In her footsteps

Some nights Luke and Terry Martin still dream about their mother. They dream that the retired nurse and grandmother of 10 is alive and well in Haiti, continuing the work that she loved – helping those who needed it the most and offering them a kind smile and gentle hands of comfort. Those ghost-like dreams always end the same way for the two brothers, however: waking up to the reality that their mother, Yvonne, is gone and is never coming back. In January, two years to the day of her death, Luke and Terry finally visited the spot where their mother’s body was found following the Haitian earthquake. They went to understand why she returned to the impoverished nation time and time again, and where her love for the Haitian people was born.

“We were all a little surprised when she said she was going to Haiti for the first time, but once she came back it all made sense,” said Terry, whose mother first travelled to Haiti in 2007.
“It wasn’t her entire life, but over those four years it was an important part of who she was.”

On Jan. 12, 2010 the small Caribbean nation was struck by the island’s worst earthquake in more than 200 years. The epicentre was about 15 kilometres southwest of the capital city of Port-au-Prince along the fault line that divides the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates – enormous slabs of rock that fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle over the entire surface of the Earth. Yvonne, an Elmira resident, had landed in Haiti earlier that day as part of a church mission group. It was her fourth time in the country, but at 4:53 p.m. local time the earth trembled beneath her feet and the guesthouse where she and the other missionaries were staying collapsed on top of her.

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck just 90 minutes after the seven women from Waterloo Region had landed in the capital. Three of those team members – Marilyn McIlroy, Deb Paton and Lois McLaughlin – were standing on the third-floor balcony of the Wall’s International Guesthouse when the earthquake struck, while three others – Marilyn Raymer, Alice Soeder and Laura Steckley – were tossed back and forth in their deck chairs as water slopped out of the pool and soaked their legs. Unsure of what was happening around them, but realizing that they were in danger, the women moved away from the building and met outside, only to find that the seventh member of their team was not with them. It was then that they realized that Yvonne, who had gone inside to get changed just moments earlier, was buried in the rubble.

Terry got a phone call later that night while he and his wife Melanie were about to head out to a basketball game. It was Melanie’s mother on the phone asking if they had heard about the earthquake. “At the time we hadn’t, but we didn’t think too much about it,” said Terry. “We went to the basketball game and then I got a call from my dad, and he had a brief message saying, basically, that mom was missing.” Across the continent in San Diego, Terry’s brother Luke was at work when the first scattered reports of the quake began filtering out of Haiti. California was three hours behind Haiti, and at first Luke was relieved, thinking that his mother hadn’t yet arrived.

“I was aware that she was travelling but I wasn’t keeping in mind the time change, so as soon as I heard that the earthquake had hit I thought ‘thank goodness, she hasn’t arrived yet.’” About an hour later Luke’s father, Ron, called to tell him that he had received a text message from Raymer saying that Yvonne was missing. After getting the news, Terry and Luke started scouring the Internet for flights to Haiti so that they could go search for her.
Information coming out of the disaster zone was sparse at best, as local television and radio stations were left without power in the aftermath. Raymer was the family’s only source of information in those early hours through her text messages, but with no means of recharging the device she tried to conserve power, meaning her messages were few and far between.

It was on his way back from the passport office the next day that Luke got the call from his dad saying that Yvonne had been killed. “I was utterly stunned and couldn’t believe the words when they came out of my dad’s mouth. I was in shock.”He boarded a Toronto-bound flight an hour later and joined the rest of the family at their farm near Elmira that evening, and what followed were an agonizing couple of weeks in which the family tried desperately to communicate with the Canadian embassy in Haiti, and to get their mother’s body back to Canada.

“There were lots of doubts about where mom’s body was, and then lots of frustration as far as trying to confirm it from here and trying to get it home. We just didn’t realize how overwhelmed the city was,” explained Luke.
A funeral was held on Jan. 20 and mourners packed the Waterloo Mennonite Brethren Church to pay tribute to Yvonne. Yet without a body the service lacked a sense of closure for the family, and it would take weeks for Yvonne to be returned to Canada and arrive at her final resting place in a cemetery just west of Elmira.

Gradually time passed and life began to take on a new form of normalcy as family members adjusted to the death of Yvonne, yet Terry and Luke always had the sense that they needed to go to Haiti to see where she died and where she had worked.

To that end, Terry and Luke finally boarded that long-awaited flight to Haiti, two years after they first began scouring the web in a desperate bid to join the search for their mother. The brothers planned to meet in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 11, where they also met McIlroy, who would act as their guide for the trip. Their other brother, Dean, decided that he did not want to join them. They traversed the congested streets of the still-recovering capital city amidst the crumbling walls and leaning buildings. Tent cities and ramshackle shacks still dominate the landscape, and the entire city was coated in a thick layer of dust.

