What it means to be Mennonite

While the majority of NHL players were enjoying a nearly weeklong break for the All-Star game festivities in Ottawa last weekend, Nick Spaling took the opportunity to give back to his community.
Spaling, a native of Drayton and 2007 draft pick of the Nashville Predators, was in his hometown and at the Dan Snyder Arena in Elmira Jan. 27 to shoot a commercial for the Mennonite Church of Canada.
The commercial is aimed at children growing up within the Mennonite Church, as Spaling did, and to encourage them to chase their dreams and not be held back by their faith or the stigma that surrounds it.
“The purpose is to chip away at some of the stereotypes that are sometimes associated with Mennonites,” said Willard Metzger, executive director of Mennonite Church Canada and former pastor of the Community Mennonite Fellowship in Drayton, which Spaling attended as a child.

“Sometimes people will associate Mennonite with a certain ethnicity, a German ethnicity, or oftentimes would assume that all Mennonites are old-order Mennonite with the horse and buggy, so we’re trying to dispel that.”
The shoot consisted of two locations; youth playing ball hockey in the parking lot of Community Mennonite Fellowship, and Spaling playing in a mock NHL game at the Dan Snyder Arena. The scenes will cut between one boy in particular at the ball hockey game (symbolizing Spaling as a youth), and Spaling at the NHL level taking slap shots and body checking opponents into the glass.

“The main focus of it is that you can find Mennonites anywhere and everywhere. The idea is that ‘I’m Nick Spaling. I’m an NHL player, and I’m also a Mennonite,’” explained Metzger.

Metzger has been trying to organize the shoot for nearly a year, but with Spaling’s busy NHL schedule, it has been hard to find the time. Finally, the pair decided they could do it over the NHL All-Star break since Spaling would be returning home to visit family because he couldn’t make it home for Christmas.

The NHLer said he was happy to help the community that had done so much for him growing up.

“Being a part of the Mennonite Church, when this opportunity came up I thought it was a great way to get the church’s message out there and to get that point across,” said Spaling after the shoot at the WMC.
“It’s a new and evolving way of looking at things, instead of your typical Mennonite that a lot of people think of these days.”

The commercial is just the first in a series that the Mennonite Church hopes to film, and Metzger said they have arranged to film a member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as well as ordinary business people and entrepreneurs to give the commercials a well-rounded mix of high-profile professionals as well as the everyday person.

Metzger said he was unsure when the commercial might hit the airwaves, but hoped it could coincide with the Predators’ playoff push in early spring.

Wellesley girl’s poem nets $5k for Habitat for Humanity

Katie McDonald’s poem “Homemade Happiness” expresses just how important her home is to her and her family, and thanks to her writing efforts, an Ontario family is a little bit closer to having a home that they can call their own. Katie is one of five runner-up winners in the Meaning of Home national essay contest that was organized by mortgage specialists Genworth Financial Canada, and $5,000 will be given to a Habitat for Humanity project in her name.

She also received a new iPod and a pizza party for her entire Grade 6 class at Wellesley Public School.

“My mom heard about the contest, so I thought it would be a lot of fun,” said Katie.

Katie’s mother Sharon, a Grade 6 teacher in Kitchener, said she was surprised to learn that Katie was one of the winners, but that surprise quickly disappeared.

“She is such a creative girl. Her writing, her doodling, she’s always reading,” said Sharon. “She loves her home and is very passionate about our home and what it stands for. I wasn’t surprised by what she wrote.”
Katie’s poem touches on many themes that most of us can probably relate to. She describes how home is a place of joy and delight, and that it is like “arms that embrace.”
She also writes about how her creativity takes flight and that fun has no limit in her home – and she even makes mention of her father Ken’s homemade waffles.

“My dad makes those a lot,” she said with a smile.

This is the fifth year of the essay contest, and it has seen more than 10,000 essays submitted in that time. The latest contest was also Genworth’s best – a total of 3,190 essays were submitted from coast to coast, and the contest was open to children in Grades 4, 5 and 6, with the winners chosen from a list of 24 finalists.

