Tag: Lax

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Be The Best.

Lacrosse Alert!

Flag of the Iroquois Confederacy, Hiawatha Belt
Iroquois Logo...love it.

The Midget National Tournament (BOX LACROSSE) is being held this week in Coquitlam, BC.

We saw BC take on Iroquois on Tuesday afternoon.

Although they lost that game, they still have a good chance at getting after some hardware.

If you want to see some of the best players in Canada at the Midget (age 15/16) level, you can watch four of the best go at it tomorrow (Thursday) on Poirier Street.

Coquitlam has just rebuilt this facility and it’s a great place to catch a game.

Iroquois takes on Alberta at 3pm and then BC plays Ontario at 5pm.  Full schedule here.

Aside from lacrosse, what is the personal connection you ask?

Chris played at the National Bantam tournie in Ontario in the Summer of 2007 with BC winning a bronze medal in a tough show down vs Alberta.  We loved watching the Iroquois play as well and they eventually beat Ontario for gold that summer.

As one Iroquois supporter told me in that very calculated vocal pacing after a disallowed goal back in 2007 against the much bigger and favoured Ontario squad, “You’ve got to score 3 to count 1”.

Sometimes that’s true…sometimes that is true.  The point is to NEVER give up.  They didn’t and they won gold.

James Rahe breaks in on net.
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Be The Best.

Chris took us to the movies today…literally.

No, I’m not crazy…(well sort of, but only part of the time).

Chris literally took us to the movies today?

How?

Back on March 22, just 3 days before he passed away, we went out for dinner as a family.

It was a Monday night and very unusual for us to go out on a weekday.  Like VERY unusual….maybe once a year if that.   But there we were, Max and Chris in a booth sitting across from Ingrid and I and we were laughing all night.

You’ve seen blog posts referencing that night before so I won’t get too detailed, but the occasion was Ingrid’s birthday and Chris had got her a movie gift card for $50 and the suggestion of a mom & son movie that coming weekend.

Fast forward four and a half months.  With a very hot day and some time off, it was a perfect chance to get to the movies along with Max.

Thanks Chris.

We laughed.

We had fun.

We thought about you.

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Be The Best.

Go to space.

As many of you witnessed reading thru the multiple World Cup (Soccer) blog  posts last month, I love that sport and many others.

I think I have a new favourite team in the British Premier League called Blackpool. 

They are underdogs coming into the season, but they scored 4  goals to beat Wigan today.

Ok…let’s go somewhere with this.  I coached both boys in soccer.  You see a young Chris here putting on some moves.

One of the most difficult things to teach kids in soccer is to ‘go to space’.  I’m not talking NASA or the moon.

Going to space doesn’t make sense to kids and even much older players.

Going to space means going to where the ball isn’t.

It’s about anticipating where the ball might go.

When you go to space, you’ll have more of a chance of having the defenders back off and if your team understands the concept of getting the ball to space, you can really start moving the ball.

Chris makes a move, while big brother Max looks on a little too close to the endline I think!

I was left with the dilemma of teaching 6-year-olds the basic concept, but they just wanted to chase the ball like a bunch of bees on a honeycomb.

What I ended up doing was teaching them a little rhyme that I made up and they would say it while they practiced a drill.

Instead of running around in a pack they would run up the side of the field then into the middle where they would get a pass and shoot and hopefully score.

The rhyme was:

Up the side,

In the middle,

Score a goal and play your fiddle.

…at which point I would insist on them playing an ‘air fiddle’ (think air guitar)!

It wasn’t perfect, but the kids remembered it and they got better and better.

As I was thinking about this tonight watching Blackpool, I thought about how Ingrid, Max and I are learning to ‘get to space’ now.  We are needing to step out in faith and go where the ball isn’t, in anticipation that the ball will be going there.  If it isn’t, we regroup and try again.

It’s a hard thing to do when you’re learning so we may be sticking with the simple rhyme for now, until it becomes a part of the new normal.

Up the side, into the middle, score our goal and play the fiddle!

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Be The Best.

Be The Best – Rhys Burnell style.

This is an excerpt from a story in the Abbotsford Times on August 13. The full story can be seen by clicking on the link below.  Rhys, like so many of us, had to deal with the why questions, emotions, confusion etc.  He has turned that into a motivating power moving forward.  Here’s the article:

Burnell, a member of the Burnaby Mountain Selects lacrosse team, the B.C. Midget Box Lacrosse team and the U-16 Field Lacrosse team, was rocked when he found out about the sudden death of his close friend and teammate Chris Friesen on March 25.

Friesen, who grew up in Langley, was just 17 years old. He was far too young, said Burnell, a 16-year-old Grade 11 student at Yale Secondary.


“I went through a lot of emotions,” he said.