They spent that first evening talking with the six men who had dug their mother out of the rubble with their bare hands, took the time to carefully wrap her body in a sheet, and drove through the chaotic streets of Port-au-Prince to deliver her to the Canadian embassy.

Yvonne was one of 58 Canadians killed in the earthquake, and hers was the only body recovered from the guesthouse that night. It was through the efforts of Nicholson, Veniel, Samuel, Jean, Lucien and Jean Jonel that her body even made it back to Canada rather than ending up in the mass graves that were dug to dispose of the more than 300,000 people estimated to have died.

“They were working with whatever they could to move the stones and debris. I wanted to get pictures of their hands and their faces, and to hear their stories of how overwhelmed they were,” said Terry.
“If they hadn’t done it that night I’m sure mom’s body wouldn’t have got home.”

“What surprised me was that I don’t think I really believed that people knew her,” added Luke of his discussions with the drivers and vendors who had worked with his mother before she died.
“She was just one nurse out of however many NGOs and development organizations and medical missionaries pass through, but they remembered her clearly and had a relationship with her.”
The next day, Jan. 12, Terry, Luke and Marilyn participated in memorial services across the city, and stood at the same spot where Yvonne had been found. The section of the guesthouse that collapsed still has not been rebuilt, and all that remains is the brown tile floor.

“How do I come up with a word for that?” Luke asked. He paused for a moment before adding, “It was very meaningful. Where my feet were was exactly where her feet were when they found her. It was like visiting a grave.”
Yvonne may have died in Port-au-Prince, but she was very rarely ever in the capital. It was where she and the other missionaries would arrive and depart, but little more.
The heart of her work was located in the mountainous region east of the city, in the plateau region near the border with the Dominican Republic, and that was where Terry and Luke headed next.
On Jan. 13 the brothers climbed aboard a small plane and took a 20-minute flight to the village of Henche. It was there and the outlying villages of Malary, Savane Cajou and others where the brothers were able to see and hear the true impact that their mother had on the Haitian people.

After touching down at an airport which was little more than a dirt landing strip, the group had to travel through the forest and along the rocky terrain, often riding in the back of a pickup truck or even on foot on roads that were barely passable. The thought of their 67-year-old mother making those same trips filled them with admiration.
“She always said she would keep going until her body couldn’t do it anymore,” Terry said.

They were surprised to learn that the villagers remembered her so vividly, and the Haitians cried as they recounted their annual visits with Yvonne. The memories of her were still as fresh in the minds of the Haitian people as they were in the minds of her own family.

The men heard countless tales of how their mother had helped distribute food and medical aid, and cared for the sick and the injured – particularly the children.
“That made total sense to us, because that’s what mom was always fixated on – children,” said Terry with a smile.

At the end of their six-week mission trips each year, Yvonne and the other women enjoyed travelling north to the 19th century citadel that was about 17 km south of the coastal town of Cap-Haitian. After climbing to the top of the fortress, the group would unwind by spending a few days at the beach on the coast.

Luke and Terry had seen photos that their mother had taken during her trips to the citadel and the beach, and they knew the site had a special place in her heart so they travelled there as well.
“Mom always described it as what she imagined Haiti used to look like. It was beautiful, with lots of trees,” said Terry of the beach.

Luke and Terry left Haiti on Jan. 19, and have spent the past several weeks trying to sort out their feelings for the nation, the people, and the stories about their mother – as well as the horrors of the day she died and the impact it had on their Christian faith.
“The earthquake hit and my first thought was ‘how could this happen?’ and I think that’s a pretty normal response for people who go through something like this,” said Luke. “I’m not one of those people who think that everything happens for a reason. No, this was the wrong time and the wrong person.”

“The earthquake happens and you think ‘what better place for my mom to be, she’s a nurse and she can help,’” echoed Terry.

“Ever since coming back from Haiti, though, I have a better understanding of life and what things are important. We don’t understand everything – it is way bigger than us here and on the island of Haiti.”
In an effort to keep her legacy alive, the family established the Yvonne Martin Memorial Fund through the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada, which helps offset some of the costs associated with training medical personnel in Haiti. There are currently three students receiving funding, and for every year they are supported they must spend one year working in the same plateau region where their mother worked.
The family continues to cope with Yvonne’s absence, and their personal experiences with their mother before her death continue to shape the complexity of their grief. She used to visit Terry and his family almost every day, and her death has left a void that still remains.

For Luke, living in San Diego for nearly a decade meant the visits with his mother were always much rarer, but he still misses the letters and the phone calls, and those feelings will likely never wane.
They also believe that there is still a lot of work to be done in Haiti to rebuild, and their journey there has helped them understand why that work needs to be done.
“This trip wasn’t so much a goodbye for me, it was just to gain a better understanding of what she did,” said Terry.
“But, you know, I still dream about mom all the time.”

