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AT RANDOM: Games bring out the best

I used to win the odd Monopoly game with friends and family growing up in the East Hill. We would play when us kids wanted a break from table hockey. I even won my share of handfuls of pennies in the Saturday night Rummoli tournament at the kitchen table.
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I used to win the odd Monopoly game with friends and family growing up in the East Hill. We would play when us kids wanted a break from table hockey. I even won my share of handfuls of pennies in the Saturday night Rummoli tournament at the kitchen table.

I don’t recall ever defeating my folks in Scrabble, however. Their vocabularies are eye-popping and even today, in their 80s, their minds are sharp and they seem to somehow find a way to use those pesky Zs, Qs and Xs for high counts.

None of the above games, nor Scattergories, which I shine at, are part of the 55+ B.C. Games here in town for the week.

There is a game called whist in the Games. I have never played whist or seen it on TV. I Googled whist and found out that the dealer gives each player 13 cards, then places the remaining 26 face down as the stockpile and turns over the top card. This card’s suit is trumps for the round. Enough said.

I will leave that card game to the true whisters and stick to team sports for the time being. I had a choice of soccer, hockey, golf, tennis or cribbage for the 30th Games.

I thought I was maybe being considered for the local 55+ hockey team since Craig Demetrick called me one day. I was wrong. Dimmer just asked if the team could borrow a set of my jerseys. Guess they went with younger, more talented players like former B.C. Junior League scoring champion Terry Lowe, often my Tuesday night oldtimers linemate.

I played high school golf for the Vernon Panthers a zillion years ago, but I don’t bend like I used to, and my scores are now in the 90s or 100s rather than the 80s. No sense signing up for golf and embarrassing myself.

My dad, who is still active twice a week in tennis at 87, taught me the game when I was six. I don’t play much anymore, but I can carry a volley and my first serve can be unstoppable. I’ll save tennis for another year.

And while I enjoy crib and peg my way to wins half the time, it just doesn’t carry the same thrill as hockey or soccer. Crib will have to wait for another year.

Soccer has been in my blood since I switched from baseball at 13. It truly is a beautiful game and while I took a decade off to play fastball, slo-pitch and squash on the Island in the ‘80s, I was stoked to take soccer up again at 35.

Now at 60, the game is the same. The rules haven’t changed. Of course, very few guys run tirelessly like they used to and nobody can really send corkers top cheddar anymore. It’s still a physical challenge and win, lose or draw, one feels grateful for the game. I know many former 35+ teammates who were betrayed by their knees or hips and quit the game far too early.

Tim Penaluna, who organized our 60s team and also put together a 65s group while working behind the scenes for the entire soccer tournament, rates huge props for doing what he does.

We lost 3-0 to Victoria in our opening soccer game at Marshall Field. They were fitter, used their shoulders and elbows more and were full marks for the win.

Nobody seemed to care about the score in the Bavarian garden and that has long been the attractive norm in soccer. What happens on the field is soon forgotten.

Fitness is king in these Games and all 3,600 athletes, whether they garner a gold medal in whist or finish dead last in a 200-metre sprint, should be commended for competing.