In my world, Eastern White Cedar is holy. I have probably sawn & milled more cedar then any other type of wood. It seems in this part of Ontario, every 50 or so miles down the highway someone is making at least part of their living harvesting cedar. It is so usable. It is the MOST outdoor rot resistant wood. It becomes boards, posts, poles and even the greenery is harvested for oil of cedar. It smells so good. These stick/twig arbours are made from dead cedar I harvest from a couple of cedar bushes on our property except for the large pieces on top which were harvested as logs and split into thirds for large fence rails over 100 years ago by local farmers. In the arbour structure I consider it the young holding up the ancients. Some of those old pieces and quite a few 2×6′s have traveled to Newfoundland to become arbours & decks (bridges) at my place out in Exploits.  The last section of my deck in Exploits was transported there by a tall ship schooner just like my ancestors. So it is also well traveled.

There is an old cedar bush in a corner of our property, where the cedar grows on top of marble rocks that have cascaded down the north side of a ridge into a hollow.  It is concentrated cedar.    Ancient trees to youthful striplings with symbiotic green moss feet.    Dead trees, dead branches and dead leaf matter….cedar litter fills every contour.  All of us here think it is a special place. We like to visit it. So today I braved the bugs and this bush is the where mosquitoes come from and created this photo essay.

The Voyage of the Schooner Niska……. a photo essay overview.

It was very good to see a picture and letter about the schooner/tallship Niska in the last issue of Downhome. More needs to be written about this epic undertaking. The last I saw of the Niska she was departing St.Anthony on a mausy, dreary day last September headed down the Great Northern Peninsula towards Twillingate, her final destination.

I had flown in from Ontario intending to get back on and help sail her the last few days of her journey. I was deeply disappointed when supplies and weather kept us in port beyond my window of opportunity. Hurricanes Ike and Hanna were scudding up the coast of North America. It seemed like it blew a gale all of September in NL and I didn’t have the time to get stuck in a little cove along the coast hiding from the weather. Along with engine troubles that’s what happened. I drove back down the peninsula with my brother very despondent I couldn’t complete the trip. I wanted so badly to sail this schooner into Exploits on the way to Twillingate. It is in my genes, both my maternal (Manuel/Sceviours) and paternal (Collins/Gosse) ancestors were schooner captains and owners. My great great grand uncle Josiah Manuel had upwards to one hundred schooners attributed to him and his business. He was one of the leading merchants based in Exploits in the late 1800′s. I am still part owner of our family home in Exploits.

The voyage of the Niska started back in the spring of 2008. My brother Don Collins, who lives in Gambo NL, met Heiko and Cynthia Bank in Twillingate at their bed & breakfast the Rumrunner’s Roost and learned of their plan to sail the Niska from Midland Ontario, where they used to live, to NFLD. It didn’t take much for Don and I to tentatively signed on as crew. As it got closer to departure we enlisted my sailing friend Tom Wager from Belleville Ontario. Most of the sailing I have done has been with Tom. Don had actually put a crew together for the Niska. Around the first of June, Tom and I went to Midland to meet Heiko and see the Niska which was on drydock.

That very day the adventure began when we committed ourselves to the voyage by digging in and painting the hull. A week later Don flew up from NL, we drove back to the boat and spent an arduous week making her seaworthy.

Finally, after putting her in and out of the water a few times, she was as ready as we could make her.

We sailed Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St, Clair (where two storms converged on us and rattled us somewhat), then the Detroit River, Lake Erie (which we sailed a portion of through the night under a glorious bowl of stars),

then through the Welland Canal. We got hit by a laker in the Welland Canal. The laker Halifax sideswipped us and broke the main boom and wiped the davits and dinghy right off our stern. The Niska is a 25 ton ship but might as well have been a canoe when facing this gargantuan lake freighter. Nevertheless the hull was sound and we continued to the pilot’s slips at the Lake Ontario end of the Welland Canal. Don, Tom and I were tired and very shook up so went home for a couple of days. Heiko, after a few days, singlehanded the Niska to the Belleville area where I live. We derigged her, took the boom and gaff to my place and spent three or four days repairing everything.

