly reminded by teams like the Welland Ken’s Auto Appraisals Tigers, who captured the city’s first-ever provincial championship at the Major Bantam A level in 2009-10, anything is indeed possible if you believe and work hard enough.
My works continues, as ever, a work in progress…I’m not sure what will come of it, but I know it will be good because I have done my best.
In the end I want to echo the same testimony as the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.” That might just be the biggest Championship that I ever get to announce.
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