Genworth’s leader of community relations said that Katie’s poem was well-written and truly conveyed the meaning of home, which was why she was selected as a runner-up.
“It’s not just a place to sleep, and it’s not just determined by the brick and mortar,” said Linda Belanger. “It’s somewhere where a family gets together and, as (Katie) said, the home is about the people inside and the love that’s around it.”

An Ethiopean-born Grade 4 student from Calgary, Edelawit Schnell, was the grand prize winner and $60,000 was given to a Habitat for Humanity affiliate in her name. Altogether Genworth has donated more than $450,000 to the charity since the contest began.

This year the company also donated $5 to Habitat for Humanity for every essay that was submitted.

“We added this element so that every kid can feel like they are contributing,” said Belanger.

Since this year also marks the fifth anniversary of the contest, Genworth will be publishing a book of all the winners and the runners-up from the past five years, with all of the proceeds going back the Habitat for Humanity.
Katie said that she didn’t know anything about Habitat for Humanity before the contest, but since she decided to enter she did a little more research on the organization and said that they are doing important work to try and build homes for those who can’t afford them.

She has donated her $5,000 to Habitat for Humanity in Stratford, and hopes the money can be used to help someone else discover the joys of home that she loves so much.
“I’ve always grown up in a good home so I thought it would be fun to write about it and tell other people about where I live.”

Kings make it three in a row over the last week

The Elmira Sugar Kings used a potent and balanced attack to claim a victory in each of their past three games. They defeated the Listowel Cyclones 8-4 on the road back on Jan. 27, beat up on the Stratford Cullitons 6-2 at home last Sunday night, and edged the Kitchener Dutchmen also by a score of 6-2 on Tuesday night at Kinsmen Arena. Head coach Dean DeSilva was pleased with the team’s performance as they head towards the playoffs.
“I was real happy over the weekend, real happy with how we played Friday night in Listowel and Sunday against Stratford,” said DeSilva. “That’s right from goaltending, defence, everybody. I can’t find fault in anybody’s game.”

The goals came in bunches all night against Listowel as Elmira scored two in the first, three in the second, and three more in the third en route to the win. Riley Sonnenburg led the way with a hat trick and an assist, while Brett Priestap also added four points on a goal and three assists.

Justis Husak was strong in goal, making 38 saves for his eighth win of the year.

Sunday night at home against the Cullitons the Kings fell behind early but managed to rally to snap the visitor’s four-game winning streak.
Stratford took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission despite being outshot 23-15 by the Kings, and Brad McClure extended that lead to 2-0 on the powerplay just 1:54 into the second.
The Kings, however, pushed back with four unanswered goals and headed to the dressing room up 4-2 at the end of 40 minutes.

“I don’t think there was anything that sparked us,” said DeSilva of the comeback. “There is a sense of confidence and a sense of belief with the players and the team. There was no panic, and we talked about that before the game.”

Elmira’s Michael Hasson got the ball rolling less than two minutes after Stratford made it 2-0 when he crossed the Cullitons blueline and unleashed a quick wrist shot through a screen at the top of the faceoff circle, beating Stratford’s Jesse Raymond for his 14th of the year. Brett Catto and Mitch Dunning picked up the assists.

The floodgates opened a few moments later when Brady Campbell undressed Raymond on a breakaway when he faked backhand and managed to pull the puck back to his forehand and tuck it past the sprawling keeper to knot the game 2-2 at 11:20 of the period. Catto and Will Cook collected the assists.

Andrew Smith gave the home team the lead for good just two minutes later when he took a cross-ice pass from Sonnenburg and picked the top corner with a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot to make it 3-2 at 13:25. Priestap had the other assist on the goal.

Brad Kraus finished the scoring in the period on the powerplay at 17:35 after defenceman Colton Wolfe-Sabo carried the puck deep in Stratford territory and behind the icing line before passing it out front, where Kraus was waiting near the lip of the crease to bang home his 21st of the year.