Kings draw first blood in opening round of playoffs

In the first period it looked as though The Elmira Sugar Kings were going to have a hard time against the Listowel Cyclones in the opening game of the first round of the playoffs, as the host team was missing four key players, Clayton Greer, Riley Sonnenburg, Lukas Baleshta and Michael Hasson.  Elmira, however, easily skated away with a 5-2 victory over the Cyclones Wednesday night at the WMC. Brett Priestap provided the heroics, scoring two goals in the second period to give the Kings a two-goal advantage.

Listowel was first on the scoreboard, catching Elmira off guard and tallying a goal just 12 seconds in. The visitors went on to post a 2-1 advantage after the first 20 minutes.

The atmosphere was electric once game time arrived at the Dan Snyder Arena and the Kings wanted to keep the raucous environment alive. The game was fierce and physical in the first period as both teams tried to establish themselves in that department.

After Listowel’s first goal there weren’t many excellent scoring chances early on. But at 7:53 Listowel scored their second when defenceman Sam Patterson stripped Elmira defender Mac Clustsam at the side of the Kings’ goal. Patterson put a shot on goal that produced a rebound his linemate Caleb Cameron lifted over netminder Nick Horrigan’s left pad.

Elmira finally got on the board when team captain Colton Wolfe-Sabo, off a feed from his linemate Brad Kraus, fired a one-timer from the blue line that squeezed past Cyclone goalie Michael Pesendorfer.

“Listowel did what we thought they would, they came out flying. We had a little bit of jitters, but that is to be expected: we have some young guys that have never gone through this before and four very key guys out of the lineup. I am not sure any team in the league could have those players out and still compete as hard as our guys did,” said head coach Dean DeSilva following the game.

Returning to the ice after the first intermission the Kings went back to their game as Listowel stuttered, allowing the Kings to score three unanswered goals in the period. Brady Campbell got things rolling, beating Pesendorfer with chip over the glove at 7:26 to tie the game at two.

Three minutes later Brett Priestap would break away down the ice from deep in the Kings’ zone during a Cyclone powerplay and score a shorthanded goal to give Elmira the lead for the first time. “I managed to intercept the puck and blew past the defenceman – I chipped it ahead and got a breakaway and managed to score. I was pretty fired up about the goal,” said Priestap after the game. Priestap would end the period notching another goal, giving the Kings a 4-2 lead heading back to the room.

“I was actually trying to pass to (Andrew Smith) when the puck bounced off the defenceman’s stick and through the goalie’s legs, so I got lucky on there – I didn’t plan on that one,” said Priestap. “We are just excited to be playing playoff hockey. Some the guys went all the way last year to the Sutherland Cup and perhaps we got just a little too excited at first, but we settled and focused on our game plan.”

The Kings hit two posts early in the third period and were unable to squeeze the rubber past Pesendorfer until defenceman Brodie Whitehead fired a wrist shot from just outside the crease beating the tender high to the right side and giving Elmira its fifth goal of the night.

“In the playoffs, things are going to happen; we can’t control the bounces but you have to stick to what your game plan is and not panic, and that is what our guys did tonight. The leaders lead and lead by example. Guys like Priestap, Campbell and Scott Nagy lead by example and the rest of the guys just followed in and we stuck with what we had to do,” said DeSilva.

Up 1-0, the Kings head to the Listowel Memorial Arena Friday for game-2 the series. DeSilva expects to be able to put a full and healthy team back on the ice for the Kings’ next home game at the Woolwich Memorial Centre on Sunday, when the puck drops at 7 p.m.

Elmira boxer competing at national championships

For any young boxer heading to his first national championship, it helps having a Pan American champion and Olympic hopeful in your corner. That’s just the case for 13-year-old Elmira resident Terrell Piper, who competed at the Junior and Youth Canadian National Championships in Ste. Hyancinthe, Quebec from Feb. 28 to Mar. 3. For the past three years, Terrell has been training at the Waterloo Region Boxing Academy in Kitchener, where one of his coaches and training partners is none other than 24-year-old Mandy Bujold, a seven-time national champion and winner of four Pan American gold medals. She is also training to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England.

Terrell’s father LeVar – a former boxer himself, as well as trainer  for Terrell and Mandy – notes that seeing his son go to the national’s is an exciting step in Terrell’s boxing career, though he admitted he was a little nervous.
“It’s pretty nerve wracking,” LeVar said prior to their Saturday morning workout last week. “The national’s, it’s a pretty big stage – but he’s a good fighter and I’m sure he’ll do well.”

Terrell fights in the 48 kg weight class, and qualified for nationals after a strong showing at a training camp held in Niagara Falls last month. Each province is allowed two representatives per weight class, and Terrell impressed enough at the camp to earn a berth.

