Before I became a member of TISC, most of my friends share very similar background: Asian software developers graduated from University of Waterloo with a healthy interest in your stereotypical geeky and Asian pastimes like gaming, anime, karaoke, and snowboarding. With twice weekly skating practices, it was amazingly quick how friendships are forged and I was introduced to new friends from all walks of life. I once described them as quirky much to my friends’ objection so I will just stick with distinguished and unique.
Coach Peter was the prankster with the most exuberant enthusiasm of anyone I ever met. I had to keep myself from laughing every time we spoke. He tried so hard to put on a serious face with matching serious tones to suit his coaching role. Sometimes I just wanted to tell him to relax. Of course, my imagination ran wild and I wondered what his classroom would be like full of little elementary school kids.
With coach Aaron, he intimidated me from day one. He was no doubt the fastest skater in our club with race results to prove. He took skating seriously and made sure all of us did too. I shrank a little every time his critical gaze fell upon our group of beginners struggling with our drills. I never forget the day when we were all sitting on the lawn getting ready for practice. He took one side long glance at my rec skates in all its coned wheel worn brake pad glory and said “you’re going to skate on that?”. I wanted to crawl into a hole, like one of the many groundhogs that shared the track with us.
Coach Eric was most approachable and patient. Whether it was our endless questions on equipment and technique, or our unwarranted whining about the practice program, he took it all in stride. Actually, he went above and beyond in explaining to us why we did the drills we did and how our equipment limited the way we skated. He laid the important foundation to develop a new crop of inline speed skaters in Toronto.
In those early days, I rarely dealt with the faster skaters but I tried hard to match names to faces. These were people I hung out with regularly so it was only proper to know them by name. I was rather embarrassed that after a whole month, I still could not tell the gaggle of teenagers apart. Luckily I fared slightly better with the grown ups. Morgan was the one who teased me all the time (why oh why???). Herb was the other black guy who I should never confuse with Morgan. Mr. Pauley’s routine always included carefully tying a bandana over his ponytail. Wayne was the patriarch of our club, always making sure we dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s.
Among the would-be speed skaters, it was a whole lot easier. Sarah was slender and blonde with years of experience in competitive figure skating. She was quickly showing lots of promise and it would be a matter of weeks before she graduated to train with the fast group. Mike started a year before I did and was well-versed in the latest and greatest gears. Jacky and I became training partners almost from the get go. We chatted every day exchanging notes on the previous day’s training and lamented on skills we could not get right.
In short, I was surrounded by all kinds of different people brought together by their mutual love of inline speed skating.
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