In the third the Kings continued to pressure the Cullitons and gave them no quarter in their own zone. Hasson tallied a shorthanded goal just 1:47 into the third after Lukas Baleshta stripped the Stratford defender of the puck near the Culliton blue line and made a nice cross-ice feed to Hasson for his second of the night, and Sonnenburg finished off the scoring at 14:45 on the powerplay from Smith and Cass Frey.
Nick Horrigan finished with 26 saves to collect the win.

“We felt very, very confident with what we were doing and we thought we could wear them down even though we were down by two goals at one point,” said DeSilva of their overall game plan against Stratford.
On Tuesday night the Kings travelled to Kitchener for a game against the 8-28-7 Dutchmen and didn’t let up, handing them their eighth straight loss with a 6-2 win. Will Cook led the offence with two goals, and Scott Nagy and Sonnenburg had a pair of assists in the win.

Horrigan collected the win by making 25 saves.

DeSilva said that the players have turned the corner from their struggles earlier in the season and that every player knows their role when they step onto the ice. That being said, he also credits the team’s four solid lines for the well-rounded offence on display during the Kings recent winning streak.

“If we expect one line to do the scoring, and it’s not their night, they focus on the defensive side of the puck and the other three lines can pick up the scoring.”
He also said they would be treating the remaining eight games on the schedule as a tune-up for the playoffs, treating every game like it was a part of a playoff series.
“Over seven games we’re going to be tough to beat, and we’re talking about the playoffs being all about momentum, so we can’t give teams any opportunity.”

The Kings play at home against Guelph tomorrow (Sunday) in an afternoon tilt, with puck drop at 2 p.m. then head to Stratford next Friday night for a rematch against the Cullitons starting at 7:30 p.m.

“A total loss”

Fire destroyed a St. Jacobs business Wednesday night, requiring crews from three Woolwich fire stations to bring it under control. Damage to the Kel-Care Metal Polishing building is estimated at $400,000.
Firefighters from St. Jacobs, Conestogo and Elmira were called out to the Albert Street location at 4 p.m. after a small fire was reported in a dust collector.

“Workers were grinding and sparks got into the dust collector and that spread quickly into the walls, the second floor and into the roof,” said township fire chief Rick Pedersen. “Crews were able to extinguish the fire on the main floor but it had spread too quickly.”

Smoke could be seen from the garage door on the west side of the building and escaping through the roof as firefighters organized themselves by setting up a base of operation on the south side of Albert Street, directly across from the building.

Two fire trucks from Elmira were summoned, including the aerial ladder to help firefighters extinguish the blaze from above as multiple teams fought the fire from the ground, shooting streams of water drawn from the village’s fire hydrants and the nearby Conestogo River.

“We had a lot of guys working very hard to control the blaze,” said Pedersen.

It took 45 Woolwich Township volunteer firefighters all night to battle the blaze at the two-story building, with the last truck leaving at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday.
A plume of dark smoke could be seen high above the village drifting east over the township.

“We have had the building inspector in and are limiting the access because of structural problems. It seems like the building is a total loss,” said Pedersen.

Kings support troops, shoot down Hawks

Dressed in camouflage jerseys, the Elmira Sugar Kings were ready for a battle against the Cambridge Winter Hawks Jan. 22 after suffering a 5-4 defeat to the Guelph Hurricanes the night before. Playing in their annual Support Our Troops game, the Kings scored four unanswered goals against the visiting Hawks en route to a 4-1 win. “I think the game was a typical Elmira Sugar King hockey game. We were five strong on the ice, we were tough in battles, and we stuck to our game point and I believe we have turned the corner,” said head coach Dean DeSilva.

The Hawks were the first on the board when Darcy Meyer scored two minutes into the first period on the powerplay beating Elmira netminder Nick Horrigan with a chip over the glove. It would be their only goal of the afternoon. The Kings were eager to fight back, evening the score before heading to the room when Lukas Baleshta scored his ninth goal of the campaign at 15:41.

