This blog entry has two invitations: Joy and I drove over 5,000 kilometres to her family cottage in Miramichi New Brunswick  and a side trip to Nova Scotia to do the Cabot Trail and to look up some relatives in North Sydney, where  my grandfather was born and where my great, great  grandfather opened a Funeral Home that still operates to this day. It was an awesome trip where we once again we saw the immense beauty that is this country Canada.

Here's invitation number 1: The trip was made even more poignant as we finished  listening to the audiobook version of  A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp. If you've never listened to an audiobook I recommend you try it out. The miles go by as you  dive into the emotion and journey of the book. The book is 23 hours long, and can carry you much farther than a playlist or a podcast that may or not fit your mood. For us, listening to the stories of all the great people I had the privilege to interview narrated in my own voice, where we could hear the passion, and occasional mumbly-fumbly screw ups that made it more real, was priceless. Reading a book takes you places, hearing a book takes you into the person and the story. 


Here's invitation number 2: Olympia hosted a 50th Anniversary reunion on the May long weekend and it was a blast. Coming up is another event to bookend the summer that is one last chance to celebrate the 50th summer of Olympia Sports Camp. Joy and I will again be there to launch the book and connect with Olympians. The summer of 2023 feels like the camp is BACK! and I look forward to sharing the end of the summer like we did in May, and last Thanksgiving. Any excuse to get to camp! I hope many are able to make it up and close off the summer the way we did for years as a week 9 family. 

You know the process of HeartMAth, where you breathe and think of your happy place? For me that is the view from the shores of Oxbow and I look forward to it again. Also, nothing better than a campfire shared with friends and that will be a highlight for sure. Check out the link and to register email Matt@Olympiasportscamp.com and we'll see you there! 


Copies of A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp are available at The Different Drummer BookStore on Locust St in Burlington. Or if you live in the Hamilton/ Halton area etransfer $30 with your address and I'll deliver it to your door.

If you are going to camp this summer the book is available in the Tuck Shop

Online copies are at aherosjourney.ca

Audiobook version is available at Audible, Amazon, or iTunes

If anyone wants to host a Tour of Olympia event where we would come to your town to have a mini reunion, talk about and sell books, email me at coachdools71@gmail.com and let's connect. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 Karl Svoboda began his rugby career at Belleville's Centennial Secondary School and the Belleville Bulldogs club team. When he started with the Bulldogs at 16 he was the club's youngest player. When he retired from the game he was the club's oldest, and probably most accomplished. Karl had success in rugby the world over. He won three OUA championships with the University of Toronto Blues and he first made Canada's national team in 1985. He ended up being team captain of the national team for years and played in the first three Rugby World Cups in 1987, 1991, and 1995. He also played senior rugby for the Ajax Wanderers and attended the prestigious Oxford University in England at the dawn of professional rugby in 1996. I gleaned this information from research because for a decade or more of sharing week 5 coaching duties and sitting around campfires this understated superstar would rather play guitar and talk about fishing or that day's bike ride or swim than boast
Read more
Image
In the summer of 2019,  Blaine Scatcherd  was introducing himself at the opening meeting of week 5 and told the assembly of coaches that he worked as a counsellor at Olympia for 4 ¾ years. People who knew the story, including Dave Grace, roared with laughter at the self-effacing honesty Blaine showed when recounting an incident that may have been the worst in his career, yet a defining moment that changed him forever and made him a better teacher and coach, and a better person.    Blaine Scatcherd is from Ottawa, where he was coached in football at Glebe Collegiate Institute by Olympia coach Skip Riddell. He went on to play football at Acadia University and played professionally in France for 2 years before embarking on his teaching profession.   “Skip recommended to me in grade 11 that I work at Olympia as it was a great place for an athlete and would-be coach, so I applied to Olympia with Skip’s reference. I went down to Toronto for a group interview and thought I aced it. I didn’t g
Read more
Image
They say that a picture tells a thousand words. How about two pictures? In the writing of A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp I got to interview a lot of people dedicated to Olympia and to the vision of Dave Grace. Out of this process I learned three things about the 50- year journey of the staff of Olympia: 1- Olympia inspires young people 2- Staff inspire others to do the same 3- Staff move on in their lives, carrying Olympia with them, while others replace  Staff like Randy Kipfer and Kevin O'Reilly This picture of Harlem Globetrotter Curly Neal with some amazing counsellors can be found in the book at the start of Chapter 6-Allies and Ogres . It captures an Olympia moment shared by good friends and a world-class basketball entertainer, but the insert is the key element of an Olympia journey that spans decades.  There are literally hundreds of stories of staff who have graced the lands of Interlaken. Every story is unique, every story is echoed th
Read more