Beau Brooks, on left, prepares for debut match against Mat Andreatta.
Two teens from Brookswood Secondary are getting into a fight tonight. This is the school both Max and Chris attended.
No, not behind the school. No, not in the hallway.
This is an amateur boxing match where Beau Brooks is making his debut against Mat Andreatta.
Beau was a very close friend of Chris.
Beau joined our family this past New Years at Silver Star for a few days of skiing and snowboarding.
Beau, I know someone who is going to have a virtual ring side seat for this match and going to be going crazy for you!!
Having a dream of being in the ring, going after it, training hard and then getting your first fight along with the front page of the sports section in the paper…that’s Be The Best!
You’ll have a little something special in your corner tonight Beau.
It was a very interesting conversation as we explored topics about men and the grieving process and how men react differently to loss and honouring a loved one.
We are looking at doing an interview via Skype in the future so stay tuned!
There was one very interesting thing though that I couldn’t wait until that interview to share.
Tom again had some great insights into the male perspective on communication and how that relates to the grieving process.
He told me some amazing stories about sports stars and musicians…but I’ll keep you waiting for those and let him tell you.
I had told him about an example of ‘man communication’ that I relayed on this blog a few months back. Going on a golf weekend with ‘the guys’ is usually about 90% having fun, letting your hair down (ok, you know that hurts seeing as my hairstyle is a Number 1 with a razor…) and DOING STUFF. There is usually some (maybe 10%) sincere and deeper conversation, but not predetermined or predictable.
This was not news to Tom. He stated that it is the ACTIVITY itself, the ‘shoulder to shoulder battle’, that bonds men. That ties into everything from war to sports. It was the next comment Tom made that really hit home. He said that it is the joined activity (fighting an enemy, conquering a mountain, driving an ATV around) that combines some danger and challenge that provides a SAFE ZONE for men to talk to each other. ie, if this guy has my back, I may be able to have a deeper conversation.
I found that very interesting.
You see in the vid attached a little fun with ATV’s courtesy of Drake with Wayne and Brad driving and yours truly filming while trying to hold on.
Thinking about this another way…four hours of golf to have a 2 minute serious conversation.
It’s all making much more sense now. Maybe I will unretire from golf after all.
btw…I know it’s 5 months today that Chris passed away and we continue to thank you for remembering us in your thoughts and prayers.
During last week’s Midget Lacrosse Nationals it reminded me of Chris at the 2007 Bantam Box Lacrosse Nationals in Ontario.
btw, Team BC lost in their bronze medal bid this past Friday night. A tough way to end after that epic battle with Ontario to beat them in the tournament round. From Ontario’s perspective, I’m betting they had a little payback on their minds and with BC having to play an extra game Friday morning, they took advantage. All that being said, some great lacrosse by all and some great development as players and young men going through all of those emotions and experiences.
Back to 2007.
In order to help with the trip expenses to Ontario, the players were allowed to raise private funds to help make the trip a reality. I recently uncovered the one-pager that described the program and gave potential donors an idea of who Chris was.
Here is how it opened:
Know many teenagers who write down their goals?
Know many teenagers who then break down their goals into actionable work plans and don’t quit until they’ve made it?
Meet Chris Friesen.
Along with excellent grades, this 14-year-old wrote down a goal of making the top-tier lacrosse team (A1) in Langley.
He served as team captain and the team completed an amazing season in first place heading into the Provincial championships in mid July.
In addition to league play, he was selected to Team Fraser Vally and then to Team BC. He will be representing our province in Ontario this August.
Chris and buddy Brett celebrate BC’s bronze medal at Nationals in August 2007.
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Specifically, I will always be thankful to my Wardell clients and friends at Mainland Machinery and Sitelines Architecture respectfully, for their major support of Chris during that program.
I’ll never forget Chris writing down that goal (a practice we’ve done as a family at New Years each year).
I always told that kid to use Odour Eaters or Febreeze or something...!
Ingrid and I went for a walk this morning.
I have some video and after the runaway success of ‘Therapy from Birds’ from a few months ago, I may put together the footage at some point!
In any event, this walk was a first with some new shoes. Not totally new mind you…just new to me.
You see they were Chris’ shoes.
I was going to get some new running shoes and it reminded me that for the past year I had been the recepient of a few ‘hand me ups’.
This is what happens when your kids get as big or bigger than you.
Chris always wore his shoes with tucked-in laces…except for lacrosse shoes. So these sneakers still had the laces tied together with his knots but tucked into the shoe so they appeared untied. Ingrid deftly untied the knots and we were off.
With any shoes, they’ll need to adjust to my feet. That’s a bit of discomfort I don’t mind a bit, in fact I 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.
A little piece of heaven in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island (Aug 2010)
As we head into the last few weeks of August you get that sense of changing seasons.
Whether it’s the CHRISTMAS DISPLAYS AT COSTCO, back-to-school stuff everywhere, or those amazing August evenings that magically cool to just the right outside temperature at about 9pm when the sun sets and gets ready for the next show just a few hours away…you get the feeling that change is in the air!
As I wrote yesterday, I like to take some time to look forward, but also like to reflect on where we’ve been.
On occasion I go through some old blog posts. It’s an amazing way to see the journey and progress that’s been made. The days and weeks have ups and downs, but I think if we see things over time the general flow of the chart is in a slow but progressive move in a positive direction!
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!
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.
Have you ever spent some time staring at the stars?
I had the chance tonight following this spectacular sunset on Vancouver Island.
With no city lights, the stars began their dance as the sun left the stage and only continued in intensity as the evening brought its curtain of dark focus on the sky’s next show.
When I looked up at the stars, I thought of many things…but of course one of the big thoughts was of Chris.
I imagined him shining down on us all through the sun and then keeping us company through the stars.
Just like the many days when we couldn’t see the sun in April, May and June and simply had to trust it was there, it’s the same with the stars. They are there every night, but I have not seen stars like I’ve seen tonight in many many years.
It’s interesting that it is in the darkest of darkness that the stars seem to shine brighter. It’s a matter of remembering those stars shine this bright even if we can’t seem them most nights.
Be The Best. 