Cash Seraphim, who had just been released from the penalty box after a roughing call, picked up the rubber and entered the Hawks’ end, finding Scott Nagy on the right of the goals. Nagy circled around the net and quickly fed the puck to Baleshta, who fired a one-timer high over the stick of Cambridge goaltender Lucas Machalski.

“The turning point was (Seraphim) and his penalty where he jumped in for somebody on his team and the guys rallied around that. For a 16-year-old to do that, it is amazing. (Seraphim) has come a long way and the team really picked up after that, especially for the guys sitting on the bench, and our momentum just built from there and we scored shortly after,” said DeSilva.

Returning to the ice after the first intermission, forward Brett Catto extended the Kings’ lead while scoring his first goal in Elmira green just over two minutes into the period. Wade Pfeffer got the puck up to Michael Hasson at the blue line. Hasson then made a cross-ice pass to Catto who snapped it past the goaltender. Brady Campbell would score one more just under three minutes later from Seraphim and Pfeffer at 18:18 to make it 3-1.
The third frame saw the Kings starting shorthanded after Clayton Greer was given a penalty in the dying seconds of the second period on an interference call. Penalties were in style, as both teams came at each other hard in the third, clocking a combined 56 minutes in the box.

“I don’t know what it is that gets these two teams going. I think since a lot of these guys grew up together and play together; we have a lot of Cambridge kids on our team that there just seems to be something that happens when our two teams meet,” said DeSilva.

The Kings put any hopes of a comeback by the Hawks to bed by dominating the third as they outshot Cambridge 11-4 and scored once more with the extra man. Hasson collected his 14th of the season on the power play at 15:51 from Riley Sonnenburg and Nagy for the 4-1 final.

Horrigan stopped 25 of 26 shots for the win, while Machalski stopped 48 of 52 for the Hawks.

Emotions ran high during the game and the Kings need to be able to put them in check before the team starts its playoff run in a month’s time.

“This has been a problem all season, it is tough to pull them back because they are trying to play a high pressure, high tempo game and to use our depth and we want guys to finish their checks, we are trying to teach them to hit sticks on puck, but using their shoulders their sticks come up and emotions start running high,” said DeSilva.

“We talk about it and work on it  and we are going to have to try and control it because we know come the playoffs we are going to have to keep that in check but if we use our depth and keep pushing and pushing the pace and the tempo we will get the results we want to see.”

The Support Our Troops game raised more than $5,500, with an auction held after the game in which each of the game-worn jerseys were sold off to the highest bidder. All the proceeds went to the London Military Family Resource Centre. The organization’s aim is to enhance the quality of life of military families in southwestern Ontario.

This weekend, the Kings are in Listowel Friday night to face the Cyclones before returning home Sunday to welcome the Stratford Cullitons. The puck drops at 7 p.m.

Transit fares likely to rise 9% this year

Grand River Transit riders can expect to pay a little bit more for the service this summer after Waterloo Regional council approved a nine per cent fare hike. The changes have yet to be finalized but councillors last week voted 9-6 in favour of the increase, which will come into effect in July. Cash fares could rise to $2.75 from its current $2.50, and other types of fares such as bus passes and student rates could also see a proportional increase.
The rise in fares is part of the regions efforts to have riders pay more of their share of the service. Last year saw a fare increase of five per cent, and there are proposed increases of up to nine per cent in 2013 and 2014 as well – a total increase of more than 30 per cent.

The goal is to have riders paying 50 per cent of the cost of transit services as soon as 2015. In 2010, passengers paid 38 per cent of Grand River Transit costs, with taxpayers footing the rest of the bill.
Woolwich Mayor Todd Cowan voted against the fare hike, saying raising fares is the wrong way to increase ridership on the system.

“The whole idea is that we want to encourage people riding the bus,” he said. “I don’t think raising the fares nine per cent is going to encourage more people to say ‘maybe we should take the bus.’”