He was also bumped up from the Junior B boxing class to Junior C, and will be fighting boxers between the age of 14 and 16 – making Terrell one of the youngest competitors at the tournament. “I’m excited and pretty nervous that I’ll be boxing people that are older than me,” said the soft-spoken fighter.

Despite the age difference, LeVar said his son will be a strong competitor because of his ability to think during the match and find openings in his opponent’s defenses, and his conditioning is phenomenal – a result of his impressive training regimen.

During non-competitive training Terrell is at the club four days a week, but when he is preparing for a tournament he trains six days of the week, or about eight to 10 hours. That includes sparring on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and boxing and conditioning classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

LevVar said that Terrell has really benefitted from Bujold’s years of experience, and the Olympic hopeful is confident that Terrell will fare well in the ring against the other fighters. “I think it’ll be good for him. He’s been working hard in the gym, he has very good technique and he’s smart,” Bujold said, adding he does need to increase his intensity in the ring if he wants to be successful. “He’s got to want it, though. This is what everyone trains for all season, so he’s got to deal with the pressure and perform when it really counts.”

Terrell has won the national title without throwing a single punch. The 13-year-old had entered the 48 kg Junior C category, but unfortunately last minute cancellations from other provincial athletes meant he went unopposed in the tournament.

Created or not, we all use masks, speaker tells students

We all wear masks every day of the week – whether it’s the clothes or makeup we wear, or the body language that we project – so it’s important to understand what the message is that we are either intentionally, or unintentionally, sending.

Robert Faust, founder and artistic director of Faustwork Mask Theatre, brought that lesson to the students of St. Teresa Catholic School in Elmira Feb. 17 when he performed his hour-long Mask Messenger show in the school’s gymnasium.

The trained theatre performer and expert mask-maker provided a brief and informative lecture about the myriad uses of masks in cultures throughout the world. He also demonstrated the power of transformation by wearing about a dozen different masks from the wall behind him and assuming the emotional or physical state expressed in each face.

“People use masks in religious ceremonies, they’re used in communal rituals to help make the crops grow, they’re used to bless new homes, or to get rid of evil spirits. They’re used when old people die, or when young people are born,” Faust explained to the students and teachers.

The show delivered important messages about self-confidence and the importance of understanding body language to communicate how you feel, and offered a unique insight into the many masks we wear daily.
“We all use body language all day every day, whether we’re thinking about it or not our bodies say a lot about how we’re feeling,” he said.

“Sometimes body language speaks louder than our spoken language. What are you going to believe, what I say or what I do?”

The actor was very engaging with students, coming out into the crowd at various points to connect with them one-on-one, and using a wide range of voices and accents to really get into character. Faust was invited to the school as part of the dramatic arts curriculum, and he was recommended by the school’s French and drama teacher Mary Baldasaro, who saw Faust perform back in September.

“I knew that it would fit well with the drama curriculum, but it was very entertaining as well for students from kindergarten to Grade 8 and that is not an easy thing to do,” Baldasaro said.
She said the topic of masks is also relevant to the history curriculum of older grades, which touches on the importance of masks to First Nations cultures in Canada.

Faust makes all the masks himself using a variety of materials, including plaster, paper and wood. He has travelled the world with seven other performers as part of the Faustwork Mask Theatre, which he founded in 1983. In that time he has created more than 300 different masks and performed in venues from the Sydney Opera House in Australia to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

As a native of New Orleans – home of Mardi Gras, one of the biggest street festivals in the world – he has a deep-rooted passion for informing others about the importance of masks in our society.
“If you want to learn about a country, just Google the name and ‘masks’: ‘China masks,’ ‘India masks,’ ‘Brazil masks’ – you can learn a lot about history and cultures when you see them in their masks,” Faust said.
Visit www.faustwork.com for more information about the theatre group and their shows.

SOJHL’s McConnell Conference rookie of the year

He may be one of the youngest players out on the ice, but you certainly wouldn’t know it by looking at him. At 6’2” and 200 pounds, 16-year-old Adam Brubacher of the Ayr Centennials plays a big game, and the Elmira resident and Grade 11 student at Elmira District Secondary School was rewarded for his outstanding freshman season in the Southern Ontario Junior Hockey League by being named the McConnell Conference rookie of the year.
Brubacher is the youngest player on the team, yet led the Centennials defensive core in scoring with five goals and 30 points in 35 games, along with just 10 penalty minutes.

“It feels really good. It’s definitely a great accomplishment,” said Brubacher, while summing up the three main reasons for his success as “good outlet passes, physical play and a strong powerplay.”

It was with the extra man that Brubacher made his biggest impact on the score sheet, recording two powerplay goals and 16 assists in helping Ayr convert 23 per cent of their powerplay chances – best in the league.
The adjustment from minor hockey to Junior D wasn’t easy for Brubacher, though, and he said the league is a lot faster and the opposition is a lot tougher to play against.

