The following is my account of one of the greatest rivalries in elementary sports history. It retells the infamous showdown at the 1992 Langley Grade Seven Boys Basketball Championships between Peterson Road’s heroic grade seven team, and the evil grade six team.

Okay, they weren’t evil ;). Enjoy

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“Did you hear that Mr. Page entered the grade sixes into the grade seven tournament?”, John declared. There were four of five of us kids gathered in a cluster outside the grade seven entrance of Peterson Road waiting for the morning bell.

“What?!!”, I said in a surprised tone. “Can he do that?”

“Well, he did it”, John replied.

“Hah. We’re going to kick their asses”, a few others chimed in.

I had to take a minute to process this information. My first reaction was one of dismay. “The audacity!”, I thought. “These upstart grade sixes thought they could challenge us?!! Who did they think they were?!”.

Surely this broke some law. I mean, we had dutifully followed the unwritten protocol of “wait your turn” through seven years of elementary school. My mind went back to the dispute we had with some grade-three kids, when we were in grade one, about who got to play on the soccer field. Our case was dismissed with prejudice by the noon-hour supervisor on the grounds that the grade threes were older. As a part of that ruling, we were assured that, when we were in grade three, we could use the soccer field. This dispute was not alone in its affirmation of the protocol that the needs of the older outweighed the wants of the younger.

We had paid our dues, and now it was our turn to be sovereign. These upstart grade sixes thought they could buck this sacred law skip to the top of the food chain. This insolence could not go unpunished.

My second thought was that this was unprecedented! To my knowledge, no grade six team had ever, in the history of elementary school sports, been allowed to compete in the grade seven tournament. At least not of the school already had a grade seven team.

Better fact-check that, I thought, as my historical knowledge of elementary sports was limited to the past three years and spanned only a couple of schools.

“Has a grade six team ever been allowed into a grade seven tournament before?”, I asked the wikipedia of the day (aka John, Steve, Ezra, and Pat).

“Nope”, they said.

It was confirmed. Unprecedented in the history of sports. Which leads me back to my first thought again. “The Gall!”

If I’m honest with myself, however, the most unsettling aspect of this news was that the grade sixes were pretty good. “What if they beat us?”, I thought. I’m sure this same thought crossed the other boys’ minds as well, but none were foolish enough to express it.

I had been teammates with most of the grade six boys at one time or another. Several of them had been on my baseball teams throughout elementary school. A few of them lived in my neighbourhood, so we would often play street hockey and tennis together. During lunch-time football, we would frequently scrimmage against them, and one of them even played on our (grade seven) team when we were low on players.

They were fast and athletic so I wasn’t immediately confident that we would beat them in a head-to-head matchup.

As a thought experiment, I imagined a pick-up game combining both grades, where I got to “draft” my team. Who would I pick?

Well, my first pick would probably be Quinn, as he was our best player. Quinn was tall and lanky, with a shoe size that hinted that he was going to grow a lot taller. He could jump, dribble equally well with both hands, and make highlight-reel lay-ups from both sides of the hoop. His dad was very tall, and had coached several of our basketball teams throughout elementary school. If he wasn’t on the courting shooting hoops, he was probably carrying a basketball en route to a court.

Having chosen a grade seven as first pick in this fantasy draft, I felt a little bit better, but the subsequent picks weren’t going to be as easy. We had a good crew. We had played together for years in multiple sports, and we knew each others’ strengths and weaknesses well. I could think of four or five good choices for the second pick. Pat, Chad, the other Steve, John, Ezra, Chris. All were good players who I trusted with the ball. But…. I can also think of one or two grade sixes who, If I’m honest, deserved the second pick over my trusted mates, and an additional four or five who would be solid third picks. So it is conceivable that four of the five starting spots in the “dream team” would be filled by grade sixes.

“But we have a height advantage”, I tried to convince myself, “and the experience”. Our sheer will to win would be the difference. We got this.

As far as I recall, the grade six boys were gracious about the situation. They were all good kids, and we got along well with each other. I suspect that if the roles were reversed, we wouldn’t have been as respectful. But they didn’t need to say it out loud – the threat was palpable, and the stakes were high, but asymmetrical. They had nothing to lose. We, on the other hand, had everything to lose. If we allowed to the grade sixes to come into our tournament, and beat us, it would have been demoralizing.

