Ness’ Outpost

This past Sunday I spent the day in Georgetown upgrading my referee card to a level 2. Of course it had to be the muggiest and hotest day of the summer which was just before hurricane Ike came to town that evening.

This will get me out of house league and doing some rep and travel games.
Looking forward to the new season.

I picked up some new skates from the Burnhamthorpe Hockey Experts store. I ended up spending a little more than I wanted, but I use them enough so it’s worth it.

I’ll be riding in a pair of Mission Fuel 120XPs come the new year. Now I’m looking forward to Friday morning hockey. Even though they have been baked and feel like my current boots I wonder how many blisters I’ll get breaking them in. They are definitely a stiffer boot.

Last night my hockey skate blade was loose and I couldn’t tighten it. There are 3 bolts on each of my Mission skates which I bought in the late ’90s.

I played on them last night since there are 2 other bolts still holding the blade in the plastic holder but when I walk “heel to toe” on the rubber mats the steel noticeably moves around instead of just creaking.

Before my game today I took them into a hockey shop near the rink. These guys specialize in hockey. There were a pair of Graf’s on the wall for $750. The younger guy in the shop started talking about drilling out the bolt since it is was just spinning and wouldn’t tighten any more. The problem being that they can’t get any hardware for the skates since they are at least 7 years old.

The shop couldn’t help me so I played on them again. I don’t think they affected me on the ice, but on the bench they sounded bad and I was a little concerned about going over the boards and cracking the steel blade when I landed. I’ve done that before and had them replaced just a year ago now it seems.

On the way to pick up Laurens car at the rental place we stopped off at the Hockey Experts store on Burhamthorpe near Mavis. The guys there took it in, started breaking them down and checking things out. Then they discovered the plastic holder was eaten into by tightening the bolts over and over again. Using a copper rivet and a nylon washer they were able to tighten the bolt down.

It doesn’t quite use a stick of gum, a scuba mask and a lighter, but hopefully it holds out until Christmas time. There should be a new pair of Mission skates on sale with my name on them.

The guys at Hockey Experts were amazing and didn’t charge me a thing for their time and a few pieces of hardware. A great experience even though the floor staff is young the guys behind the counter at the repair shop knew their skates. I’d suggest you visit for your repair and replace needs.

Lauren and I went to the Toronto FC game vs. New York Red Bulls at BMO field. It’s at the Exhibition grounds which is right by the lake. There was some interesting weather patterns moving through the area and we were submerged inside a cloud for most of the game. The good news is even though everything was moist there wasn’t any problems seeing the pitch. There isn’t a seat more than 60 to 80 rows back at the field and I don’t think there actually is a bad seat in the house.

I took this neat shot of the field, CN tower and light stand at the game. The fog rolling in off the lake gives it a much softer look.

We had a scotch egg which is a hard boiled egg surrounded with sausage meat, battered and deep fried. Yup, it was as good as it sounded.

Lauren and I went up to Trevor and Carly’s “camp” (aka cottage) on a small island north east of Manitoulin Island for the Canada Day long weekend. Trevor kindly played tour guide and outfitter for the weekend captaining the boat and showing us the way to the fish.

The big fishing didn’t happen during the mornings though, but in the mid afternoon. I pulled in a 4lb smallmouth bass by jigging off the dock. It was a bit of a surprise as Jen and I were pulling in little perch and bass, some fish so small they were barely larger than the hook. All of a sudden, Jen, myself and Rich had a bunch of large fish on the lines.

Pictures are found here.

For the Queen’s birthday I’m going to be spending some time in Guelph playing with power tools and helping Grant construct some built in shelves for his apartment storage space.

After that we’re taking his new canoe out onto Guelph Lake to do some fishing. I picked up two new Rapala lures from Canadian Tire - the countdown sinking (CD-9) and the original (F-7). These are my first multi-hook lures (one in the body, one at the tail) which is something to look for when taking the flopping fish off the hook.

Then it’s BBQ time and Sunday night we’re going to go see some fireworks. Perhaps the best part is not working on Monday.

When in Montreal for the software conference I was able to take in a hockey game at the bell centre. I watched the first 10 minutes of the game in my hotel room to see if it was going to be any good then walked down to the bell centre to see if I could get a ticket.

This was my first game at the bell centre, and the first game when I’ve entered the seating area through the gate and was actually able to walk down to my seat instead of climbing up the stairs into the cheap seats.
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I was watching sports center this morning and the Oilers - Sharks highlights from last night came on. I was confused at first why they would waste air time showing the Canadian national anthem at the beginning of the game — then the booing started.

Sharks fans don’t deserve a game seven. I hope the Oilers wrap it up at home and finish the series.
I wonder how the Canadian players on the San Jose team feel since many hockey players are Canadian to begin with.

I’m sure the media will blow this out of proportion. I was impressed with Craig MacTavish’s comments after the game when asked. He didn’t think much about it, but said he knew the Oiler fans would not boo the American national anthem when the series goes back to Edmonton.

Next thing you know they’ll be flying our flag upside down.

UPDATE: Thanks Mark for pointing out my mis-appropriated hate, the Ducks aren’t that bad a team I guess. ;)

Friday was a busy day. I started out with hockey in the morning after a night out at Ned’s with Kurt and some skiers. In the bottom of my hockey bag was my missing iron ring. It must have come off in my hockey glove and ended up in my bag.

After some 4 on 4 hockey - without a sub on the white team - it was back to work where I brought my chili in to heat up for the contest at lunch. 3 people voted for chili number one, 2 for mine and 1 for chili number two. But when the weighted matrix was added up I placed first. Those that liked mine, liked it a lot!

My .Net web services book showed up so I did some reading and then it was off to ZMP for a meeting about some corporate databases and a sub project I’m working on. Not too shaby for a Friday.

Oh, by the way. I’m sick like a dog too.

I had a ticking noise in my breaks when they were applied heavily. The tick frequency was linked to the rpm’s of the wheel so I figured it was the breaks or the suspension on the back. Ron - who has kindly taken me under his wing and is showing me things I could never learn on my own about cars - tossed it up in his garage and first we looked at the muffler. It is attached to the underbody with a bracket and rubber gasket which is supposed to allow for vibrations. Ron added a pin on the end to make sure the rubber gasket couldn’t vibrate off. It could have been making the noise, but wasn’t.

Next we pulled off the back wheels and looked inside the drum breaks. The wear patterns on the left rear wheel were even in the centre of the curved pads - about 1″ not making contact above and below the pads. The right rear drum was making contact at the very top of the pads and had about an inch and a half of untouched pads at the bottom. Ron suggested the drums might not be perfectly round so we swapped the left and right drums in the back and now the ticking is gone! I’ll have to see what the new wear patterns are in a few weeks if the ticking starts up again.

For Christmas my parents bought me an Easton composite one-piece hockey stick. This is one present that is going to get used well before December 25th since I broke my stick last week. The experiment now is to see if I am able to amortize the $80 investment over the life of four $20 hockey sticks. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out depreciation and the cost of breaking in 4 new sticks instead of just one. Of course if it snaps within a year that was a bad investment. You can assume 2 hockey sticks per year.