Ayr head coach Scott Eby believes the award is a fitting recognition of how hard the defender has worked this season after making the jump from playing Woolwich Major Midget A last season.

“He’s big and he works hard and he’s just a real nice, quiet kid. It’s worked out really well and he’s been a really good fit,” said Eby. “He carries himself like a veteran player.”

Eby said that he was lucky to get the young blueliner this season, as Ayr wasn’t the defender’s first choice. He initially tried out for the Sugar Kings along with his older brother Andrew, who also plays defence.
The Kings eventually signed Andrew, and wanted the younger Brubacher as well, but his age prevented him from signing as Junior B squads can only have two 16-year-olds on the roster. Despite that, Adam still practices with the Kings every Monday night in Elmira.

The family has a long-standing connection to the Kings as Adam’s father, Eric, was a member of the very first squad back in 1971 before being drafted by the New York Rangers in the 1974 amateur draft.
Ayr is affiliated with the Kings this season and when the Junior B squad couldn’t take him, Ayr gladly gave him a chance.

“Right from the start of the year he was on the powerplay and the penalty kill, and he’s very smart with the puck and sees the game well,” said Eby.

“When we signed him this year we said to him that we wanted him here for a year, then you’re out of here. We want you to go on to bigger and better things, and he’s done that.”
Now, Brubacher and his Ayr teammates are busy concentrating on their opening playoff round against the Wellesley Applejacks, which is tied at one game apiece.

“I think it’ll be a good series, we’re pretty evenly matched,” he said, adding that the team does have a target on its back after winning the McConnell Conference last season.

Another clean-sweep weekend for Kings

The Elmira Sugar Kings withstood a ferocious third-period comeback by the Guelph Hurricanes on Sunday night, emerging with a 5-4 win. Elmira was outscored by their visitors 4-2 in the final frame, but it wasn’t enough as the Kings collected their third win in three nights over the weekend, having previously defeated the Owen Sound Greys 6-4 on Feb. 17 and the Waterloo Siskins 7-3 the following night. Despite six points in three games, the Kings head coach was visibly upset with his team’s third period outing against Guelph.

“I thought we were very, very good for the first two periods, and I thought we were awful in the third,” said Dean DeSilva. “I attribute it to cocky teenagers who think they’re better than they are and it’s going to come back and haunt them if they’re not careful.”

The team played a textbook perfect game through the first two periods, outshooting Guelph 47-17 and leading 3-0 heading into the third, but the wheels fell off quickly as Guelph scored just five seconds into the third and again 45 seconds later to make the score 3-2.

“We had a good first couple of periods, but in the start of the third we shut it off there for a bit and let them back in the game,” said defenceman Wade Pfeffer, who opened the scoring at 10:29 of the second period with his first goal of the year.

Playing 4-on-4, Pfeffer snuck down to the hash marks behind the Guelph defenders and received a cross-ice pass from Scott Nagy along the half-boards, which he directed into the wide open net past goaltender Colin Furlong.
Pfeffer lifted his head to the rafters and pumped both arms as a look of relief washed over him after finally scoring his first of the season. Last year he had nine goals and represented the Kings at the league’s All-Star game.
“Finally. It took a while,” he said smiling after the game.

The goals came in bunches afterwards, with Rob Bennett scoring at 15:40 by knocking a rebound out of mid-air while being taken to the ice by a Guelph defender. Will Cook and Cash Seraphim collected the assists.
A little more than two minutes later Andrew Smith scored his 41st of the season when he took a nice pass from Brett Priestap in the slot and snapped it past Furlong at 17:59. Brad Kraus had the other helper on the goal.
In the third Guelph showed they wouldn’t lie down to the defending Sutherland Cup champs and former King Nic MacEachern slapped a rolling puck over the shoulder of goaltender Nick Horrigan just five seconds in to make it 3-1, and Shane Kinsella made it 3-2 at the 50 second mark by shoveling the puck past Horrigan on the powerplay.

With the crowd of about 800 fans suddenly silenced, Brady Campbell restored the two-goal lead with his 25th of the season at 3:19 from Michael Hasson and Brodie Whitehead. Hasson’s initial shot from the blue line went over the net but bounced off the glass back into the crease, where Campbell knocked it into the empty net.

Smith tallied his second of the night at 14:31 from Kraus following some good Elmira pressure in the Guelph zone.

The Hurricanes looked to make it interesting with another powerplay goal at 15:09 to make it 5-3, and MacEachern scored his second of the night to make it 5-4, but with only 2.1 seconds left on the clock, it was too little, too late.

Horrigan finished with 25 saves for the win, and the third period goal by Smith was his league-leading 11th game-winner of the year. The win also pushed Elmira past Stratford for second in the Midwestern Conference standings with 79 points, two points behind Brantford for first. The Kings have spent the past week preparing for their weekend matchup on the road tonight (Saturday) against Brantford (39-7-3), and they return home Sunday to close out the season against Stratford (38-9-1).