On the first day of the tournament, we arrived in the DW Poppy Secondary gymnasium as a team. The schedule was posted on a portable bulletin board, the kind with wheels and a chalkboard on the back. There were about ten schools listed. I overheard some players from other schools wondering out loud about the fact that Peterson Road had two teams. I thought about explaining it to them, but decided not to. Better to leave them guessing. Information is power!

We had played against most of these schools during the regular season, and I felt confident about our chances. In my mind, only two teams mattered. Langley Central had a kid named John MacDonald who was, hands-down, the best player there. He was five foot ten, and, like Quinn, could dribble equally well with both hands. He didn’t need to jump at all when shooting free-throws, and his three-point percentage was better than most boys’ layup percentage. He was a complete player, who could have been playing senior ball. Because of him, Langley Central was the team to beat.

The other team that mattered was, of course, the grade six squad. In our eyes, it was the only game that mattered. If we managed to run the board against all the other schools, win the championship, appear on TSN for interviews, and be congratulated by the Queen for our achievement, but lose to the grade sixes, we would feel obliged to retreat to a dark corner and curl up into the fetal position, never to be seen again. Yes, it was that important.

As with any tournament, it was possible that we wouldn’t end up playing the grade sixes at all. They could have been placed into a different pool, and then we would only play if we both made it to the finals.

“We play Langley Central second! On the main court”, Chad shouted, looking over his shoulder with his index finger on the schedule, “and then the grade sixes, in the small gym”.

So it was official. Game On!

After winning our first game, we assembled on the main court to start our warm ups for the game against Langley Central. We started with layup drills.

This gym had a completely different feel than the elementary school gyms we were used to. The hardwood floor was a little bit less bouncy than the linoleum I was used to, and the plexiglass backboards were a bit more bouncy than the wooden ones we had. The gym was two to three times the size of Peterson Road’s. It had actual stands where spectators could watch, and a large electronic scoreboard mounted near the ceiling. This was the big time.

After our warm-ups, we returned to the bench where our coach picked a starting lineup. The chosen five stayed on the court, and the rest of the team took their place on the bench. The five included Chris and I sharing guard duty, Quinn in the middle, and Pat and John on the wings.

In professional basketball, they usually have a starting five players, and individual players may be substituted out in the course of the game when a starter needs a rest, or runs into foul trouble. The coach may also make a substitution if they want a particular match-up. In elementary school, however, our substitutions worked more like line-changes in hockey. The starting five would play a few series before being replaced by the second line, followed by the third line, etc..

This made for some dramatic momentum swings in games, as the skill-level of different lines vary wildly.

Quinn lined up against John MacDonald for the tip off to start the game. They won the jump ball, MacDonald tipping it back to their point guard, who took a couple of dribbles before passing it back to MacDonald. A couple more passes, then back to MacDonald under the hoop, who dropped in an easy lay-up.

Not a great start. But now it was our turn.

Chris in-bounded the ball to me and I took it up the court. I saw John open on the right side just inside the three point line, so I bounced it over to him. He gave a quick head fake to the defender then took it to the hoop, where MacDonald was waiting for him. A little fake to the left and then an underhand layup made it up to the rim. After a couple of rattles around the rim it dropped for a basket and we tied at two. We got this.

A few minutes later, with the score seven to two, Langley Central did a line change, and their star player was replaced by a new squad. I found it puzzling that they didn’t just have him play the entire game. With him on the bench, we clawed our way back into the game. A few minutes later, with our team up now ten to nine (or thereabouts), their top line was back on the court, and momentum changed again.

This pattern continued throughout the game. Their top line would run up the score, and then we would inch our way back against their second line. When the final buzzer sounded, though the score was close, we were a couple of baskets shy.

This loss didn’t phase us terribly. We knew what we were up against and the score was close enough to make us feel like we could turn it around the next time, which we assumed would be in the finals.

On to the main event – the only game that mattered – in the small gym.

This gym felt more comfortable than the main gym, as its size was closer to what we were used to. It still had a hardwood floor, plexiglass backboards, and an electronic scoreboard. But it was a newer gym (about 3 years old), and the floor felt a little bouncier. The lighting was also a little brighter than the dull lights of the main gym.