We got her ship shape again. Time had run out for Tom and Don though. Both of them had jobs and family to return to and they had given a month of their lives to this adventure. Don flew back to Newfoundland and Tom went back to work although he did manage to sail with us one more weekend from Belleville to Gananoque.

I stayed on the Niska for another couple of weeks to help get Heiko and the Niska through the St. Lawrence Seaway locks to Montreal. I too had other commitments and got off when we got close to Montreal. I had done one thousand miles in a month and a half on this magnificent vessel. After that Heiko and the Niska were crewless. I tried very hard to get him crew by canvassing friends and using the internet. I did get him a fellow that accompanied him from Montreal to Tadoussac. Heiko managed to enlist a few people enroute and made it to the Lower North Shore and the town of Blanc Sablon on the Quebec Labrador border. He then singlehanded her across the Straits of Belle Isle to Quirpon and the next day to St.Anthony. He went through many trials and tribulations but finally made it to Newfoundland. That is where I made my attempt to get back on board for the last few days journey.

In the Great Lakes we had the joy to actually sail the Niska.

If there was a useable breath of wind, Tom lobbied for sails and we did .

We had all her sheets up a few times. I will never forget those days: they were magnificent, sailing this vessel out of sunrises and into sunsets.

After I got off in Montreal, Heiko motored the rest of the way. Without crew, motoring was more do-able. This was the longest journey the Niska and her skipper Heiko had ever attempted. It was a four month, two thousand mile journey that, if everything goes well, he will take a few days in the spring to finish. When the Niska arrives at her new home in Twillingate I am sure it will be a spectacular addition and tourist attraction for the area. Having it as part of the Rum Runner’s Roost Bed and Breakfast is perfect. It’s been no small feat for Heiko and Cynthia to realize their dream. I’m still hoping I can do a day sail in Notre Dame Bay to Exploits Islands with Heiko on the Niska and fulfill my ancestral dream.

What an adventure.

Twenty five years ago I bought some bush property in eastern Ontario to build a house on. Little did I realize the ponds I acquired by default, would become so important in so many ways. In the summer we enjoy the panorama and the creatures that flock to it. Ponds, swamps and bogs are populated by such a diversity of life. Sometimes we canoe in it, but we can’t swim because they are warm, murky, brown water, beaver ponds that collect water at the top of the watershed and disperse it slowly. But in winter the ponds blossom, at least for us. In the beginning it was all about the kids and the activities a growing family could do together. It became a social place for the hockey games every Sunday that family, friends, neighbours and townies all came to. We celebrated winter birthdays with skating parties and bonfires and spent quite a few New Years’ eves on the ice. It taught us how important common interests can be. It was our social glue.
My Christmas this year was all about skating joyously with my three growing, skills acquiring grandkids. They wanna’ be here and that makes me very happy.

When our own kids went off to school and off on to their own trails, we used the ponds less but still tried to maintain a rink. It became our gym, our exercise machine. Shoveling and skating in an endless loop: oh yeah, I can work up a sweat thinking about it. It has it’s cerebral side too, if you are going to put that effort into it, you had better use it. Tomorrow it could be gone: buried in snow or under water. There is always the anarchy of weather to contend with. That live for the moment/carpediem concept becomes so tangible and real. Many times the neighbours have phoned and said “lets go” and I drag my butt off the couch because I know the possible consequences. Who’d want to miss skating through the night on a cold, crystal blue moonlit glassy pond, so quiet your blades slicing the ice seems loud.

You never know what the ice will be like. One year a dam broke after the ice had formed and the water underneath escaped . After a few days the ice slumped forming little hills around deadheads and rocks. It was like skating with moguls. A frozen alien landscape.
Another time we took skate guards and hiked over the dams, four or five ponds back, playing “Calvin” hockey. Like “Calvin and Hobbes” we made it up as we went. Picture six or eight people, a dog or two, sticks and a ball meandering for miles on beautiful ice.It was keep away, hit the target, race, chase or fetch. Your choice.

Some times the ice forms without snow and you have the freedom to skate everywhere. That’s a rarity though and most often you join the snow removal gym. This year it’s been all about the gym. We’ve had a lot of snow. To make it interesting we morphed it into a huge artistic canvas. Building the mandalas of winter.

