AN ATHLETE IS BORN – ANGE KILLS IT AT SOCCER (Ange top row far right)

Soon after arriving back in Calgary, Deysi had the girls enrolled in a few, outside school, activities. For Ange they included music (both piano and clarinet), swimming, skiing and soccer. Ron, on the other hand, was now in her middle teen years and was a lot harder to push into anything. However, she did continue her piano lessons thru her 6th level of the Royal Conservatory of Music. She was just two years shy of being able to teach piano and very close to the point where she could have entered a fine arts program in University to study piano.

Alas this was not to be; however, to her credit, she had stuck with it for a long time. Both of these girls had their grampa’s talent and ear for music. During those years when they were taking lessons, were quite good. Now all these years later we often see them sit down at the piano and twinkle the keys. When they think they are alone or no one else is listening. I still love to hear them play.

Back to the story behind this post. It is about Ange and the famous soccer game she played while with the Lake Bonavista Dolphins, a girls U-11 (under 11 years old) team. This game took place on a Saturday morning and was an “away” game. We had to travel to the depths of SW Calgary and well into a “hood”. Deysi remarked on how suspicious the people were in this area, even though we were just a few blocks from our own “hood”. Ange’s team consisted of girls from ages 8 thru 11, with Ange being at about the mid range – 9 years old. What they weren’t expecting was a well oiled machine to face them. Deysi immediately pointed out that these girls were all at least 13 years old, far b

igger, mean looking with evil looking coaches. As you can see, she had spent far too many hours with my Mom, when we first arrived, learning how to spot evil and how to “protect” the brood from the cheating little buggars out of the next neighbourhood over. She had learned her lessons well and was vocal in her opinion of age abuse and of the obvious bending of the rules. I pulled my chair up a short distance away, and pretended to be a single dad, while she joined in with the other Bonavista “homers”, screaming and yelling for age tests, gender tests and drug screening. Geezus.

Meanwhile Ange got nominated to play goal in this particular game. It seemed that goal was not a favoured position of the girls on this team, but all had to have a turn. The ruffians from the hood, quickly took control. Deysi says they were huge and some even looked 15 years old. It was apparent that they had practiced and played together for a while. They immediately took control of the game and fired in a couple of quick goals. Apparently Ange had inherited much of her goaltending skills from me, and soon it seemed that the only appendage she might stop anything with was her head.

She reminded me of me! I am yelling “not the head Ange, don’t use the head Ange”. But alas it was too late. One of the opposing monsters broke free and unleashed a healthy kick at the goal, only Ange’s head got in the way. The ball ricocheted off the side of her head with a pretty loud “thunk” and down went Ange. Her mom is now charging the field, calling for air evacuation and medics. Meanwhile Ange gets up, wipes away a few little drops that had been knocked from her eyes by the ball, and announces her retirement from goalkeeping. Deysi checked her out, loudly voicing her opinion of the monsters that had been unleashed on the sweet little things from Lake Bonavista.

She’s yelling at me “did you see that, that kid kicked her right on the head”! No more rabid “hockey dad” had ever frequented a soccer pitch. Ange finished out the game without whining and displayed amazing toughness. She was then comforted by her Mom, who complained all the way home of the unfairness of life. They had lost, but Ange was not really bothered either way. To her it was oh well, what are we doing this afternoon. I think she only played the game to humour her Mom and to get her Mom out of the house on the weekends for some fresh air and exercise. Ange was the true “easy rider”, nothing upset her.