CANADIAN WINTER - ICE HOCKEY AND SNOWBOARDING!

Tammie and I took the kids to the local ice hockey game on Saturday night. None of us except for Tammie had ever been to a game so there was a degree of curiousity surrounding the game.

We attended the game in the town of Penticton and watched the local team, the Penticton V's play Quesnell Millionaires. The guys who play in this league are juniors aged between 16-19 and it is considered a nursery for the National Hockey League.

The Penticton Entertainment Centre is relatively new and the facilities are great. As you would expect there is a lot of razzamatazz surrounding the game but I find that adds to the attraction and excitement. We had great seats and sat back to enjoy the action.

The game is played over three periods with 6 players on the rink at any one time. The action is fast and furious, with players being changed regularly, ice hockey must be one of the fastest sports on the planet.

The V's who are leading the competition won the game 6-2. The consensus from the girls were that the players were hot and my son a rugby league diehard grudgingly admitted that he enjoyed the game and the skill and hardness that the players showed. It is definately a sport that we would all watch live again.

The next day we took the 50 kilometre trip to the Apex Mountain ski fields. The temperature was a mild -6c and the weather on the mountain was a sunny haze.

As the kids had never snowboarded before they took a two hour lesson. They had a ball and after many spills and crashes they gained some modicum of control of the snowboard. The weather turned sour later in the day but it didn't curb their enthusiasm ast all for snowboarding.

We picked them up late in the afternoon, tired a little sore and cold but with broad smiles upon their faces. It appears that most of the workers on the ski fields are Aussies and now a couple of the kids are considering a winter soujourn to Canada later this year to hone their new found skills.

My children rreturn to Australia late on Tuesday night so tomorrow we drive to Vancouver to meet the plane.