When you shovel the pond it’s defined by the economy of energy output. It can be a huge job.

Depth of snow, bodies present and the tools at hand, all define how you approach the task. But even that goes out the window when boredom and body aches suggest a change. We noticed our methodical methods were creating gargantuan patterns on the ice. So we got artistic with it.

A few people can make short work of the pond by pushing their shovels round and round from the center out leaving a beautiful spiral mandala.

Last week the snow was deep which means inevitably you shovel the same snow numerous times. Too much for a continuous push. As we were diligently going at it, my neighbour and fellow zamboni, Deb said “if we shovel half the pond and then shovel half that again we’re caught in the infinite loop and will never be done.” I said “but we’ll sure have a large rink” and “what’s done mean….anyway”.
Now we’re at a crossroads. It’s been a snowy cold winter so the snow banks are high. Inevitably the weight of the banks cause the sides to sink into the pond and the center will belly up, forcing water up onto the ice. Sometimes this works for you and sometimes the rink disappears. We’re on the downside of winter and all these factors are causing things to happen. What to do? That’s the million dollar question: whatever we do will reverberate into the future. A set of footprints, or a wolf’s paw prints, across the rink on the wrong day, can sometimes be a flaw that plagues the surface all winter.

And now the weatherman is forecasting rain. Arghhh. After twenty- five years of this, I’m still not used to it. Reality is: winter’s over. How does it always sneak up on me? All the signs are here, spring is around the corner. My guerilla pond skates have pretty much come to an end. Wow, talk about tunnel vision. We might get one more good skate if there’s a flash freeze, but realistically artificial arena ice is the only thing that is going to extend my skating season. Aw, but the flip side of this is that the Exclaim Hockey Summit of the Arts is upon us
Man what I won’t do for a skate.

For the last month or so I have been a crew member on the schooner Niska traveling from Georgian Bay to her new home in Twillingate NL. The boat was built 35 years ago by the skipper Heiko Bank and has plied the waters in and around Georgian Bay where he lived and chartered until his move to Newfoundland a few years ago. Now he’s come back to fetch his boat and take it to Twillingate where he owns a B&B called the Rumrunners Roost. She’s 60′ spar length, 13+ beam, 25 ton, fiberglass on wood, replica of east coast staysail schooners designed and built by the skipper. She has a very reliable 65 hp Perkins Deisel for power. This is not your turn on a dime space ship dinky toy power boat. No joystick operated, voice activated bow thrusters. It’s basically 1850′s tech with only a few modern additions.

We have managed to get the schooner from Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, St.Clair River, Lake St.Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, Lake Ontario, the Seaway system, the St.Lawrence River to Montreal where he is regrouping for the rest of the trip. She’s made it halfway and has another thousand miles to go. We’ve sailed and motored through, mishaps and misfortunes, trials and tribulations but surmounted all and sailed her gloriously through these magnificent Great Lakes and waterways covering a thousand miles. It’s a grand adventure in a seat of the pants old school way.

The skipper is in dire need of crew. Now.
He will be in the Montreal area for possibly a week or until he gets the crew he needs. I guess the price of admission is you pay your share for food and make your own way home. He could use crew for as short as a week or the remainder the voyage. He’ll go with as little as one but there is room for at least two or three more people for a total of four comfortably.

There are not many people that can drop everything and do something like this. It is an amazing opportunity. Some boat knowledge would be very helpful but a willing to learn crew is good.
If you are at all interested in this or know someone who might be, please contact me at this e-mail address: terrappin@sympatico.ca

The Voyage of the Niska Part One

“I have no regrets about this trip it was stunning and I would do it all
again”.
and
"the negative news always gets the press."
We did some amazing sailing and it was a good adventure. 

I am looking at a seventy year old man of slight, sinewy build, dressed in
jeans and running shoes. No shirt, grey hair, tanned, weathered, leathery.
He is sitting atop the rope locker on his east coast stay sail schooner he
built with his very own hands, thirty years ago. He and the ship have seen
better days. His head is in his hands, elbows on his knees. Tired and
haggard. He has lost his crew, has very few resources and he isn’t even half
way to where he wants to go.  It’s a sad state of affairs.