Despite the increase, he doesn’t think that the new rates will have a negative impact on the ridership numbers of route 21 that runs through St. Jacobs and Elmira. Rather, the entire system as a whole will suffer as a result.
“From the grand scheme of things – and I’m not talking about the Woolwich riders, I’m talking about the grand scheme of the entire system – that’s what is going to be affected.”

Cowan said that if the fare hike had been limited to 2.5 or three per cent, he likely would have voted in favour of it in order to keep pace with the rate of increase within the region’s overall budget, but nine per cent was simply too high to support.

One of the councillors who voted in favour of the increase was Wellesley Mayor Ross Kelterborn, and he did so based on the belief that riders should be paying for more of their share – not regional taxpayers who have no use of the service, such as his constituents.

“Whenever you have something where people use it, who do you think should pay for it? They (transit riders) should be paying their fair share,” Kelterborn said, adding that ridership shouldn’t be hurt, especially when compared to the high price of running an automobile these days.

Cowan, however, doesn’t agree with Kelterborn’s assessment that those who don’t benefit shouldn’t be supporting it through their taxes. “Good argument, I hear it,” he said, comparing it to the new watermains scheduled to be installed in Maryhill this year to the tune of about $1.3 million – a cost that is covered by the township’s entire tax base rather than just those who live in Maryhill.

“Would you rather have to deal with that between 400 people or 23,000 people?

“Hopefully I never need an ambulance but we still pay for them through the region. It’s for the greater good.”

Last fall Woolwich Township council agreed to cover the operating and debt financing costs of route 21 for a total annual cost of $462,000 – or about $35 per township household.

Average daily ridership during the week was up to 390 from September to December last year, an increase from 351 in 2010 and 245 in 2009, and Cowan expects a new report from the region further updating those ridership numbers next month.

Heidelberg loses its postal outlet

A dispute between Canada Post and the private postal outlet in Heidelberg means residents will no longer have a post office, joining many small communities that have been stripped of service.
As of Monday, residents will have to travel to St. Clements for their mail while Canada Post continues to install community mailboxes to replace the serviced outlet. The mailboxes are to go into use starting Feb. 20.
Steve McCathie, owner of Forwell Super Variety of Heidelberg that has hosted the franchised postal outlet since 2000, lays the blame on a longstanding contract dispute with the Crown corporation. He was informed Monday the outlet will close Jan. 23.

The variety store hosts 440 post boxes for residents and businesses, and provides almost all of the services a normal post office does.

“We are a busy post office and larger than a lot of other rural outlets in the area,” said McCathie. “Since we are a franchise outlet we are only paid $13,000 a year by Canada Post to sort the mail, whereas a corporate post office like the one in St. Clements receives $48,000 to do the same job, but they have fewer boxes.”

McCathie said the compensation to provide the service works out to $5.30 per hour, far lower than the provincial minimum wage. The store has to make up the difference in pay for the two employees that work at the outlet.
Canada Post and the storeowner have been at odds over a couple of contract terms that McCathie won’t accept.

Along with maintaining the current pay, Canada Post wants to install new computer equipment and scales. McCathie said the organization refuses to pay for the estimated $750 a year in electricity he believes the equipment will use.

Another contract term concerns a pre-authorized debit arrangement that McCathie said would give Canada Post unfiltered access to the store’s bank account.

“What it boils down to is that the little independent guys have no power with Canada Post and we are seeing rural outlets close down all over the region like in Maryhill and Floradale,” said McCathie. “We are not a union, we are just a family-run business. It is too dangerous for my business to allow anyone into my bank account at anytime.”

McCathie offered to use electronic banking to pay his monthly bill but said Canada Post refused that offer, demanding access to his business bank account.

When it became clear negotiations were getting nowhere, the storeowner contacted Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht in August, providing him with the letters from Canada Post threatening to close the outlet.
“He was very surprised by the tone of the letters and was not aware of the inequalities between post offices across the region,” said McCathie. “He contacted me in October and told me he had spoken with representatives from Canada Post and they told him they were not treating me any different than another outlet.”