After the pre-game warmups and rituals, both teams assembled on the court for the tip off. Our team wore the white side of the school’s invertible jerseys, the grade sixes were wearing grey and burgundy T-shirts. A moment of calm before the storm as the referee prepared to toss up the ball to start the game. Our height advantage secured an easy victory on that first jump ball – and on most of the subsequent ones.

Unlike the Langley Central game, which was a series of momentum shifts, this game was see-saw. Back and forth. They would score, then we would score. We would stop them, then they would stop us. We went into halftime in a virtual tie – which was too close for comfort. Things were a little bit tense. Players who made mistakes were informed of them by certain other team-mates – just in case they weren’t aware that they weren’t supposed to miss that last layup.

This pattern continued into the second half, while intensity continued to rise. With under thirty seconds to go, we were down by a point. I was watching from the bench as Chad dribbled the ball up the court and the team set up the offence. The sixes were playing tight defence with everything on the line. We passed the ball around the perimeter but couldn’t find an opening. Twenty seconds left. Finally someone got an open shot. Fifteen seconds… the ball arced through the air, our hopes attached to it … 13 seconds… It went off script and bounced off the front edge of the rim and returned to flight, back into the court. 11 seconds. Luckily the rebound found its way into Pat’s hands near the free-throw line. Pat, who was one of our most reliable shooters, made no mistake with it. He stepped forward and released a shot that resulted in a swish.

We all cheered loudly. Everyone on the bench was on their feet, with arms in the air celebrating what was looking like a sure victory. I glanced up at the scoreboard for some assurance. 8 seconds, 7 seconds.

The game was not over yet. They passed the ball in, and started down the court with urgency. With only a few seconds remaining they knew it was all or nothing here. The guard threw up a “hail mary” to their forward near our freethrow line. I watched in horror as the pass was completed, and their player (I don’t remember who), turned to the hoop, and started his attack run. Two dribbles, a step and a half, and he was going up for a lay-up, but at the last second, Chad, dove in from behind and got a piece of his arm just before releasing it.

“Foul!” yelled the ref.

And so, with the score thirty-nine to thirty-eight, for us, and three seconds left on the clock, a grade six was going to the line for two free-throws.

The coach decided to substitute in all of our tallest players at this point to make sure we got the rebounds, so Chad was out, as he was one of the shorter players. I could see tears running down his face as he sat down.

“What’s wrong?”, I asked.

“I lost the game for us”, he said frantically. “It was my foul. If he sinks these, it’s my fault!”.

He was too agitated to sit, so he started pacing the sidelines.

“Hold on a minute”, I said. “If you didn’t foul him, he would have sunk it for sure, and then we would have lost already. This way we still have a chance.”

That seemed to calm him down, and our attention shifted to the court where everyone lined up for the first shot. We watched as the ball traveled toward the hoop, and… bounced out.

An eruption from our bench. Everyone was already on their feet, but now we were jumping and screaming. We had evaded the immediate danger of losing, but they still had a chance to force the game into overtime.

The referee bounced the ball back to the grade six’s hands. The gym got silent. You could cut the air with a knife. Everything was now riding on this one young boy’s shoulders (I really wish I remember the name of the boy – if anyone reading this knows, please share). He bent his knees and raised the ball up to shooting position, then launched it toward the hoop. This time, after bouncing around the rim for a second, the ball decided to drop through the hoop, and just like that, we were going to overtime.

Having been one shot away from victory, I could taste disappointment in my cocktail of emotions. But it was a new game now, and we were going to come out guns blazing.

The electronic scoreboard was updated to read “5:00”, and the ref called the game to order again.

This overtime frame followed the same pattern as the rest of the game, with back and forth action. However, we managed to go up by a couple of baskets early, and we retained the lead throughout. Truth be told, I don’t remember very much about overtime, as the real and memorable drama had already played itself out in regulation time. When the final buzzer sounded with us ahead on the scoreboard, we all rushed the floor to celebrate.

We recounted the memorable moments of the game to each other in between hugs and high fives. “Thank God”, I confided to Ezra, “I did not want to lose that game”.

“I won the game for us!”, I overheard Chad say during the celebration. “If I hadn’t fouled him, they would have won.”

After a short celebration, we lined up for the customary show of sportsmanship to shake hands with our fallen foes – our friends. The optimists among them threw in a “See you in the finals” along with the usual “good game”, but I could see the disappointment in their eyes. The emotion was still raw.