“We’ll be playing one of them in the playoffs some time, hopefully, so we have to be prepared for that and you always want to go into the playoffs on a positive and doing the right things,” said DeSilva.

Not always pretty, but Kings notch another pair of wins

A late rally in the third period at the Dan Snyder Arena on Sunday gave the Elmira Sugar Kings a 3-1 win over the visiting Waterloo Siskins, extending their win streak to seven games. The Kings were bolstered by their 7-6 come-from-behind win two nights earlier over the Cullitons while visiting Stratford on Feb. 10.The four-point weekend pulled third-place Elmira to within six points of front-running Brantford in the Midwestern Conference.
The last two games were a lesson for the Kings, said head coach Dean DeSilva, who knows his charges are capable of playing high quality hockey when they play as a team.

“We are a very ordinary team if we go on our own agenda. We are a very good team and very difficult to beat if we stick to our systems,” said DeSilva. “It is that time of year and guys are getting antsy wanting to get into the playoffs but it is games like these that we have to learn our lessons and play like the team we are capable of being.”

The Stratford Cullitons drew first blood against the Kings when Pat Clifford beat goaltender Nick Horrigan at 13:18. Six minutes later Culliton forward Ryan Watson tallied the second goal of the night, sending the Kings back to the room down by two.

Returning to the ice, Elmira forward Andrew Smith would score his first of three 13 seconds into the second period, beating Cullitons netminder Jesse Raymond. Colton Wolfe-Sabo and Brett Priestap collected assists.

Stratford responded in short order by scoring two more goals less than three minutes apart, leaving DeSilva no choice but to pull Horrigan from the net and in favour of backup Justis Husak.

“We had a real good first period, sat back too much in the second and had a couple of bad bounces. I know (Horrigan) would like to have some of those goals back but (Husak) came in a played very well for us,” said DeSilva.

The Kings rallied in the second half of the period, scoring two goals to bring them within one after 40 minutes. Preistap scored at 10:42 during a power play and Smith potted his second with just over a minute remaining the period.

The Kings came out with determination in the third, with Scott Nagy needing less than a minute to net the equalizer. The 3-3 score didn’t stand for long, as the the remainder of the period saw both teams trading goals and heading into overtime with six apiece.

Elmira would not waste anytime in OT as Smith would complete the hat trick, scoring just over minute in to give the Kings a 7-6 victory.
“There was just never any doubt that we were not going to win that hockey game. It was a big game and it was important to win in that building and that was our goal and we don’t care how we did it or what the score was as long as we came away with the two points,” said DeSilva.

Two nights later, the team was at home to host the Waterloo Siskins. They were first on the board when Brett Catto beat Waterloo Marc Williams at 11:15 during a power play. Elmira defenceman Clayton Greer gathered the puck deep in his own end, bringing it over centre ice before passing it to Brad Kraus, who beat two Siskins en route to the net and then dished off  to Catto who cashed in on a one-timer.

Waterloo did not roll over, however, and continued to keep the pressure on the Kings during the rest of the period before being rewarded with goal when forward Kyle Platzer chipped the puck over the right shoulder of Elmira netminder Husak.

Tied at 1-1 after the first, neither team could muster a goal in the second. Williams, the Waterloo netminder, had a terrific second period in net, shutting out the Kings on three 5-on-3 advantages.
“It was a tough game. We made it tough on ourselves,” said DeSiva. “They outworked us from start to finish, and I didn’t think that we stuck to any systems: we were very individual.”
The third frame would be much of the same and the Kings only hope was to rediscover the sense of urgency they played with on Friday night in Stratford.

With less than three minutes remaining, Priestap fired a wrist shot past Williams, giving the Kings the lead. Catto would add one more for insurance 10 seconds later to give Elmira the win.
All season long, the Kings have shown an uncanny ability to crank it up a notch when they needed to; DeSilva knew his players were capable of getting the job done.

“It was a hard game but the two points at this time of the year are important, we are a strong team and are capable of winning,” he said. “It was definitely an emotional letdown after the game with Stratford. It was a good lesson for us and it is good to have that lesson now because games like that are going to happen during the playoffs and we have to learn what to do and how to handle them.”

The Kings have just five games remaining before the postseason, two at home and three on the road. Home games are against Guelph and Stratford. Away games are at Owen Sound, Waterloo, and Brantford.
Elmira is home Sunday to take on the Guelph Hurricanes, with the puck dropping at 7 p.m.