Albrecht said he believes that Canada Post has not lived up to the terms of the postal service charter.

“I am continuing to work with Mr. Lebel, the Transport Minister, and Canada Post to determine how we can correct this failure. We should have been consulted prior to the change and I expect Canada Post to find a solution that will ensure that families and businesses continue to receive the postal services that they are use to,” said Albrecht. “We expect Canada Post to abide by the charter and provide quality postal services that we can count on.”
McCathie said Canada Post told him when he first became a dealer that he would not make any money being a postal outlet but by providing the mail service but he would have people coming through his store.
Although the post office does bring in some revenue for McCathie’s business, he said he is more concerned about how the closure will inconvenience residents of the village.

“It is very unfortunate that they have decided to close us down because this was a place where people in the community would meet. We don’t have a community centre and many times neighbours would run into each other collecting the mail and stop and chat with one another. I feel the community is losing its only link to commonality.”

Mail service will continue in Heidelberg, maintains a Canada Post spokesperson.

“Unfortunately we could not reach an agreement with the current dealer to maintain the postal outlet,” said spokesman John Caines. “In the interim, beginning Monday residents of Heidelberg will be getting their mail by general delivery at the St. Clements post office until the community mailboxes are ready. Those community mailboxes will be closer to their homes.”

McCathie said he was willing to keep the post office open until Canada Post had the community boxes ready so that residents of Heidelberg would not have to travel to St. Clements, as some do not have their own transportation.
“Canada Post is closing the office just out of spite. They didn’t like that I was standing up for myself, they want to be able to call all the shots,” said McCathie.

Caines said Canada Post is still talking to other businesses in Heidelberg to see if they can find another location to host the post office. If so, they will re-establish the retail outlet.

Given the fact that there are not many retailers in the village and the fact that the community boxes are being built, McCathie believes that it will be unlikely for another outlet to open in Heidelberg, but he is hoping for a change of mind by Canada Post at the last minute that will allow him keep his postal outlet open.

Cold for Coats for Kids fundraiser

William Walkey is either a marketing genius, or one of the unluckiest men in Elmira. The student teacher at Park Manor Senior Public School spent 24 hours in front of the Foodland in Elmira to raise awareness for the Coats for Kids campaign at Park Manor Senior Public School on Jan. 13 and 14. Coats for Kids is an initiative started by Grade 6 students at Park Manor back in November to collect gently used coats and donations for less fortunate children throughout the township. So far they’ve collected about $400 for the cause.

Temperatures over the course of last Friday night were the coldest they had been for much of the winter so far, at one point touching minus-11 degrees Celsius without the windchill.

“I should have waited until the summer,” laughed a frigid looking Walkey on Saturday morning. “Coats for Kids in August just doesn’t have the same appeal, though.”

He made plans to spend the night at the store several weeks ago, and it wasn’t until the middle of last week that he realized just how cold it was going to be. An avid camper during the summer, it was the first time Walkey had slept outdoors during a frigid winter night.

“I have about three sleeping bags, a foot of insulation underneath, two blankets over the tent, and then a tarp over that,” he said. “I nicknamed the shelter an iceberg and it got kind of chilly at some points.”
He said that students from the school braved the cold to visit him at various times during his venture, and many brought him hot beverages to try and boost his spirits. He also said the response from the public was favourable and that he had collected a number of donations in a blue water jug.

“The kids who started Coats for Kids were doing such a great job that I offered my services here for a little bit of an incentive and motivation, and to show them what one simple thought can lead to,” said Walkey.
“I just want to show them that everyone at the school is behind them – the teachers, the staff and even the community as a whole.”

The 24-year-old Waterloo resident currently splits his time between Wilfrid Laurier University and Park Manor. During his practicum he spends several consecutive weeks at the school, otherwise he is at the school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

“Right now I’m on my two-day cycle, which kind of limits how I can get involved, but the students find a way to keep me involved and accept me into the school community,” he said.

