Golfing Late Summer 2012

I have been playing golf off and on since 1998 but never took it too seriously. I would go out once or twice a season or not at all (the last time I golfed was back in the summer of 2010 out in Kelowna). I would rarely go to the driving range to practice or even try to improve my game. Even when Brad gave me a free set of clubs back in 2002/2003 I still did not think much to bring my game up to a higher level...until this year. Why is this year so different? I was invited to play in a game with my co-workers. Not wanting to suck so bad (like I usually do) I went to the driving range a week before our actually tee time so that I could actually break down my swing and practice. Now if you know my golf game then you know I can use my irons without a problem but using my driver was a constant battle (I would slice that sucker all the time). I couldn't figure out for the life of me what I was doing wrong. I have never taken lessons and people who watch me swing are equally as clueless as me so there was never any good critical feedback. So the night before the range I looked up this video

I listened to what he said in regards to FTW (Forward, Tilt, Wide) and coupled that with his "Baseball swing" advice and it still didn't work. I was pissed! I went back to my irons and hit a few again and had a moment where I realized that when I stepped closer to the ball I would hit them straight, but if I was reaching they would slice. So I went back to my driver and stepped closer to the ball, added in FTW plus the baseball swing and BOOM!!!! It went straight and far!! I couldn't believe it. I had to try to repeat this and I set out 10 balls to see what my consistency was and it was 8/10!!! I was so relieved and happy that it worked and it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of me and I'm actually excited to play and not hesitant like I used to be before because of not being able to drive the ball! Now I think I have caught the golf bug! All I want to do is go drive balls and play a round. Since that day (last Wednesday) I have gone to the driving range an additional 2 times and have a round of 9 holes set up for this upcoming Sunday. Hopefully my practice will have translated over to the real game and I will enjoy it a lot more than I usually do. I will see how this Sundays 9 holes will turn out!

2011/2012 CBHA Bantam AAA Bisons

One of my best years ever for being a hockey trainer. I've been doing it for 5 seasons now and on my 5th season I picked the 2011/2012 CBHA Bantam Bisons to work with. I have never worked with the Bantam age group and wanted a change from Minor Midget. I definitely don't regret switching age groups, in fact I'm surprised I never did it earlier. I worked with a great bunch of kids and a great coaching/management staff. It was the most fun I have had in awhile working a hockey team and I'm glad that I got to experience such a complete team from the kids to the staff to the parents. We didn't win any tournaments but did pretty good in most of them. We went to 3 tournaments this year in Red Deer (2nd place), Medicine Hat (4th place?) and then St. Albert (Consolation B runner up). Overall that was the best that this team has ever done, so it was good. I enjoyed working with this team so much and I even strapped on the skates to be at their practices too. This was a lot of fun and I wonder why I never did it before? From now on I will try to be on the ice with the kids more (for practices). We made a good run to provincials. We beat out the pesky Stamps and then the Royals for the City Championships (both teams that we had a very hard time beating during the regular season) and then we beat out the Airdrie Extreme for the Southern Ablerta Championships. We faced Edmonton SSAC in the Provincial finals but were swept 3-0 in a 5 game series. It was a very memorable season though and it ended up with my coaching staff winning the "Coaching Staff of the Year" award and myself winning the "Trainer of the Year" award. What a great team and what a great year! Go Bisons Go!!!

Kicking Horse Jan 2011

I don't think I have ever posted these pictures. But Dave and I went to Kicking Horse (by Golden B.C.) for a weekend of snowboarding back in Jan of 2011. It was awesome and crazy times. The drive out was pretty crazy since there was a huge snow storm that was made driving out to Golden pretty scary and crazy. Traffic was single file, 2 sets of tire tracks on the road, doing only about 80 km/h and visibility was less than 50 metres (at some points visibility was only about a car length in front). The direct route of Highway 1 West was closed down just after Lake Louise due to avalanches so we had to take the 93 towards Invermere and then head up to Golden. The drive between Invermere and Golden was definitely the scariest drive Dave and I have ever encountered. It was white knuckle driving, trying to keep on the roads while passing semi trucks and barely being able to see if there was any on coming traffic! When we finally reached Golden we had to have a beer and celebrate that we made it there safely! Kicking horse was worth the drive though! Just check out these pictures. The mountain is absolutely gorgeous! It's elevation kept it above the clouds and made for breath taking scenery. I still remember turning a bend and seeing the morning sun hit the clouds that were floating below us...just amazing. Here are some pictures of the first day we were there:

The two days of snowboarding were amazing. The first day it didn't snow, but a huge dump had fallen over night (because of the storm) and so the day was a lot of fun (and where I really learned how to ride in powder). It got tracked out pretty badly on the first day and became pretty choppy as the day progressed...but we were so excited to be on a new mountain that we stayed till it closed. The second day that we went it was dumping continuously throughout the day. The snowflakes that were falling were larger than a twoonie. You could lay a track down a run and it would vanish by the time you got back up to do it again. I tried taking go pro video that day but the flakes were so big and they kept on landing on the lens that it made for lame ass videos. We ended up staying at Golden from Jan 13th-Jan 17 of 2011. Why? Well we headed out at night on the Thursday and then we were planning to snowboard on the Friday and Saturday and then heading back Sunday. However when Sunday rolled around it was still snowing hard (my car would have about a metre of snow by morning) and all the roads leading out were closed due to avalanche. The only road open to get back to Calgary was a very long detoured route that would have us go all the way down to Fernie before coming back up. So we opted to stay another night to see if the roads would open up. It's a really weird feeling being isolated and not being able to leave. It felt like being on a small little island. The feeling was a bit creepy. By Monday morning we decided that we didn't want to be stuck in Golden any longer so we took the route to Fernie and 6 to 7 hours later we made it home to Calgary...what a crazy trip!

Pictures from Sushine Village 2011/2012 Season

It has been an incredible season this year out at Sunshine Village. Record snowfalls from the start of the season. The month of March there has almost been a metre of snow, and it has only the middle of March! Almost every time we have gone out has been a powder day out there (I have only gone one day when there was no powder).

This year has been great so far and I think we will do one more trip out before Slush Cup in April. This year we added another addition to the crew, Brandon. So our 7/8ths crew is now up to 5 guys (Dave, Christian, Tony, Myself and Brandon). Brandon is white boy crazy on the slopes and has been showing us how to take ledges/drops. It's a lot of fun when I can land them ;) Crazies drop was the one off the side of Strawberry with a gap off the ledge. Earlier in the season Dave, Tony and I even tried the park that was setup on Strawberry. It was a lot of fun trying it out. Anyways here are some pictures that a photographer at Sunshine took that I thought were pretty nice.