“I was sad, I was confused. I tried to figure out why he died but I managed to just get through it.”

Delivering the news to their son that his friend had passed away was also an emotional experience, said Burnell’s mom Lori.

“It was very difficult because we were very close family friends,” she said. “It’s devastating. It’s hard to explain to kids this young why these things happen. I don’t think there is an explanation but to see all of the boys take up the cause and keep working hard in Chris’s name and really pay tribute to him . . . Chris lives on through these young guys.”

“There’s a picture of him holding a lacrosse stick and it says ‘Be The Best’ at the top,” added Burnell.

That’s Be The Best.

Congrats Rhys.  We’re all very proud of what you’ve accomplished so far.

You’re continuing to show us how to Be The Best.

Read the full article at:  http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/sports/From+tragedy+triumph/3394532/story.html#ixzz0wYVZXwrJ

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Be The Best.

For men only…(yah right)

I know the methodology of many guys who ‘read’ this blog.

Their Significant Other reads it and passes the information on to them.

Many guys don’t read much.  I get that.

Guys do stuff. I get that.

Guys grieve differently. The ‘professional grieving industry’ (sarcasm) doesn’t really get that.

I found a very interesting author/speaker on-line talking about the differences between men and women and how that relates to grieving.   I haven’t read his book (case in point from above…I like to own books and read parts of them…), but I watched his 20 minute mini presentation on men and grief and was very impressed.

With my management instructor hat on, I’ve spoken many times to my students about the differences between cultures  and communication AND the differences between men and women and communication.

One excellent point that Tom Golden makes is that women tend to communicate face to face…ie they literally like to look at each other when talking.  If you hadn’t noticed, when a man talks to another man, they don’t tend to do this.  Face to face for a man is all about confrontation and challenge.  What men like to do is go shoulder to shoulder and fight something together.  Think sports (lacrosse (of course), hockey, football, soccer, whatever) which replicates ancient traditions of battle.

Anyhooo, when it comes to grieving men still want to DO stuff.  I’ve mentioned this to many people but not here in this blog.  If Chris and I used to work on cars together, I would probably be finishing a car right now.  If we hunted together I’d probably arrange a hunting trip with ‘da boys’.  For me to honour Chris, the SFU Chris Friesen Memorial Fund was a huge goal and it was as much a part of the male grieving process as going to lacrosse games and writing blog posts.

Shoulder to shoulder combat.

For the men reading, take a look at this video on the attached link.

For the women reading for their men, take a look at this video on the attached link…and then drag your husbands/boyfriends/friends/sons over to take a look…or just watch it for them and let them what it was about.  🙂

It’s some interesting food for thought.

Guys:  Sorry this blog post was so long.  367 words is way too much.  Go do something.

Link to Tom Golden video (vid at bottom of page):

NOTE:  I’m not endorsing etc. Just another viewpoint along our journey!

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Be The Best.

Langley Advances to Gold Medal Game!

Langley battles Richmond during a Saturday afternoon tilt.

I love seeing the CF 2 stickers on the helmets.

I love seeing the Be The Best patches on the jerseys.

More than anything, I love seeing guys play as a TEAM.

That was clearly evident today as Langley beat Richmond and then beat a Vancouver Island team to claim a berth into the Gold/Silver showdown tomorrow (Sunday, July 18, 2010).

Langley didn’t start strong at this tournie, but they’ve turned it up a notch or two.  The opponent will be Coquitlam who are always a strong team and an association that has incredible depth and talent.  Should be a great match up.

Good luck to both teams!

Win or lose, my hope is that these experiences will help develop these young athletes into young men ready to change the world!

A little Saturday evening 'get together' on the floor.
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Be The Best.

Quilt Story 2

You can see a whole movie franchise here…Quilt Story 5, The Stitcher Returns…but I digress.

You see that ‘C’ square in the quilt?  That’s a story all of its own.  Brett Dobray, one of Chris’ Langley teammates and buds, wanted to bring something to the funeral and leave for Chris.  He had his Grandma make this square with the ‘C’ for Captain and the stars.  This was an amazing thought from a young man and one that will be treasured forever.  It wasn’t planned, but I don’t think it was a fluke at all that this square ended up right beside the Iroquois Lacrosse square.  Along with Josh Beasley, Ryley Brown, Ryan Gladiuk and Will VandenHooven, Brett and Chris were all Langley boys who played together on the Bantam Team BC Box team that won a bronze medal in Ontario in 2007.  The Iroquois were amazing to watch at the tournament and many of the boys exchanged shirts and helmets to bring home a memory. Brett, I want you to know how much Chris loved playing with you.  It came down to a very basic reason.  You have a passion for the game and you want to win.

