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January 17, 2011

Apex Mountain Hockey Tournament: A Hungover Recap

That's me in the goalie gear in the middle, deftly deflecting a puck over the net!

Every year, for the past five or six, my hockey team the Vancouver Flying Vees takes part in a Canadian winter pastime that most of never experienced growing up on the mild west coast of Canada: playing hockey in the great outdoors.

Stepping out onto the ice, into the elements, surrounded by trees covered in snow, ski chalets and towering mountains, is something that never fails to inspire, no matter what the weather. A winter classic: we’re playing hockey outside!

This tournament takes place on Apex Mountain, near Penticton, BC, and draws teams from all over the province and the Pacific Northwest. I’m not sure if it’s the altitude or just the excitement of being there, but the Flying Vees tend to party really, really hard at this tournament. On Saturday night, after our team posted a 3-0 shutout in blizzard conditions, beating the local Apex Team of liftees, ski instructors, and bartenders, we pretty much re-enacted a cross between Hot Dog: The Movie and The Hangover.

You know it’s going to be a great night when first you win a hockey game then follow it up with a celebratory naked hot tub back at the chalet, then hit the jam-packed Gun Barrel Saloon to table dance to the blaring cover band. It was during that table dance that the very biggest dude in the entire bar took issue with the way Nick “Lock-Eye” Thomas, my best friend, one of our teammates (and a frequent character in Adventures in Solitude), was… suggestively dancing… with his CBC Radio 3 scarf… doing the Gunga Din and various other outrageous moves.

When the thug challenged the… masculinity of the dance moves, Nick threw the scarf around this thug’s neck and tried to draw him up onto the table as Nick pumped his crotch in his face. The thug demanded Nick get down from the table, which Nick did, but not before throwing a half-full can of beer at him, hitting the thug directly in the face and covering him in beer.

Predictably, the thug chased Nick through the bar like an angry bull after a rodeo clown, until the thug and his buddies charged right into our team and the confrontation began. The thug leapt over several people to punch Nick directly in the face (I was blissfully ignorant of this entire episode, as I was dancing wildly by myself in the front row to the cover band as they did a spot-on version of the Violent Femmes‘ “Blister in the Sun“).

Nick and Young Greg (one of our defensemen) got kicked out as a result of the melee (the thug remained), so they went searching for the famed Apex igloo, a massive ice cave seemingly plucked right out of planet Hoth. No Wampas in this cave, just partying ski bums.

As Nick and Young Greg were trying to find the forest path to the ice cave, a Kenny Powers-like drunk on a snowmobile roared up beside them and offered the boys a lift with the phrase “get the fuck on if you dare!” They immediately climbed aboard, took off, and within twenty feet all three of them rolled the snowmobile.

Meanwhile, the rest of our teammates when out looking for Nick and Young Greg and found various adventures of our own, including breaking up a flat-out girl-on-girl ski-bunny cat-fight in the parking lot. Soon after that we found a weeping girl dressed only in a t-shirt and jeans, having just wiped out her pick-up truck deep in a snowbank. Three of us had the truck out of the snow with only minor damage to us and the truck.

Finally we found Nick and Young Greg in the massive ice cave with a DJ rockin’ it, Nick with a bottle of tequila in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other, both of them surrounded by bouncing neon ski bunnies.

When myself and Darwin “Galapagos” Green, another teammate, eventually stumbled from the ice cave at about 4AM to hit the sack back at the chalet, we hitched a ride with a crossed-eyed hippie guy who looked like a cross between John Denver and Tom Hanks in Castaway. He told us to hop into the back of his pick up truck and “sit over the rear axle to hold me down”. He then proceeded to wildly fishtail and skid his way up the hill, our weight seemingly doing nothing. Darwin’s advice to “better hold on tight” was a good one.

And now… the recovery. Thanks to Marc Tougas for putting on this amazing tournament every year, and to all the friendly players, girls and guys, and all my teammates for another great year in the great outdoors on the frozen sheet. SHUTOUT!!! Whoo!!!