St. Jacobs nursery wins Landscape Ontario award

St. Jacobs Country Gardens and Landscape Nursery has built a reputation as an industry leader in water features by winning a prestigious Landscape Ontario Award of Excellence. Owners Keith and Sandy Snider last month accepted the award for “best construction of a water feature” for a project they built with their crew over the summer of 2010. They took a totally functional swimming pool and turned it into a reflecting pond.
The water feature is located at the house of Keith Gummow and Loys Ligate in Conestogo. The couple had searched extensively for a landscaper willing to take on the project and could not find anyone until they met with the Sniders.

“I had other landscapers tell me they thought I was nuts for tackling the project because of all the things that could go wrong with it but I just did it one step at a time making sure everything worked and was properly set before I moved onto the next one,” said Keith Snider.

The landscapers had to reconfigure everything, adding extra walls, building piers, stepping stones and platforms so chairs could be placed in the middle of the feature, allowing the owners to lounge outdoors surrounded by water. Like a swimming pool, one end is shallow  and the other deep, but the deep end is fed by three small waterfalls.

“We wanted it to be formal and symmetrical we did a lot of work hiding all the pumps with angled corners. The pond uses recycled water and no chemicals are needed,” said Keith, who worked with Ligate on the final design that originally was planned to be a Japanese-style pond with a bridge and walkway but that quickly turned into the more modern and sleek design.

This was the first time the company had attempted a water feature of this scale and magnitude, but the Sniders are not surprised it was an award winner.

“It was so different and creative, we thought it would win an award,” said Sandy.

The Sniders got the nod at the Jan. 10 Landscape Ontario award ceremony, which is like the Oscars for landscape designers.

“It is a pretty big deal for us,” said Keith. “It is a feather in our hat being awarded the best of the best, and any award is good promotion for the company.”

The company is now leaning towards doing more water features in the future and hope to expand that side of the company in the coming years. They had just finished their latest project in St. Jacobs before the winter and they hope to enter it into next year’s competition as a natural swimming pond that has no chemicals with a regeneration system and water plants growing across the pond.

“We want water features to be more of what we are known for and what we specialize in,” said Sandy.

Back on duty

After almost nine decades of service, the soldier that once adorned the cenotaph in Elmira has found a much more comfortable home for his retirement: indoors at the Woolwich Memorial Centre. While the exact location is still under discussion, the marble statue has been restored to its former glory after suffering a multitude of injuries over the years. It could be seen this week standing by an office window near the entrance to the facility.
Removed from his perch in late 2009 and eventually replaced with a bronze replica, the soldier was put into the hands of craftsmen at The Stone Centre to undergo extensive repairs. Vandalized over the years and subject to a sometimes harsh environment – including acid rain and salt sprayed up from Arthur Street – the Carrara marble figure was in several pieces when he arrived at the shop, located in Woolwich immediately adjacent to the Bridgeport area of Kitchener.

Despite the statue’s treatment over the years – compounded by yet another break when it was removed from the base in the cenotaph – it was in surprisingly good condition, said the owner of the The Stone Centre.
“He was in pretty good shape. This was above-average work for this kind of project,” Garth Nelson said of the original marble carving.
That said, more than a hundred hours of labour was needed to get the soldier back in tiptop shape.

The work was done in conjunction with a U.S.-based restoration specialist, Jonathan Appell, who was at the workshop to conduct a training course. He got things rolling by using a special epoxy to put the large pieces back together, tricky work, said Nelson, noting special bracing was needed to keep the 1,000-pound statue upright and its weight properly distributed to ensure the gluing was effective. With that done, the next step was a complete sanding by hand in order to remove an outer layer of yellowish-brown, the result of someone having used bleach at some point to clean the statue.  “Bleach is not suitable for marble. It probably looked good for six months, but after that, well, you get yellowing,” Nelson explained.

The sanding was followed by some painstaking work, including recarving some of the facial features and clothing details, fixing a badly chipped nose and addressing the wear and tear that occurred in the years after the original installation in 1923.

A bayonet that once adorned the rifle, long since disappeared thanks to vandals, was recreated with the aid of a Hamilton-based history buff who provided pictures that allowed a new bayonet to be carved from marble to match. Mortar for the new joints and some judicious use of patching marble were the finishing touches.

The soldier you can see today at the WMC looks much more like the one unveiled at the cenotaph almost 90 years ago.
“He looks pretty good now. The work turned out really well.”

Created by the firm of Walton, Gooddy & Cripps Ltd., which produced war memorials in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the carved soldier is similar to many that adorn cenotaphs in Ontario and elsewhere, though both the marble and the detail in the work set it apart from some of the others. In fact, the statue was featured in a 2009 book about Italian Carrara marble by British art historian Sandra Berresford.

The original cenotaph was unveiled on Aug. 5, 1923, having been built for $1,200. The Second World War memorial, added at a cost of $800, was dedicated in 1957. The Korean War portion was dedicated in 1988 at a cost of $744.