The crew are as of now....... off the boat.

Wednesday June 25 at mi 11 in the Welland Canal the Niska got swiped by the
monster Laker named Halifax.  We are all very lucky.  The dingy and the
davits were wiped clean off the back of the Niska and the mainsail boom
snapped.  It was a series of events including seaway dispatch, a strong wind
from behind and a loss of steerage at the most in-opportune time.  Scared
the shit outa' us. Way too close.  Too much adventure.
The idea of adventure should come with a scale attached.  An anxiety/stress
scale (A/S scale) of let’s say of one to one hundred.  Sign on for adventure
like we did and you automatically start at twenty five. Adventure, heart
going pitter patter. This is what it’s about isn’t it. So therefore twenty
five.
When Tom and I went to meet the skipper,Heiko it was getting real. Anxiety
was mounting.  We met him and the Niska and realized this was going to be
“seat of the pants”;  few amenities, not much in the way of electronics,
1850's replica ship with old school methods, kind of voyage.  At least
another ten on the A/S scale.  Yet with eyes wide open we willingly got on
board and she’s not even in the water.  We went to work on her and worked
hard to overcome a couple of years of dry dock hoarding and neglect.  Boats
need water for their well being and she was out of the water for three
years.
Marina dry-docks and putting a twenty five ton boat in and out of the water
is really expensive and even though it wasn’t our money, we were feeling the
success and failures of our attempts to make her ship shape.  I think that’s
another dime on the scale.
A trip like this on a sail boat means weather. On land when weather comes
you just get out of it. When you are on a sail boat twenty miles offshore
and it takes at least four hours to get to the shore, if you have a place
you can even go to.  You can’t just open a door and get out of it.  Going
sixty or seventy miles means ten hours. A lot can happen in ten hours
weather wise, so you are constantly appraising the weather.  Weather is
another twenty five on the A/S scale.  Two storms converged on us in Lake
St.Clair.  They beat the crap outa’ us but we handled it and made it
through.  Nevertheless, that specific weather event made us weather hyper
which easily adds another ten to the scale.
All the time we were navigating through the magnificent Great Lakes we were
running out of time.  The working boys, Tom and Don, had a month. So this
question of how far we could get, preyed upon us.  Time kept eroding.  We
had to stop for repairs and stop for weather.  That impending limit
constantly loomed larger on the horizon.  We weren’t gonna’ get there. We
didn’t wanna’ talk about it.  Ten more.  Our two weeks aboard and our
initial week getting her shipshape had led us to this point and you can see
where my graph has taken us. We are at one hundred. Maxed.
And then we had the incident with a ship the size of a small planet .
Forget the graph.  After the incident we stood by the Niska on a barren
cement wall at mile eleven on the canal and tried to get our minds and
bodies out of the red area of our personal tachometers.  We shook. Our
stomachs ached.  We were way over the top.
We were so stressed out we did not want to get back on right then and there,
but we couldn’t leave her there so we cleaned off the wreckage and after the
Seaway people took a million photos and a  report and the Ministry of
Transport took a million photos and a report and ok'd her, we got back on
and took her through the gargantuan alien environs of the seven remaining
locks.  It was like some sorta’ surreal hallway with an oversized stairway
in it. We parked her in the small boats jetty by the pilots boat and bunk
just outside Lock One of the Canal, Port Wellar (St.Catherines).  Spent.
Don and Heiko stayed on board that night and Tom and I went to a friends for
a shower and a sleep and to see if the next day would make us feel any
better.....it did not.  We took on a lot of responsibility that maybe we
shouldn't have.  We kept him and the Niska afloat, made things work and
went
along with makeshift and make do.  Maybe we should have said “get it all
together” before we even got aboard.  Maybe, we took him and the boat too
far.  He was ill prepared, not enough coin and still living in her hay days
and maybe his.
So there he sits alone on the deck of his ship with not much happening and I
don't know what resources he can call up.   We feel bad for him....really
bad. We are remorseful for the way things ended. We are moral people.  None
of us wanted to abandon him.  But it is not our responsibility and we had
collectively taken on too much already.  We burned out. He burned us out.
In hind site this could have worked had Heiko done things differently.  He
should have had the boat ready and the trip researched and planned better.
If he had of gotten the boat sea worthy and not delayed the time we had.  If
he had allotted two months and not so seat of the pants, two weeks on, one
week off and people to get on and off at different places.  This could have
worked even without a lot of money and seat of the pants.  We wouldn’t have
burned out if we could have gotten cleaned up every once in awhile and
detoxed from the weather and the breakdowns and repairs.