See more photos here.

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January 10, 2011

Adventures in Alberta and New Brunswick!

Photo not taken in Alberta or New Brunswick.

Happy New Year, folks!

Thanks to all who sent kind words over the holidays about Adventures in Solitude. I truly appreciate your correspondence and support, so much so that I will soon be posting a “Letter of the Week” here to share a few of your insights into… the end of the road.

My wife Jill and I found another end of the road location this holiday season, as we were lucky enough to enjoy a second, “official” honeymoon on a quiet, sunny island in the Pacific Ocean. The photo above was taken after a boat trip in to a local town for some much-needed civilization (read: shopping and cookie-eating).

And so now 2011 is upon us, and while the Christmas rush is over, I’ll continue with book events into the new year: this month I’ll be making stops in Calgary and Canmore, Alberta, and Fredericton and Moncton, New Brunswick (please see the Events page for details), but not before playing goal for the Vancouver Flying Vees in the yearly outdoor hockey tournament on Apex Mountain in Penticton BC. Let’s hope the knees hold together.

In other ‘upcoming’ news, the ebook version of Adventures in Solitude will be out very shortly, and in March, my wife Jill Barber releases her new album Mischievous Moon, which sounds and looks fantastic.

Happy New Year to you and yours, hope to see you somewhere soon!

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January 9, 2011

The King’s Speech: the microphone does NOT do all the work!

At both my mother and my mother-in-law’s insistence, I saw the much-ballyhooed film The King’s Speech tonight, with my entire immediate family – mom, dad, and sister, as well as my 10 year old niece, Paige.

I think it may have been the first film all four of my family members had seen together since… The Man From Snowy River? Crocodile Dundee? The Gods Must Be Crazy… Yup, two Australian and one South African movie for whatever reason, and who knew an Australian would hold such influence in The King’s Speech? In fact, who would ever think to turn to an Australian to learn how to speak properly?

That’s exactly what happens in The King’s Speech, a true story set in 1930s England, as the crown is passed from George to Edward to… another George, the one who can’t speak properly. He stammers, yet because of the advent of radio, monarchs are expected to speak loudly and proudly into the microphone… to unite and inspire the entire British Empire.

The pain, embarrassment, and frustration King George VI goes through just to hammer out a few stilted words in public was both cringeworthy and enlightening. As a radio broadcaster, a singer, and a public speaker, I count on my voice for a living. Many times, on some fancy occasion when I have to step up to the microphone, I have wondered if anything will come out. Sometimes, when hosting on Radio 1 current affairs, I have come close to “freezing up”, and have had to “King George” my way through an endless moment to get my “flow” back… but most of the time my voice does just that… the words and sounds flow… and I realized, watching The King’s Speech, how much I’ve taken that for granted.

What I tell NO ONE  is that I have a stutter. Luckily, it only comes out when I am forced to speak when extremely frightened, in a very serious situation, or shocked to my core. Luckily, that doesn’t happen that often. Luckily, while hosting live events and radio shows can be nerve wracking, I don’t find them extremely frightening.

Back to The King’s Speech: I tend to avoid monarchy movies (yawn), but found this one riveting on many levels, in such that it exposed the Royals’ bizarre fishbowl living situation, and their snobbery and lording over the common people. Colin Firth plays the frustrated George VI with fractured humility, Geoffrey Rush plays the Australian speech therapist, and is a hilarious and intelligent character, who while very confident, is hiding his own secret. Guy Pearce plays the gadfly King Edward VIII (called David in the film, which confused me… George VI is referred to as Albert, or Bertie), and Helena Bonham Carter plays the very entitled but devoted Queen.

For the most part, my family loved it. Except for my 10 year old niece Paige. Not enough shirtless vampires for her taste.

Have you seen The King’s Speech? What did you think of the film?

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