With the restoration complete, what remains now is to find a new home for the statue. Director of recreation and facilities Karen Makela said this week the township is looking to select the ideal spot at the WMC. To that end, it will be consulting with groups such as the Elmira branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, which requested the marble statue be housed at the WMC, in keeping with the ‘memorial’ portion of its name.

Calling the restoration a “marvelous job,” she said the township is determined to find the right location, a visible spot where the solider can be seen “standing guard for the building.”

The township is also in discussion with the Legion about funding for the cenotaph project and the restoration, she added.

On that front, Nelson said he had submitted a bid of $2,000 to do the work – much less than a restoration project of that scope would normally cost – but still hasn’t heard back from the township. He went ahead and did the work anyway because the specialist was available at the time, seeing it as a worthwhile and interesting project. Whether he gets paid remains to be seen.
“It was a fun project for the winter, when things are slower here,” he said. “The important thing is that it got done.”

Kings come out on top of netminders’ duel for 4-3 win

Michael Hasson was the Kings’ hero Sunday afternoon. But the goaltenders were the real stars. Elmira goaltender Nick Horrigan and Guelph Hurricanes puckstopper Taylor O’Keefe put on a display of unforgettable skills in front of 668 fans at the Dan Snyder Arena. Hasson ended the goaltending battle, firing a wrist shot to beat O’Keefe with just a minute remaining in the game to give the Kings a 4-3 win.

“The opportunities were there and we had a couple of things that we wanted to focus on that created a lot of our shots,” said Elmira head coach Dean DeSilva. “I give Guelph full credit: they made most of their opportunities.”
Elmira came out flat in the first period, which allowed Guelph to draw first blood during a man advantage on a goal by Chris Zubac with an assist from netminder O’Keefe. Cash Seraphim, however, tied the game when Lukas Baleshta circled the net with the puck, drawing out O’Keefe. A quick chip to Seraphim allowed him to easily tap in the equalizer.

Defenceman Brodie Whitehead would give the Kings the lead heading into the first intermission when he was fed the puck by Baleshta and fired a one-timer that struck Guelph’s Chad Bauman in the leg before bouncing into the net. Scott Nagy would collect the other assist.

Returning to the ice for the second period, Elmira again had a sleepy start, allowing Guelph’s Shane Kinsella to tie the game at 6:51.

“We were a little soft in our own zone and soft at our blue line – we have to be stronger than that,” said DeSilva. “We have to do a better job of supporting our zone and not leaving too early and keep the back pressure on which will help our defence. We have a young defence and they have come along way.”

With the teams tied 2-2 early in the second, Guelph’s Chris Taylor one-timed a pass from the top of the crease, but Horrigan flashed the right pad to keep it out.
Not to be outdone, O’Keefe came up with a mammoth diving glove save off Elmira’s Brett Priestap with seven minutes remaining in the frame.

Horrigan continued the game of whatever-you-can-do-I-can-do-better with his own incredible glove save, stoning Taylor once again with five minutes remaining on the clock.
O’Keefe was magical in the second period stopping 19 shots until Andrew Smith, who had been antagonizing the keeper all period, beat him with a chip to the stick-side, giving the boys in green a 3-2 lead heading back to the room.

The third frame was a hard-fought battle for both teams that saw many chances easily stopped by the two goaltenders. O’Keefe continued to showcase his talent as he stopped 17 shots in the period.

Priestap sent a cross-ice pass to Riley Sonnenburg, who crushed a one-timer just two minutes in but O’Keefe slid across the crease to make the save. It was a sign of things to come as O’Keefe made a pair of glove saves during an Elmira surge, robbing both Smith and Sonnenburg once again. Guelph would make the contest interesting with less than two minutes to play when Baleshta was sent to the box for a slashing call. Pulling their netminder and giving them a 6-on-4 advantage, the Hurricanes would beat Horrigan when Kinsella fired a wrist shot high left to tie the game 3-3.

That is when the Elmira fans turned up the volume and started chanting “Go Kings Go,’ and 13 seconds later the Kings would pot the winning goal when Brett Catto passed to Brady Campbell as he skated down the ice into Guelph’s zone and slipped the rubber to Hasson, who fired a beautiful wrist shot that eluded O’Keefe on the blocker side. Horrigan stopped 21 of 24 shots for the win while O’Keefe stopped 55 of 59 for the Hurricanes.
With seven games to go in the regular season, the Kings are third in the Midwestern Conference with a record of 34-9-1. Brantford (37-6-3) leads, followed by Stratford (37-8-0) who face off against the Kings on Friday night.
DeSilva was pleased with his team’s win and is preparing for the Kings’ playoff run.

“Our goal moving forward to the playoffs is that we want to do those ordinary things better than everybody else, the things that teams take for granted like getting the puck out, being stronger on our blue line and finishing our checks. We need to be doing a better job on those than any other team.”

The Kings play at home against Waterloo Sunday. Game time is 7 p.m.