As it turns out:

The adventure is not over.  The Voyage of the Niska continues.  More things
and incidents have happened.  Heiko and the Niska made it to Belleville where
we did a lot of repairs the mainsail boom, the mainsail gaff and are working
on the stern steering station.  Tom and I got on for a few more days.
Tom got off and I continued to Montreal where i got off.
We got him more crew and he is now at Sept Iles waiting out weather and
looking for more crew.

For the past eight years I have been playing in the Exclaim Hockey Summit of the Arts. I first played for the Montreal Stompies and as I got to know people I began playing for the Gas Station Islanders with my son in law Dylan. You can find a history of that team in my blog GSI further along on this page. I have never played in a tournament quite like this one. Over the ten years of it’s existence it has grown from a match between two teams, to this year having thirty eight co-ed teams from all across Canada. From Victoria to Halifax. It is truly amazing. It is open to the public. The games are at Canalan Ice York University during the day and the team/band Hootenanny Performances are at the El Mocambo in the evenings.

Here is what I wrote after taking part in the 2004 Summit.

Puck Rock 2004
In the winter of my fifty second year, I got body-checked by my seventeen year old self. It seems the circularity of life will always be a revelation. Let me explain: when I was seventeen I was living in Northern Ontario attending high school, playing hockey and moonlighting as a rock musician. You might say typical teenage territory, but at that time, which was the sixties, (although the North still thought and acted like it was the fifties), combining a love of the game of hockey and a new found love for the burgeoning world of pop music was not typical. So I say moonlighting as a rock musician, because sports and rock music really didn’t go together according to prevailing thought. You were either a jock or a music geek but seldom both. The old world glory of team sports was just beginning to feel the shift of attention to the exploding excitement of pop music. It was a new thing trying to meld both worlds. Nevertheless we did. At least a few of us did. I played music AND hockey in our old corrugated metal, quon-set hut arena that by the way, had natural ice indoors. My band used to rent the YMCA gym for five bucks, charge fifty cents to get in and fill the place. We were the only band in town and we had just enough kids to make a team. So both worlds, although seemingly in opposition, even shared the same house. It’s now 2004, I’m fifty-two years old, have just finished one of my best seasons of hockey, ever, and Saturday night I was jamming in a club in front of four hundred people. The circularity gives me a warm and fuzzy buzz. The culmination of my hockey season and my musical presence onstage comes courtesy of Exclaim magazine. The best music mag in Canada. For the past few years Exclaim and it’s distribution manager Tom Goodwin have sponsored and organized the Exclaim Hockey Summit. Twenty-four hockey teams made up of musicians, actors, comedians, writers and artists from Vancouver to Halifax gather in Toronto for a hockey tournament. Although my youthful years melding both those worlds may have been cutting edge, that is not a truism any more. Nowadays being part of both worlds is obviously commonplace. In fact, it’s pretty much one of the rites of passage for Canadian boys and girls these days and there are quite a few young women playing on this weekend. I have played in quite a few tournaments and there is nothing quite like this one. A lot of these people, even though they are from all over the country, know each other because of the cross related network within the entertainment/arts industry. There is camaraderie amongst teams, not just within your team, that is novel and sets things apart. You can play as hard and tough as you want in the hockey games, but you have to face these people, laugh with them, even dance with them in the evening. Some of them are friends, co-workers and acquaintances you haven’t seen for awhile. If you let the dark side take hold of you in hockey, you will loose out on or even damage the unique spirit this event perpetrates. Teams actually get deducted points if they do not perform in the stage portion and you can get points if you do not get any penalties. That is not to say this is hockey lite, on the contrary, hockey contains the physical elements of speed and intensity, and players and teams in competition will inevitable escalate the dance . It is the nature of the game. You may just want to leave as much the crap as possible, elsewhere.
My team the Gastation Islanders is named for and sponsored by the famous Gastation recording studio which is now located on Toronto Islands thus the Islanders moniker. There are members from the Dinner Is Ruined band, By Divine Right, the Rheostatics, the Ron Sexsmith band, a Juno award winning producer, writers, managers, and agents on this team, which is indicative of all the teams present. We Islanders have played exceedingly well and have tied the Wheatfield Souldiers (Winnipeg), smoked the Ottawa Songbird Millionaires and got beat by the new kids, Versus Magazine, a punky skateboard/music mag from Toronto. I got 1st star in the opening game for a beautiful goal I managed to score, my team has it’s own personal hockey card and I have the tee shirt. Imagine that.
So this is how I found myself playing bass onstage in front of four hundred sweating, buzzing revelers in a downtown Toronto club doing a version of Camper Van Beethoven’s Take the Skinheads Bowling that team-mate Tim Vesely of the Rheos has challenged us with. As I look out at this throbbing mass of friends, musical heroes and battered hockey mates, this weird dimensional time shift takes place. Flash, I’m seventeen, playing in my band These Boys in an arena in Northern Ontario, which my hockey team the Hornepayne Beavers played hockey in that afternoon. I can still detect the smell my hockey gloves leave on my sweaty hands, and my fingers have blisters from playing bass so enthusiastically, there are so many shared moments. Flash, I’m back, with a two minute penalty for game delay. I have just been body checked by my former seventeen year old self. Whoooo!