Walkey also tried to record his experiences during the night using a video camera but there wasn’t enough light, so he sent out a few messages on his Twitter stream instead.

The toughest part of the entire ordeal was waking up Saturday morning, when the outside temperature was minus-10 degrees, the temperature inside the tent was about four degrees, and the temperature inside his sleeping bag was a toasty 30 degrees.

“It’s been quite an experience, both physically and mentally.” For his efforts, Walkey managed to collect $295 and 10 more coats. To make a donation to Coats for Kids contact Park Manor, located at 18 Mockingbird Dr. in Elmira, (519) 669-5183.

Powerplay paces Kings to win over Listowel

The Sugar Kings scored five powerplay goals last Sunday night en route to a 6-3 win over the visiting Listowel Cyclones. The win was a welcome bounce back for the team following a disappointing 4-3 letdown in Brantford the previous night.
“I was very pleased with our effort right from the opening faceoff compared to the night before,” said head coach Dean DeSilva following the win over Listowel.

“I thought we had a lot more jump and we had a lot more puck presence all over the ice, so I was very, very pleased with the way the guys responded.”

Michael Hasson led the way Jan. 15 against the Cyclones with two goals and three assists. Scott Nagy also chipped in a goal and three assists, while Riley Sonnenburg collected a pair of goals and an assist.
Nick Horrigan made 24 saves for the win.

Hasson got the scoring started early with his 13th goal of the campaign just 1:56 into the first period on the powerplay on a shot from a bad angle near the side boards. New Sugar King forward Brett Catto – acquired in a trade from Listowel on Jan. 11 in return for defenceman Craig Johnson – collected the only assist.

Sonnenburg extended that lead to 2-0 with a powerplay goal of his own at 7:41. Hasson got the puck up to Nagy near the red line, who then made a nifty cross-ice pass to Sonnenburg coming down the wing and he snapped it past goaltender Michael Pesendorfer.

Listowel cut into that two-goal lead at 15:53 on a shot that squeezed between Horrigan’s pads and the post, but Andrew Smith got that one back just under three minutes later from Sonnenburg and Brett Priestap at 18:39 to make it 3-1.

Sonnenburg banked a pass off the boards near centre ice to Smith, who was streaking down the left wing. He used his big body to shield the puck from the Cyclones defenceman and managed to cut inside and put a backhander past Pesendorfer.

In the second period the teams traded goals as Listowel’s Kyle Ellis scored a powerplay goal at 4:28, and Nagy responded at 12:54 with another Elmira powerplay goal, assisted by Hasson and Lukas Baleshta to make it 4-2.
The Kings put any hopes of a comeback to bed with a dominating third in which they outshot Listowel 20-7 and scored twice more with the extra man.

Sonnenburg scored his second of the game just 32 seconds into the period from Hasson and Nagy when he one-timed a rebound off Pesendorfer’s left pad into the top of the net for a 5-2 lead, and after a powerplay goal for the Cyclones made it 5-3, Hasson scored the Kings fifth powerplay goal of the evening at 13:39 from Nagy and Smith for the 6-3 final.

The Kings have a new strategy while on the powerplay, opting to overload their first unit with five forwards – Nagy and Hasson on the points, and Sonnenburg, Baleshta and Smith down low. The change was made after DeSilva felt his younger defenceman were too reluctant to shoot the puck on the powerplay, and he feels the extra experience from those five forwards should help. “We did that earlier in the year and we thought that we would go back to that. It’s the experience factor and it’s giving some of our younger defenceman an opportunity to watch,” said DeSilva.

“We have a lot of experience up front and a lot of talented forwards so we have to take advantage of that and get them out there when we can.”

The game also featured the return of all star defenceman Craig Johnson to Elmira for the first time since he was traded to the Cyclones last week in return for Brett Catto.

