Tag: Mario Bartel storyteller newspaper journalist

This story originally appeared on Tenth to the Fraser

This fall, Sunday Morning Road Hockey will celebrate its 25th anniversary.

I was there when it started, back in 1991.

That’s when I rounded up a few buddies in the local media business to rekindle our childhood passion for road hockey.

We gathered on the old tennis courts in New Westminster’s Queen’s Park, put down some spare boots and jackets for goalposts and had at it. Just like when we were kids.

Because as much as ice hockey is our national obsession, the street game is our national pastime.

Pretty much every kid who grew up in Canada has played road hockey. They know the sting of the evil orange ball on a cold day. They understand the unique skill of shooting that ball with a plastic “Superblade” worn down by the hardtop to the thickness of a toothpick. They’ve scowled at insensitive drivers with the temerity to drive through their game to get home. They’ve delayed dinner just to play a little longer. They’ve played out the thrill of winning a Stanley Cup between the curbs.

It’s that spirit we wanted to renew with our little impromptu pickup game.

Our one-off game was a lot of fun. So we played again the next week. And then the week after that. Friends invited friends. Soon enough someone acquired proper nets.

Tired of always chasing balls on the expansive courts, we eventually moved the game to a lacrosse box next to Cariboo Secondary School in Burnaby.

But when the New West school district rebuilt Herbert Spencer elementary with two enclosed hockey courts and a basketball court atop its underground parkade, we quickly repatriated the game to its hometown. We claimed the middle court and never left.

By now the founding media contingent was outnumbered by teachers, engineers, students, a social worker. Some of them shared the same first name, so we started doling out distinguishing nicknames, a tradition of old-time hockey that’s largely been lost as the game and the media that cover it has become more professional.

Every week the game started with the same routine; everyone threw their sticks into a pile at centre court and someone was designated to randomly divide it into the two teams that would compete.

Equipment was haphazard at best; one legendary goalie eschewed protective leg pads for years, relying on fearlessness and quick reflexes instead to make dazzling saves.

One spring someone showed up with a broken hockey sticked wrapped in tinfoil and declared it the prize for the season’s final game, the Stanley Stick. Eventually it became a proper trophy with a bowl for chugging champagne.

Other traditions evolved; the Shrimp Ring Bowl to welcome the new year, a midsummer game to renew acquaintances during the off-season.

The early games were chronicled in a photocopied newsletter, then a rudimentary website on Geocities, then finally a proper website with its own domain. After all, isn’t it the dream of every Canadian kid to see their hockey exploits documented in print?

Over the years generations of players have come and gone. Some succumbed to time pressures from growing family obligations. Some lost interest or invested their energy in other sports. Some moved away to pursue their education or new job opportunities: the legendary goalie is now a sports reporter for the Association Press in Buffalo; another charter player, Sweater Vest, is the communications director for the Mayor of Los Angeles; a more recent recruit was elected to Parliament in the last federal election.

Some years attendance has been better than others. When the commitment of players flags doubt creeps in about the game’s continued existence. But then a new recruit shows up; he tells a couple of friends and renewed life has been breathed back into Sunday mornings.

It’s hard to say how many people have played Sunday Morning Road Hockey over the years; some stopped by just once and moved on before they could ever be bestowed a nickname, a few have been chasing the evil orange plastic ball for two decades or more. Most all of them found at least a momentary connection back to their childhood, a brief escape from the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood.

The first Stanley Stick championship trophy, a foil-wrapped broken hockey stick.

Legendary goaltending stalwart Wawrow relied on his wile and reflexes to protect him from injury while playing net with minimal equipment.

Even the goalies who did use pads didn’t really enjoy much protection.

Injuries were always a worry, but rarely were they worse than a cut finger.

In the earliest days of Sunday Morning Road Hockey, everybody played net; including me!

The equipment was neglible, but the play spirited.

A team photo at the end of one of Sunday Morning Road Hockey’s first seasons at the hockey box at Herbert Spencer elementary school.

Another Sunday Morning tradition is born; the first annual Shrimp Ring Bowl.

One of the game’s most intense players in its early era was Whirling Dervish, who’s now a school principal.

The games may have been for fun, the action got spirited.

Women have never been excluded from Sunday Morning Road Hockey.

The advent of two players named Paul was the motivation to nickname all players. Here, Paul One checks Hollywood Paul.

Twenty-five years ago, I became a British Columbian.

Of course I didn’t realize it at the time.