King Leary by Paul Quarrington.

About ten years ago I wanted to nominate Paul Quarrington’s very funny hockey/senility novel King Leary as a book for our long running (20+ yrs) Intergalactic Book Club. I found out it was sadly out of print so as an alternative we did Paul’s novel Whale Music which had been turned into a movie with music by my friends the Rheostatics. We had a wonderful time doing that book and appropriately read other books by Paul. He is a gifted Canadian author. My friend, hockey teamate, ex Rheostatic Dave Bidini is also a gifted writer whose book On A Cold Road we had already discussed in our club, decided he was going to champion Paul’s book King Leary for the recent CBC on air bookclub Canada Reads. Consequently the publishers put King Leary back into print. I am very proud of Dave for that. Turns out Dave spoke, lobbied and debated well about the book and it amazingly beat out Tomthy Findley’s fantastic novel Not Wanted On the Voyage, another book the Intergalactics had previously discussed. See how this whole thing loops and resonates. Crazy man.
King Leary won Canada Reads!!!!! Wow!
It’s back in print and back on the docket. The Intergalactics are taking this second chance to read and discuss King Leary. Thanks Dave.

.

This little Gas Station Islander character was originally designed by my beautiful granddaughter Sienna Collins for a hockey jersey Sienna and hockey playing grandson Nate made for me Grandpa Gee. I photographed it, digitized it and then morphed it into the GSI uniformed, coloured and crested character which we are using for a limited run of t-shirts that are being sold for $20., with all proceeds above costs going to the Right2Play charity the GSI team supports. The graphic is also being used in the Exclaim Hockey Summit printed program for and illustration of a kids hockey clinic with a listed credit going to Sienna Collins and Grandpa Gee.  I have pictures of my other hockey playing youngest grandson Dex wearing his t-shirt.

Now how cool is that.

.