“It was a tough decision to make because Craig had come a long way as a defenceman, and he’s going to be a very good defenceman in the league,” said DeSilva.

“We have an older team and a team that we feel can make a long run in the playoffs, and Brett brings that experience and that depth.”

Catto was selected by the Belleville Bulls in the 2008 OHL priority draft and at 19 years of age he still has one year of eligibility left in the league. The forward has collected an assist in both games he has suited up in for Elmira, and tallied 12 goals and 18 assists in 30 games with Listowel prior to the trade.

The Sugar Kings head to Guelph tonight (Saturday) for a matchup against the Hurricanes, before returning home for their second annual support the troops game on Sunday afternoon against Cambridge. The puck drops at 2 p.m.

Years of imagining pay off

It may have been 10 years in the making, but three Wellesley-area authors have finally published their first novel, and they have big plans to expand it into a trilogy in the coming years.

A unique combination of fantasy and science fiction, Galaxy 2,000,000,000 Darkness Falls was written by Andrew Kipp, Jack Crowston and Kyle Golubovic.
“The idea of this book isn’t just one genre, it’s a hybrid of classic fantasy with knights slaying dragons blended in with modern science fiction,” said Kipp.
The book documents the rising rebellion against the evil Blood Emperor Nars-Klan, who rules with an iron fist the reptilian planet of Rilles and the Gensheen people who inhabit it.

Gex, a veteran of a tactical military force called the Gensheen Agency Academy, rebels against the Emperor with his twin brother, Garntelth, a convicted criminal and mercenary for hire who has just escaped from the inescapable Harfell Prison.

“The book starts with Garntelth’s escape from prison, meanwhile Gex and the army is getting ready for a rebellion against their tyrannical overlord, who has been ruling for 300 years,” said Kipp.

Darkness Falls has certainly been a labour of love for the trio. It started out as just a fun activity for Kipp and Crowston, now 21 and 19 years old respectively, to do together while on the playground of Wellesley Public School in the second grade.

Eventually, Crowston suggested they start writing some of their ideas down, and by Grade 7 Kipp had grand plans to turn their idea into a movie – a thought that was quickly quashed.

“I realized that was unachievable because YouTube didn’t exist yet, and I had no idea how to start,” recalled Kipp.

“So this was the next best step, and I started off by writing short stories of 40 or 50 pages which slowly progressed into a full chapter book.”
When Crowston and Kipp started attending high school at Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School they met Golubovic and he joined the writing team before the year was out.

The story is a blend of historical and cultural elements with clear science fiction influences. Kipp said he spent a lot of time studying the tactics of World War II, as well as Roman history and aspects of Japanese and Canadian culture, all of which are evident in the text.

The events of the book are revealed to the reader through a combination of letters, journal entries, flashbacks and real-time events.
The authors also relied on their exposure to science fiction and mass media like Star Wars, video games and comic books to inspire them.
Three years and three re-writes later, Kipp was sitting in the library with Crowston looking over a draft of the story when fate struck – along with one well-aimed book.
“I looked up at Jack and said ‘I’m going to rewrite it again’ and then he hit me in the head with an atlas and said ‘Stop it. Just work on that one.’”

Last February Kipp finally took the finished manuscript to a professional editor in Paris, and four months later they had their final draft which they sent to Volumes in Waterloo for printing.

The trio also had a book signing at the Coles bookstore in Conestoga Mall in August and again on Nov. 20, and they were among the best book signings the store has ever had.
Two more novels are in the works to complete the trilogy – they are already hard at work on book two and hope to have it done within two years.
They meet every Tuesday night over coffee to hash out ideas and concepts – and even get a little writing done.

“Sometimes we get a lot of work done, other times we get really far off topic and don’t get any work done,” said Golubovic.
As for the main characters in the book, the authors caution readers from getting too attached to them.

“In most shows or books most people know that the main characters can’t die, but in this book that isn’t so,” hinted Crowston.
Galaxy 2,000,000,000 Darkness Falls is available online at www.amazon.com or local book stores.