On May 2, 1991 I was just a young news photographer looking for work. A recession had displaced me six years into my first full-time gig at Oshawa-Whitby This Week, a large tri-weekly that was part of TorStar’s Metroland chain in Southern Ontario. I’d had a good run: I covered two Memorial Cup national junior hockey championships as well as the frenzy around a young hockey wunderkind named Eric Lindros; I shot several elections, some big fires, car racing in Toronto and Montreal, Rick Hansen’s epic roll through town.

But I felt I still had a lot of great photos in me and I was willing, and  able, to go anywhere to have the opportunity to shoot those photos.

A connection through the Canadian News Photographers Association recommended I talk to Craig Hodge, the chief photographer of the Metrovalley News Group, a burgeoning chain of community papers in Vancouver’s suburbs. I called him; there was no internet then, no email. He happened to be headed to Ontario to speak at a conference, he said. A few weeks later we met; he reviewed my portfolio and told me there was work out west, although he couldn’t make any guarantees it would lead to permanent employment.

In the early 1990s newspapers still ruled the media landscape. Getting a staff photographer gig at one was like winning a lottery; many tried but very few succeeded. Usually it was shooters with the fortitude and persistence to hang around picking up freelance or scrap shifts, or to chase ambulance in the middle of the night, who were eventually rewarded with a business card and a steady paycheque.

But the poor economy had diminished even those opportunities in Ontario. And when the occasional morsel of a newspaper shift did become available, it was immediately besieged by any number of talented, more experienced freelancers and displaced staffers hungry for work.

So at the end of April I loaded some clothes, provisions and camera gear into my trusty red Toyota Tercel, mounted my road and mountain bikes in the Thule rack on the roof and headed west. Other than a family friend who’d offered to let me couch surf for awhile, I had no idea what the future held.

The Metrovalley News Group was comprised of papers from Burnaby to Chilliwack. Many started as independents and then came into the Hacker Press fold until the whole lot was acquired by a large British publisher, Trinity, whose flagship paper was in Liverpool. They also owned the Red Deer Advocate, a small daily in Alberta.

Trinity was a big, rich company, and the situation I walked into was on par with many small or medium dailies elsewhere in the country. Our staff of four photographers, a chief photographer and an office administrator/darkroom tech, plus an assortment of freelancers as assignments demanded, covered seven communities out of a central office.

We were connected with two-way radios and pagers (!). We had a full colour darkroom, a B&W darkroom with three enlargers, a film processing room, a studio with lights and a cove wall.

It was a tight crew, always pushing each other to do better as we gathered at the light table at shift’s end to review negs then shared stories of the road in the red glow of the darkroom safelight. Like the time one of our photographers, a former university football player, got into a punch up with a clown who was giving him a hard time at a routine assignment. Or when our chief was thrown into the back of an RCMP cruiser to prevent him from working the perimeter of a police takedown at the end of a car chase.

Another of the crew, just clowning around.

One of the Metrovalley “mafia” pays a visit to foreign turf and wonders just what the heck is going on.

The communal coverage ensured most everything in the communities we served got attention; if assignments were light in one area, the photographer could be moved over to help out where it was busier. And when big news happened it was all hands on deck to get the story, then get film back to the darkroom so editors could start building pages.

The papers may have published only twice a week, but we operated, and thought, like a daily.

We got to travel out of town occasionally to provide coverage for the chain of regional events like high school sports championships, provincial summer and winter games, the Canada Summer Games, even the Commonwealth Games when they were in Victoria. We covered local racers participating in big time events like the Molson Indy and I was sent to cover the debut of one racer, the late Greg Moore, when he first climbed into an Indy Car in Florida.

There was professional development. The company paid for us to attend conferences; when the National Press Photographers Association’s old Flying Short Course alighted in Spokane a group of shooters from around the chain were flown down in a chartered plane. We were the only attendees who could boast at lunch that we couldn’t stick around for happy hour because our plane was warming up on the runway!

The communities responded; the papers were thick with ads and flyers; classified ads comprised 10 or 12 pages at the back of some editions. There was space for extended photo features.

Of course there were complaints; we wouldn’t be journalists if we didn’t gripe after all. The hours were long, the volume of assignments could be overwhelming, the driving between communities was arduous, the constant blurting of instructions from the two-way radios could get annoying, destroying some few moments of peace and solitude between the fund-raising tea at the seniors centre and the high school football game across town.

We didn’t appreciate it at the time but it was a bit of a golden age.

It didn’t last.

Frustrated by Canadian media ownership laws that prevented it from acquiring even more papers, Trinity decided to get out, selling its holdings to David Black, a regional publishing baron who cut his teeth in the hinterlands of the province’s interior and on Vancouver Island. We feared his spendthrift reputation, but for the most part not much changed; the Lower Mainland was a competitive environment with rival papers in every market that demanded we at least keep pace.

