Soccer & Select Baseball Play-offs

Not to many people can claim that during the weekend they are planning to move from one country to another their kids end up in an all out play-off extravaganza, well unless your the Loudamericans and then it's just another weekend.

Billy took to playing soccer this summer and was an all in kid. He had no real idea what he was doing but ran around for an hour once a week with a smile on his face and a keen eye on the snacks at the end of each game. The house league play is a great way for kids to start off playing a sport and if they like it there are formats for them to move on to higher quality play and to challenge themselves.
House league for Bill was the way to go. His team had a tough go of it during the regular season and some how managed to peak the weekend of play-offs. There were three games scheduled for last Saturday, with a single elimination concept, you loose you snooze ...you win you play again, and play again they did.

Bill had a go at playing goalie and they team showed up huge for him and they won 6-0, first game in goal and a zero goals against average, not bad! The team was on fire winning each game by a sizeable margin and only giving up 2 goals in 3 games, FIFA level play! Billy was a bit short of the Man of The Match award but none the less first year, first place, AWESOME!


We are the champions my friend...and we'll go on fighting to the end....  come on, sing along!

Did we mention that it was about 55 degrees and started raining in the final game? considering Billy was not dressed for the weather and was the guy that spent most time on the bench, narry a word of compliant. That's our Bill.

Randomly Kay was doing different gymnastic moves and trying to turn the attention towards her, but cute is cute and baseball is what I'm talking about!









Jimmy has really come into his own as far as confidence and team play. Usually he is behind the plate in clutch games and this play-off stand he was called onto the mound, to yes pitch. The Wild Thing (California Penal League) was up to the challenge, however he did not like not being behind the plate. There were  6 teams that made the play-offs and Jimmy and the North York Blues were the third place team. The first game was an elementary baseball game with the skills of the boys besting the challenger in 4 innings and all was good. The problem started with the rain, then the monsoons and ending with the second game being cancelled, causing a Sunday morning game meaning to make the championship game the boys would have to play three games in one day, they were up for it.

In between the games and soccer we celebrated Jimmy's B-day, well we had dessert and he opened presents. The whole turning 13 is crazy and to top it off he now wants to learn how to shave, what happened?

The boys lost the Sunday morning game to the first place team, whom were the only undefeated team in the league and were the controversial member of the division, pretty sore winners ... but enough of that. The boys geared up after the loss to face the second place team, East York. Pitching is the key in these types of games and ours was a bit tired after the first game. As a parent you do not want to be in the position of having your child come into the game with the score tied, two outs bases loaded to be the pitcher, you really don't, trust us on that.  Jimmy has one pitch, a hard fast ball, that's it. The problem is he aim, just saying. Suffice it to say he got the third out.

So after 4 innings the game was tied 6 to 6. we were the visiting team. After our turn at bat in the 5th inning we were up 9 to 5 and Jimmy was back at the mound. A few moments later there were 2 outs bases loaded and the count was full. Now most kids may be a bit nervous in a situation like this but Jimmy was jazzed, had them right where he wanted them. The wind up and the pitch a huge pop fly to shallow center field, his team mate ran and then dove for the ball and drum roll please, game over!!!!

The boys now had to face the team that beat them earlier that morning, a tough situation. Let's just quote Jimmy here who said after the loss," you know what dad?" What son?" I'm choosing to end my season after the second game, we play great and after 6 hours of baseball we all ran out of gas, great attitude.
more to come...

 It was a great season, great team mates and coaches (including Michael at 6' 6" from the Netherland and Fabio at 5' 6" from Toronto but Italian by origin).

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Very proud of the they boys, they played their hearts out to the bitter end.

Go Blues!

And so ended the weekend before our move ...

3 soccer games, rain and a championship
5 baseball games, tough competitive kids and 2nd place  - Really really proud of all their efforts

Now we go pack....