Well this 2008/9’s holiday season was full of both work and lots of fun for all of us here! We worked hard but played harder.

At work, we had less OR rooms open, so natural we had less staff working! This doesn’t mean that the work load on each of us there was any less. Just like any other work place during slow times, there were times when we had nothing to do (just waiting for the OR patients to arrive) and at other times it was fast paced and chaotic (when we were inundated with patients)! Then after all the craziness, came the fun!

We eventually got up and drove to my home town of Brantford early that Christmas morning to celebrate with my family. We ate a lot of GREAT food, had a few eggnog based beverages (NOT too many) and then hours later we headed back off to T.O. We brought back with us my brother and his son, with all his new hockey equipment in tow from his cache of this year’s Christmas gifts from the family!

The weather was great, around -3 (C) with light flurries. It was about 9:00 PM, we had a quick drink, got our gear ready and then headed off to the local out door rink at Dieppe Park! Once we arrived, we put on our equipment and headed off to the pleasure skating rink, to get our ice legs ready, before hitting the hockey ice pad.

The hockey rink had around 8 guys on it once we arrived. Once we skated onto it, the guys asked us if we wanted to join them on their teams for a game? After they said this, my nephew’s eye’s just opened wide with excitement! The look in his eyes said, finally playing some REAL hockey, on a traditional out door Canadian ice pad!!!

These guys were around 17-20 years old. My brother and myself being of, shall we say developed years, were a little worried about how our performance would be, in front of the little guy. As it turned out, we did great. We still had some decent rushes in us and had some nice tape to tape passes (really we did, ask the little guy!) that night. After 12:30 AM, 3 hours later, we decided to call it quits.

The next morning my joints didn’t feel all that bad, to my wife’s surprise, and we then proceeded on back 2 more times that day! The following day we also managed to get back out there 2 more times, but now the aches and pains were starting to set in.

While my they were here in Toronto, we also met up with more family and friends. We even talked my cousin and his son into heading out onto the ice for a laugh!

After a couple of days here, our guests headed back to their home in Chicago. Now it was time for some ice … not the one at the rink or the ones in a drink … if you know what I mean!?

Hopefully you all had a blast! Happy Holidays everyone.