The first cracks appeared when editors, tired of having to deal with a remote office to vet photo assignments, lobbied successfully to have their own photographer, assigned exclusively to their newsroom. The department was broken up, some jobs were lost, the ranks of freelancers thinned.

And while the move did improve lines of communication between the newsrooms and the photographers, the camaraderie of the team was diminished, as was the commitment to ensure everything was covered.

Meanwhile, a little thing called the Internet was starting to get some attention; imagine being able to log onto a desktop computer to get news from anywhere in the world, mostly for free!

In those early, naive days, access to the web in most newsrooms was restricted to one computer. Nobody thought it important for the papers to have a website, and when we all finally got one, they were seen as a way to build a following for the printed paper. Some editors were reluctant to post stories before they appeared in print.

Little did we know…

A quarter-century later most of the photographers who worked the community scene in the 90s are out of the business, many not by their own choice. Papers have amalgamated or closed altogether, newsrooms have been downsized. The classified ads at the back of papers now barely fill two pages.

The job of photojournalist is almost extinct; we now have to prove ourselves as “multimedia journalists,” able to shoot photos, produce video and write stories, often all at the same time. And the quality of photos we used to sweat over at the light table before presenting them to editors has been diminished to “at least it’s in focus.”

This post originally appears on my cycling blog, The Big Ring

To say Princess of Pavement is directionally challenged would be an understatement.

Over the course of our relationship, I’ve spent hours on the phone trying to guide her to a destination, navigate her way through stress and tears.

So when she declared she wanted to do some bike rides during her two-week break between school semesters with an eye to learning some new routes she could eventually do solo, I knew I had to keep things simple.

Considering I’m still learning the quirks and nauances of Vancouver’s extensive bike network, that can be easier said than done.

Since joining a cycling group and connecting with other cyclists who are veterans of the peaceable routes that bisect and criss cross Metro Vancouver’s suburbs and the city’s diverse neighbourhoods, I’ve come to appreciate their slower, safer pace away from the road ragers that often pollute busy thoroughfares. But sometimes I get lost.

The cycling network in the suburbs can be a bit of a gong show; designated routes lead nowhere, signage is sporadic or they’re poorly positioned along roads already busy with speeding, impatient motorists.

Vancouver’s network is much more established, better refined. But sometimes it befuddles me.

The twists and turns a route takes to traverse a busy traffic route can be confusing; why does the Ridgeway route on 37th Avenue suddenly take me to 38th Avenue?

Signage is sometimes lacking or ambiguous, especially at the junctions where multiple routes converge or cross.

The names of some routes don’t always correspond to the street names they mostly follow.

So it was with some trepidation the Princess and I set out to find some routes she could navigate for a couple of hours without getting lost, that offered some identifiable landmarks she could use to reassure herself she was on course.

Alas, I got us lost.

The route I followed was one I’d ridden plenty of times. But that was always west to east; going the opposite way it looked different, the ascents were now descents, the landmarks I was used to seeing on my right were now on my left.

Fortunately getting lost along a bike route isn’t entirely unpleasant; there are new discoveries to make, different houses to appreciate or scorn, unknown neighbourhood parks to see.

A few twists, turns and feeble excuses and we were back on track. And I was a little humbled..

Sunday Morning Road Hockey finished its 24th year with a climactic battle for the championship

Doo capped a season he’d rather forget with a memorable performance to lead his team to a 20-13 victory Sunday and a two-game sweep of the Stanley Stick championship series.

The speedy centreman scored a handful of goals, many of them spectacular individual efforts of footwork and persistence, to earn the Conn Stick award as the series most valuable player. He was the unanimous choice by the underdogs who were repeatedly victimized by Doo’s slippery moves and stickwork just as they seemed poised to get back into the series.

It was a stunning return to form for the lanky scorer who struggled to find the net at times during the regular season as he dealt with injury and personal issues.

“I had to make a commitment to play,” said Doo. “I’m proud I was able to do that.”

After romping to a relatively easy 20-6 win in last week’s series’ opener, Doo and his mates knew they’d be in for a tougher battle from their opponents in Sunday’s decider, as they were bolstered by the addition of two players, Ohio and Nouvelle Guy.

“There were definitely times we were under siege,” said Doo. “But I think we were pretty consistent all game.”

In fact the game seemed poised to get away from them entirely after the underdogs got to within one, 6-5; but a three-goal outburst reestablished their advantage and seemed to clip the underdogs’ growing confidence.

“That was a key point where we elevated our game,” said Doo. “Once you pull away like that you’ve got to keep your foot on the pedal.”

Joker said the trio of successive goals reversed the game’s tide back into their favour.