We didn’t end up winning the championship that year. We lost our semi-final game against Wix Brown the next day, which relegated us to a fourth place finish in the tournament. Disappointing as that was, it didn’t really matter that much. We had accomplished the most important feat and could return to Peterson Road with our heads held high and our rightful dominance still intact.

This post is another in my series of personal anecdotes and reflections from my childhood. If you read my blog for my posts about Software development, you can safely disregard this 😉

Christmas is one of the most memorable parts of childhood. There is a sort of lifecycle and growth pattern to the child Christmas experience. The first 3 Christmases you don’t really know what’s going on. You don’t really think about it, or plan for it.. You just wake up one day and find that there are a whole bunch of presents for you. For the fourth Christmas, you’re more aware. At least, I was more aware. That was the year that I started snipping the toys that I wanted out of the Sears Catalog, and started to look forward to the traditions, like watching Rudolph the Red-nosed reindeer when it aired in early December.

The 10 years that seemed to pass between my fourth and fifth Christmas gave me plenty of time to prepare. I decided, this time, not to cut anything out of the Sears catalog so as to preserve its integrity. The snippets I had cut out the year before (of He-man figures, race car track sets, and the C.H.I.P.S. ride-on motorcycle) didn’t fare well, and likely found their way to the garbage prematurely, leaving a completely dysfunctional catalog with everything except the stuff I liked. I would continue this discipline (of NOT cutting up the catalog) for every Christmas thereafter.

In my sixth and seventh Christmases, I began to grasp just how much time elapsed between them. While it still felt like the sixth would never come, when it finally did come I decided that the wait was objectively shorter than it had been for the fifth. And the wait for the seventh, shorter still.

Still, time would seem to seem to stop on Christmas eve. I recall lying in bed, looking out the window at the snow falling through the street lights and trying so hard to to fall asleep because I just wanted Christmas Day to arrive. I imagined that falling asleep was like entering a time machine that would beam me directly to Christmas morning. In entertaining these thoughts, I stumbled into my first ominous glimpse of mortality. if only for a brief moment, I was keenly aware that all would come to pass if I wait. Christmas day would come soon enough, and so too would the next Christmas, and, in fact, all the moments of our lives would surely come and go – both the things we dream, and the things that we dread. It was lying here in bed on Christmas eve, that I first imagined, deep in my mind’s eye, the day that my dad died.
But that wouldn’t happen for a long time. For all intents and purposes, an eternity would pass before I saw that day come. Although these thoughts feel like the distant past to me now, it does not feel like an eternity has passed. But I guess that is the enigma of time. A single moment can last forever, while a lifetime can pass by in what seems like an instant.

Fast forward to 1987. By this time I was a pro at Christmas. I knew exactly when the Sears catalog was expected to arrive in the mail, and when the TV Times came out in the first week of December, I would highlight all of the christmas specials that I didn’t want to miss. I was among the seven grade threes in Mrs. Toth’s three/four split class that year. For those familiar with Peterson Road, our classroom was the end room of the east wing of the school with windows facing north toward the tetherball poles and intermediate playground. The back corner of the classroom was the reading area where we would gather for group activities such as non-silent reading and interactive lessons. In December, this was also the location of a daily ritual where a student would be chosen to open a door in the Advent calendar. This lucky student would get to keep whatever was hidden behind the door. For a grade three, this was a lot of fun. With each door opening, we were a day closer to Christmas. Translating time into this visual format makes it more tractable somehow. I mean to an eight year old, it can be hard to quantify how long 3 weeks is, but it was easy to see that, when only 3 doors remain in the advent calendar, we’re getting really close to Christmas.

Mondays were extra special because the doors for Saturday and Sunday would be opened as well – meaning there were three lucky student helpers on those days; but more importantly, we were three days closer to the big event.

When my turn came, I was hoping secretly that the prize behind my door would be some candy other than chocolate as I was allergic to chocolate. Unfortunately that was not to be. I got a chocolate just like everyone else. I didn’t mention that I couldn’t have it. I just put it in my pocket, and sat back down. I didn’t really mind. I was just happy to have a turn.

