What a great day! Still in our pjs at lunch time but a quick change and putting on several layers we headed off to the Memorial Hall to watch Shanah and her team, The Kawartha Komets, play in a fund-raising match against the Peterborough Petes. The Kawartha Komets are raising funds to send their players to the Special Hockey Games in the USA in May. As their website states “the Jack McGee Kawartha Komets was launched in 2009 to give girls & boys, teens and adults with physical, emotional and/or neurodevelopmental challenges an opportunity to play the game they love.
Young people with Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome, Down Syndrome and other challenges can enjoy playing non-contact hockey and build lasting relationships with others who share their love for hockey. The only requirement is that the player must be able to stand on skates.”
The Komets teams (junior, intermediate and senior) are based on skating ability, not age, so there were some players who looked so tiny compared to the Petes (who are in the junior hockey league, aged 16 to 20 years old). The Petes were founded in 1956, are the oldest continually operating team in the junior hockey league and have produced many players who have gone on to play in the National Hockey League, a fact of which they are justifiably proud! It was great to see them playing together with the Komets and now I’d like to go to a match with someone who can explain to me what is going on! Perhaps we should go and see the Toronto Maple Leafs (shouldn’t that be leaves!) next!
We left a little early to go to the Lang Pioneer Village with our Aussie friends – there was a special night looking around the village which is complete with every a village would have had in the Pioneer days – an old school house, the general store, a blacksmiths, a carpenters, and houses of the time, and for this special event there were carollers, sleigh rides and the Nativity story. The Nativity story was told by the local vicar (think Vicar of Dibley) as actors played out the story, complete with a real baby and a real donkey, together with shepherds, real sheep and lambs though there were no camels with the three wise man (the one wearing ugg boots didn’t look quite as authentic as the other two!)! The story was interspersed by carols. It was quite lovely. The photo is not great as, being a Pioneer Village, there is no electric lighting so the lighting was dim, but hopefully you can make out the donkey, blocking the view of Mary and the baby Jesus, but maybe you can see Joseph who was trying to make the donkey move to the side!
We were glad of our hot apple ciders just before to keep us warm and I had my first mince pie of the season! We then stopped in at the (very small) Town hall where there were two jolly men singing carols on request so it was with Frosty the Snowman and White Christmas, amongst others, ringing in our ears that we made our way home! It feels much more like Christmas now!
fionaandsimonincanada 