A brief Gas Station Islander history.
The Gas Station Recording Studio began in 1990 when producers and musicians Dale Morningstar and Don Kerr pooled their resources, piled all their gear into one room in downtown Toronto and called it a studio. For most of the 90′s, the Gas Station Recording Studio gave life to, took part in, and became a cornerstone of the burgeoning Canadian independent music scene. In May of 2000, Don and Dale moved into an old school house on a sandbar out on the Toronto Islands, and the Gas Station Island Studio was born. The studio became the focus of their artisan, music industry community, and out of that creative hub the Gas Station Islanders hockey team skated into existence. A lot of people have passed through the studio and a good proportion of them passed through the team also. The Islanders have a big past and a large roster. You need a lot of players on a team like this because when they put their musician hats/helmets on they go on tour and gut your best line. Or your goalie disappears for a month and e-mails you from LA saying he can’t be there…..tonight. From one week to the next we could have two wholly different teams show up for a game. Every once in a while they all show up and we have like five lines and six sets of defense. So it wasn’t hard to get enough music for our inaugural GSI compilation. If we had of gotten hold of every musician who has been an Islander we’d have the proverbial ‘over the top’, gatefold double album.

According to GSI founding father, musician, producer and original goalie Dale Morningstar: “I recall being at a pre season Leaf game with Don Kerr at the ACC, where we ran into Tom Goodwin (founder of the Excaim Hockey Summit and the Good Times Hockey League of the Arts) and Ian Danzig (publisher Exclaim mag) which began the rumblings of a Gas Station team. That was the first time that Don and I got jazzed about starting up a team. Musta’ been fall 2000.”

After those first Sonic Unyon vs the Morningstars games there were a lot of friends that wanted to get back to their very Canadian hockey roots and be a part of this puckrock mashup. There were too many players to be absorbed by those two existing teams. So out of necessity and desire, teams like the Islanders were formed.

Consensus is:
1st match Morningstars vs Sonic Unyon 1999
Dale was playing net for the Sonic Unyon Pond Squad
2nd match 1st expansion 20004 teams Morningstars, Ottawa Songbird Millionaires, Wheatfield Souldiers, Sonic Unyon Pond Squad
3rd match 2nd expansion 2001 12 teams including The Gas Station Islanders Exclaim Summit debut Dale is in net and Don Kerr is a right winger for the virginal Gas Station Islanders.

The Gas Station Islanders have been responsible for a number of GTHLA firsts; they were the first team to include an entire band, the Chickens, they had the first woman in the league, Marcia MacDonald, who eventually married her defence partner, Jack Larmet, which of course was another first. They’ve had father and son, Mike and Myles Roberts playing together, and now they have a father and son-in-law as line-mates, George Collins and Dylan Hudecki. Last year the Islanders had a parade of African drumming at the Exclaim Tournament, and they just might be the first team to raise $1200 for a charity in an afternoon of outdoor shinny, music, and food.

The Gas Station Islanders hockey club played their first season in the winter of 2000/2001 at the Exclaim Hockey Summit, and every year since. They have been proud members of the Good Times Hockey League of the Arts since it’s inception and are ardent supporters of the Right2Play charity that supplies sports equipment and facilities to children around the world. In the last few years the GSI Team has evolved into a dynamic entity that feels like a growing family of diverse friends determined to be creative and charitable in as many facets of their lives as possible including sports.

GW Collins #11 GSI

Detailed track listing

1.Artist: GSI All-Star Band
Song: Go Gas Go! Exclusive GSI cd release 2008
Bandleader/drum maestro: Cam Collyer GSI #2 D
Producer: Don Kerr GSI #5 RW

2. Artist: Dale Morningstar
Song: Goaliesong Exclusive GSI cd release 2008
Written by dale morningstar copywrite Socan2008 DAM records
Details:bedtrack [vox and acoustic] recorded by Nick Purdon in the Gas Station Islanders’ dressing room sat/feb2/08 prior to a game. overdubs ecorded at the gas station recording studio, t.o.island.
GSI #35 Keeper of the net
Website: www.gasstation.ca

3. Artist: Cowlick
Song: Arena Mix Exclusive GSI cd release 2008
Producers: Jackson & Dylan Hudecki w/ Geo #11 on bongo’s, Tim Vesely
#8 on Guitar
Details: A 2 min abridged mix of a Rink Rock performance at the 2006
Exclaim Cup at De La Salle
GSI : #78 RW
Website: www.myspace.com/cowlicktheband

4. Artist: The Violet Archers
Song: Don’t Talk From the CD: Sunshine at night
Released in: Spring 2008
Written/produced by tim vesely GSI : #8 LW
Website: www.thevioletarchers.com