I’m sure I’ve participated in the opening of many advent calendars since this one, but none are so memorable for some reason. I’m not sure why that is. It could be because this was my first exposure to the Advent calendar (as far as I recall we didn’t do them in my family). It could be because I was at the peak age for appreciation of such things. The spirit of Christmas is palpable at that age. And I would bask in anticipation for the entire month of December, so anything that fueled that build-up would make an appreciable impression on me. The secret may also lie in aspects that escape my conscious memory, but have embedded themselves into my emotional memory. For example, I think this ritual was combined with other Christmas activities such as reading Christmas stories and poems, like “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”. Whatever the contributing factors, they have congealed into a perfect snow-globe memory for me.

Thank you, Mrs. Toth for making that Christmas season just a little bit more magical.

I was never much for gambling, but there were times when I wanted to be. The movies made it look like so much fun. A popular plot device in 80’s film and television was for the protagonist to win an improbable jackpot on a horse race or card game to usher in a happy ending, against all odds. Maverick comes to mind but there are countless other examples. I even watched a Highway to Heaven episode that featured this device – though it was framed as the power of God putting his thumb on the scales of probability.

As a child, I understood that television wasn’t real, but I still believed that it was a relatively accurate reflection of reality. I understood that there was no actual person named Brett Maverick who won a poker tournament by wishing real hard for an Ace of Spades. But I believed that there were people like Brett Maverick, and that, while pulling the exact card he needed at the climax of the final poker game was improbable, it was still possible.

With this as a backdrop I’d like to share a short story about the time I got hustled by my sister. I was probably 11 years old, which would make her 13. We weren’t avid card players. We would play games like 31 and crazy eights during camping trips, but we didn’t often play at home. And we didn’t often gamble. We were kids, after all, and didn’t have any money of our own to speak of. The few times that we did incorporate gambling into our card play, it would be in the form of buttons from our mom’s spare buttons bag. (E.g. I’ll see your button, and I’ll raise you two buttons).

For whatever reason, this one time, we started playing card games for real money. I must have had a few dollars that I earned from allowance or doing chores. I don’t remember exactly what the game was. It wasn’t poker. It was probably 31. We started out betting for small change. I lost. She offered “double or nothing”, and I agreed.

As the losses mounted, I started to feel the temperature in my ears and head rising, and I began to worry that I had lost more money than I could comfortably afford.

“Do you want me to loan you more money to bet?”, she asked, after I was out of money.

Of course! I needed to win my money back. So she loaned me more money. And I lost again.

At this point I was in way over my head. Not only had I lost all of my money, but I now was in dept to her for substantial amounts of money. I don’t recall dollar amounts, but I remember thinking that it was so much money that I would never be able to pay off the debt.

There had to be a way out. I wished I had never started this foolish game. If only I could return to the moment just before we started betting. I decided to take my case before the court of “Mom”.

“Mom”, I said, “We’re not supposed to be gambling at all. So Erin should have to give me my money back, right?”

“No”, she said. “If you agreed to it, you have to pay it. This will be a good lesson to you about gambling.”

I’m sure there was some back and forth on this – as I surely would have attempted all angles to get this debt cancelled. But effectively, my appeal was denied. My debts would not be cancelled – at least not by this judge.

It all seemed hopeless, until my merciful sister offered me a way out.

“Steven, I’ll give you another chance to win your money back, with one more bet”, she offered.

“What’s the bet”?, I asked, skeptical – but frankly full of naive hope that this could be the stroke of luck that changed my fortunes.

“I’ll bet you that Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez are brothers”, she replied.

Now, before I go on, please understand that in 1989/1990, Wikipedia wasn’t a thing. Also understand, that in my world, brothers always had the same last name. I mean, do the math. Brothers with the same dad (I clarified that they had the same dad before proceeding into the bet) should have the same last name, right? Right??

Having done the math in my head, I said “You’re on!”

And for about 2 seconds, I was sure that I had managed to climb out from under this mountain of debt. Then:

“You’re wrong. They’re brothers.”, she said.

“No they’re not!”, I said.

Eventually this went to the panel (my Dad), who confirmed that Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen were, in fact, brothers.

I’m sure that I accepted this decision with a Trumpian display of grace and class.

There’s a silver lining to this tragedy, however. The following year, “Men at Work”, starring Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen, was released, which gave me ample opportunity to share this fun piece of movie trivia.

“They’re brothers, you know”, I would say to anyone who would listen.