Spring Cleaning: Ways To Store Sporting Equipment

It’s springtime.  Every springtime mothers in my neighbourhood groan about what a pain it is to pack away the winter sporting equipment and retrieve the soccer, baseball, tennis, golf and basketball paraphernalia.  The switch-over isn’t what causes fits of swearing, it’s the storage of said items, or more accurately the lack thereof.

If you’re reading this and rolling your eyes about “first world problems”, I couldn’t agree with you more.

Now, onto solving my dilemma.

Thankfully, I do not have to contend with hockey equipment like my friend, Nathalie, but I do have skis and toboggans and some skates that need storing and a plethora of balls of all types, racquets – badminton, tennis and squash for every member of the family, golf clubs galore, soccer nets, scooters, bikes and trikes, helmets, bubble machines, “lawn mowers”, sprinklers, bases and cleats that need to be at the ready.  My God, the cleats!

I grew up in the suburbs were space was never an issue.   Everyone had ample room in their garages for two cars AND all of their stuff but now I live in the city where space is at a premium. My friends drool over closet space like it’s porn.

I have been researching all sorts of storage ideas and basically, unless you have cash to burn or LOTS of space to start with, many of these ideas are useless.   You can see my feeble attempt at solving this problem on our Pinterest board, click here.

Most likely I will resort to the method that is tried and true: the clear plastic bin.

Please share!  What are your equipment storing tips?

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Game On!?

Remember that scene from the movie Wayne’s World, where Wayne and Garth are engaged in a little ball hockey in the street outside Garth’s house?  Maybe you remember a similar scene from when you were a kid.  Around the corner from my house when I was growing up was a dead end street,  the site of many a fierce street hockey battle on sunny summer afternoons — and as it was a dead end, never was the game interrupted by  shouts of “CAR!”

Maybe your kids were out today playing street hockey after school today. If you live in the city of Toronto, they’d have been breaking the law.

Toronto’s public works committee recently agreed to uphold a city by-law preventing the most Canadian of past-times on city streets.  Concerned with the possibility that lifting the ban would result in increased risk to the city, the committee has decided not to recommend to city council that the by-law be overturned.  Granted, the by-law is rarely if ever enforced; kids have been playing street hockey — by law or no — on Toronto streets for years, and the fine is fairly insignificant.  A motion is to be heard by City council sometime this month asking the council to allow parents to take responsibility for any damages or incidents occurring during a street hockey game.

You’d think that in a city as hockey mad as Toronto, that there would be many people in favour of overturning the bylaw, but as always, there are two sides to this issue.  On one side are the parents who argue that street hockey is harmless – and given the increasing concern over childhood obesity, that it’s actually beneficial. Parents appreciate that their kids are playing in front of their houses, under their noses.  And really. It’s hockey, for goodness sake. What’s wrong with kids playing hockey? On the other side, concerns about property damage, accidents, and the right of homeowners to enjoy their front lawns unencumbered by sounds of hockey sticks on asphalt abound. Oh, and don’t forget that the “war on cars” in this city is over.

What’s your take? Should street hockey be prohibited? If you don’t live in Toronto, what’s the story where you live?

Statistics

It’s not bad enough that my husband and I have never seen the Leafs win the Stanley Cup. Neither of us had yet been born the last time they won.

But our boys? They have no recollection of the Leafs ever making the playoffs. The Playoffs! To them, the Leafs’ season has always ended in April.

It is to weep.  Clearly hope dies last, because even last night, the four of us crawled into bed to watch last night’s game, clinging by the edges of our fingernails to the hope that, somehow, the stars might align, the Leafs might win, Buffalo might lose, and pigs might fly.

All of this, statistically and realistically impossible.

So Peter and I will hang our jerseys in the closet for another summer. I might, possibly, now that the Leafs are out, again, acquire a Canucks t-shirt. It’s not quite the same, but it will have to do. Maybe.

But the boys? They’re not defeated. Having never experienced a Leaf playoff game, they’ve yet to experience true disappointment .  When told that tonight’s result meant the end of the Leafs’ season, they were only concerned with one big, pressing question:

“Is the Jays game still on?”