As Langley’s Midget A1 Box team and teams from around the province prepare for weekend battle at the Provincials this Saturday and Sunday, I think it’s important to think about Be The Best.  It’s really about 1+1=3.  Personally, leave nothing on the floor.  That means 110% every shift.  Then do something for a teammate…an extra hit, an extra effort on a pass, a full sprint to the bench on a line change.  It’s those little things that you do yourself (that’s 1) + what you do for others (that’s 1) that when added up make the magical 3.  Think about it.  That’s what Be The Best is all about.

Young men like Brett get it.  Leadership is not always the loudest guy in the room, it’s the loudest person through his or her actions.

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7 days to write a post…about a quilt.

But it’s not just any quilt.

When one of my amazing staff members in Marketing and Communications at BCIT asked a bold question she was really putting herself out there.  She did not know how Ingrid and I would feel about creating a quilt from Chris’ clothes, but with most things involving Be The Best, she took the risk.  It didn’t take long for Ingrid and I to say that we loved the idea and we were absolutely humbled by Kim’s generosity and that of her friends and family who supported her through this incredible project.

What you are about to see is intense.  It’s beautiful.  It’s sad.  It’s incredible.  It’s powerful.  These pictures are worth a billion words. Actually…not a chance.  They are  simply priceless.  You can also read/see the quilt from Kim’s perspective on her blog. As far as we’re concerned she’s an amazing artist, a gifted quilter and someone who has given us a most incredible gift.  Thank you Kim from the bottom of our hearts.

Look closely at the edge (I’m sure it has a technical name – piping or something…I don’t want to use the real name in case you think I actually know anything about quilts…).  You are seeing Chris’ favourite jacket…that stupid black and white checkered thing he wore all the time! (Yes, I secretly liked it…)

I love this quilt.  We love this quilt.

I’ve tried to write about it for 7 days, but I couldn’t take the photos or make the movie or type the words.  Tonight I can and that’s the way it goes.  This won’t be the last post about this quilt, because each square contains a story. Who knew?  This may become a quilting blog…!  LACROSSE PLAYERS….don’t worry…there will be plenty of lacrosse talk this weekend as we check out the Provincial Championships in Mission.

For now, understand that one side of the quilt is all of Chris’ favourite shirts including Langley Thunder and Team BC.  The other side is his BMS jerseys and the jerseys of his BMS teammates that brought them to the funeral as a show of respect.

You see?  Priceless.  And I simply can’t type anymore right now.  Enjoy the beauty, because as much as it’s sad, it’s wonderful, beautiful, incredible.

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Be The Best.

What is this…sunset week?

Langley sunset. June 15, 2010.

Really…I wasn’t looking for a sunset theme this week, but that is how it’s working out.

The colours here remind me of the colours of the rainbows we saw at some amazing times just after Chris’ passing.

Rainbows are mentioned as far back as the story of Noah and his ark and the promise of hope after the biblical account of a great flood.

Those rainbows in the days following Chris’ passing helped remind us that we were not being forgotten.  There was one very difficult day that the lacrosse team was doing a tribute for Chris.  It was amazingly wonderful and difficult at the same time.  It was stormy and raining heavily, but the hint of sun was on the horizon.  I thought we might see a rainbow, but didn’t.  We got to the arena parking lot and as I backed into the parking spot we saw a huge bright rainbow that must have been behind us.  I called my nephew Steve and told him as we had shared some of these stories and in the couple of moments we were on the phone the rainbow faded and was gone.

Like many other things I’ve written about, I realize that it rains a lot in Vancouver and a mix of sun and rain leads to rainbows!  That is a scientific fact.  It was just incredibly cool to see this ancient symbol of hope showing up at unexplained times and places in those first few weeks.

If you think this is interesting, wait for the eagle story in the next few days…!

This new normal thing ain’t easy or all that fun.  That being said, we know the sun will set each night which means just one thing.  The sun will rise again!  (ok, if I get too much more philosophical I think I may go see Dr. Phil…)

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D-fence.

I’ll try to bring some pics forward that you probably haven’t seen before.  Chris had played a December tournie in Seattle for a number of years including a few months back in 2009.

You see Chris here (grey helmet) in pursuit and ready to aid his fellow defender and ward off an enemy attack!  He loved playing defense.  Where other players lived to score goals, he got that same satisfaction stripping a ball from a goal scorer, breaking up an offensive play and then moving the ball quickly up the field to push his team forward.  Throw in some good physical contact and it was a great day at the office!

I love the second picture…taken on the next day.  He’s wearing his Team BC helmet (you can see the 41 on it) and he’s just provided the other team’s offensive player a reminder of what’s going to happen if he wants to get close to the goal.  One of his lacrosse teammates told me he hated going up against Chris in practice because he knew he was going to feel it, but he loved going against Chris in practice because he knew he was going to get better.

Getting better usually requires getting out of the comfort zone.