5. Artist: The Chickens
Song: Room on Fire From the CD: Bring it On!
Released: 2004
Produced/Composed:The Chickens
Details:at one time 4 Chickens played for GSI on “The Chicken Line”
that included Fred Robinson, Danny Prezscator, Ken Mikalauskas, and Murray “Hound dog” Heywood. #’s unknown.
Website: www.thechickens.com

6. Artist: Cowlick
Song: We Can Do 1979 From the CD: Eternia Hernia
Released in: Spring 2008
Producer: Dylan Hudecki Composers: Jackson & Dylan Hudecki
GSI: #78 RW
Website: www.myspace.com/cowlicktheband

7. Artist: Dave Bidini and The Five Holes
Song: The Five Hole Monologue From the play “The Five Hole Stories”
Produced & or Composer: Dave Bidini/Martin Tielli/Ford Pier/Selina Martin
GSI: #17 LD

8. Artist: The Kelele Brothers
Song: The Girl Can’t Help It From the CD: Escape From Bover County
Released: 2002
Composer: Bobby Troup
Producer: Don Kerr GSI #5 RW
Website: www.myspace.com/donkerrmusic

9. Artist: Frank Atom
Song: Billy Greene From the CD: Golden Anvil Farm
Released in: 2005
Produced &/or Composer: Kevin Lacroix
GSI: #22 D
Website: myspace.com/frankatom

10. Artist: GSI All-Star Band
Song: Gee Blue Exclusive GSI CD release 2008
Composer: George Collins GSI #11 L/RT/C
Producer: Don Kerr #5 RW

11. Artist: Cooling Pies
Song: Scum From the CD: Cooling Pies
Released in: 2007
Produced &/or Composer: Gideon Kendall, Kevin Lacroix
GSI: #22 D
Website: myspace.com/coolingpies

12. Artist: The Dill
Song: Corvette Exclusive GSI CD release 2008
Written/Produced: Dylan Hudecki
GSI: #78 RW
Website: www.myspace.com/dylanhudecki

13. Artist: GWCollins
Song: Dull-cimer Skates Exclusive GSI CD release 2008
Produced &/or Composer: GW Collins GSI: #11 L/Rt/C
Website: http://gwcollins.wordpress.com/

14.Artist:Tim Bovaconti
Song: Dance,Love,Sing and Live
From the forthcoming CD,”Funpants Memory Pillow”
Producer: Tim Bovaconti….Composer:Tim Bovaconti SOCAN 2008
GSI: #7 Centre
Website: www.myspace.com/timbovaconti

15. Artist: Matthew Barber
Song: Red River or Cream of Wheat Exclusive GSI cd release 2008
Produced & or Composer: M.Barber
GSI: #1, part-time ‘keeper’.
Website: www.matthewbarber.com

16. Artist: Chris Brown & The Citizen’s Band
Song: Go On 3 From the CD: Oblivion
Released in: 2007
Produced and Composed by : Chris Brown GSI: #6 C/RW
Website: www.chrisbrownmusic.com

Produced/Designed/Compiled/Duplicated/Sequenced by: GSI #78, #11, #22, #5

Numbered limited release copies of the Gas Station Islanders CD: audio will be available shortly for sale. Proceeds will go to the team’s charity Right2Play.

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One of a Kind Hand Carved Wooden Spoons
Over the years I have hand carved literally hundreds of wooden spoons and other utensils like spatulas and salad fork sets.
I really enjoy making them. It’s a wood working project that is not all about machines. I rough them out of firewood size pieces of local mostly tight grained woods (cherry, maple, walnut) with a bandsaw but then I sit on a stool and go at them with chisels, rasps, rifflers, sanding blocks and scrapers. It’s not noisy. I listen to music, meditate, think and whittle away. It’s time well spent. I can do a small spoon in about and hour from wood I have prepped at hand. In woodworking terms getting a finished product in that amount of time is extremely fast and concise. It gives me fairly immediate creative satisfaction. I even use “making a spoon” as a warm up exercise for larger more intense projects.
Any of these wooden utensils are available for $20. and up.