“We were losing momentum at that point and that was the catalyst we needed to hold the lead for the rest of the game.”

“That was kind of a backbreaker,” said Wink. “It gave us momentum and a cushion so we could give up a goal and not be too worried.”

The winners never trailed in the series, but that doesn’t mean their victory was easy. It took the solid execution of a defensive game plan to stifle the dangerous tandem of Cleveland and Ohio.

“Everybody knew the job they had to do; shut down their big shooters,” said Joker.

“I thought we had a really solid game plan and we stuck to it,” said Doo.

“There was a lot more battle,” said Wink, whose side added Holt and Coach to its lineup.
That gave them two full lines of players. And a challenge to establish chemistry quickly.

“The camaraderie we built on this team over two games was second to none,” said Joker.

“I think we found some chemistry and that will take you a long way,” said Doo, who settled into an effective combination with wily veterans Lak Attack and Wink after some initial line rolling.

“You don’t panic, you know you’re going to be able to complete passes,” he said of working with his senior wingers. “It really was a team win.”

The 2015-16 Stanley Stick champions: Colonel, Joker, Wink, Lak Attack, Coach, Doo, Holt.

Colonel is confident his team will prevail. They never trailed in the championship series.

Coach heads up court away from the pursuit of Bam Bam.

Doo eludes the check of Ohio. The speedy centreman was voted the series’ most valuable player.

Nouvelle Guy knows he’s in a battle.

Cleveland streaks past Doo.

Colonel is thwarted on a scoring opportunity by Twizzler.

Twizzler takes a break.

Lak Attack and Cleveland battle for position.

Twizzler eyes the evil orange plastic ball after it jammed in the outside of his net.

Doo hoists the coveted Stanley Stick following his team’s sweep of the two-game finale.

Nouvelle Guy gets a shot away.

Cleveland’s speed and shifty footwork wasn’t enough to get his team back into the series.

Colonel and Bam Bam battle in the corner late in the game.

Cleveland tries to recover as his team attempts to extend the Stanley Stick finale to a decisive mini-game.

This photo story originally appeared on Tenth to the Fraser

Brewing beer at Steel & Oak is part science, part art and a whole lot of toil.

Since opening in the summer of 2014, the craft brewery next to the Third Avenue overpass has already expanded its beer making capacity to 270,000 litres and added a bottling line. The tasting room has become a community gathering place; even baby momma groups meet there on some afternoons, their strollers parked akimbo amidst the tall industrial steel stools and wooden tables.

Wong weighs Perle hop pellets that will be added to one of the 1,700 litre brewhouse tanks.

The used mash is gathered in big 369 kilogram bins and shipped to a farm in Aldergrove where it’s used for feed.

Brew day is a frenetic dance of multitasking as beer is brewed, empty tanks are cleaned and kegs are filled for shipment. Wong refuels with a banana.

Some of the beer ages in steel casks, while others are finished in oak barrels, hence the brewery’s name.

A bucket of hops is ready to be poured into a brewhouse tank. Steel & Oak uses about 5,000 pounds of hops, in 50 different varieties, in a year.

Wong checks the progress of the beer brewing in one of two 1,700 litre brewhouse tanks.

Wong retrieves a storage vessel that will be filled with used mash.

About 250-300 kilograms of malt is used for every 1,700 litres of beer brewed at Steel & Oak.

Steel & Oak has seven beer tanks that can hold a total of 270,000 litres of beer.

Wong checks the sugar content of the day’s brew, to ensure it’s ready for the next stage.

Jordan “Chardonnay” Wong fills a cask amidst the towering 3,000 litre stainless steel tanks.

Brewmaster Peter Schulz ponders the day’s batch of red pilsner.

But it’s in the back where the magic happens.

In 18 months, brewmaster Peter Schulz has concocted 23 different beers, including new pilot beers every four-six weeks. The explosion of craft brewers in Metro Vancouver has made it a very competitive business said Schulz. The pressure is on for brewmasters to offer unique recipes.

Brew day at Steel & Oak is controlled chaos. Hoses are detached and reattached. Temperatures, sugar content and clarity are checked and checked again. Hops are weighed and added to the giant 1,700 litre brewhouse tanks. Water spills and sprays, running down the gently-sloped concrete floor to a trough amidst the forest of seven tall stainless steel vessels.

Schulz said making beer is very water-intensive; about seven litres is used for every one litre of beer that is produced.

It takes Schulz and his crew four weeks to brew ales, six weeks to produce a lager. That’s longer than most breweries, said Schulz. But the wait is worth it. His beers have won numerous awards, including best amber/dark ale at the 2015 BC Beer Awards last November.

Steel & Oak is located at 1319 Third Ave.