“I already want to take a nap tomorrow” – Anon

While we were happy to see the snow gods yesterday, we weren’t as excited with the rain gods today.  But, really, the rain shouldn’t have come as a surprise with it generally raining on average 170 days of the year. To stay out of the rain we headed to downtown Vancouver and spent a few hours at the premier shopping destination, Pacific Centre. We knew we may be slightly out of our league as we walked past shops the likes of Gucci, Fendi, Cartier and Max Mara – personally, I think we fitted in a treat in our matching navy ensembles. A couple of the adults (alright me and Sharon), braved a store and back peddled exceptionally quickly when the tag on the jacket was $10,000 – and no, it wasn’t any better when she pointed us to the one on sale that was $4200. We said thank you but said we were happy with the jackets we had and high-tailed it out of there. Prices were a bit friendlier on the next level down, so we stayed there.

From there it was a bus tour around the beautiful Stanley Park. Stanley Park is Vancouver’s first, largest and most beloved urban park. Ideally situated on a peninsula at the north western edge of downtown Vancouver, Stanley Park attracts approximately 8 million visitors each year. This 400 hectare (1000 acre) haven is recognised as one of the greatest urban parks in the world and is actually 10% bigger than New York’s Central Park. While the natural beauty may have been a little too much to handle for our tech savvy group, we still took the time to stop for the obligatory team photo with the totem poles. After that it was a drive to Granville Island for a quick walk around before heading to our first home stay and tour game at Kitsilano High School. Let the games begin.

Kitsilano or ‘Kits’ as we like ‘locals’ to call it, is southwest across English Bay from Vancouver’s downtown peninsula and is one of Vancouver’s favourite neighbourhoods. Kitsilano Secondary School consists of about 1500 students and in addition to its distinguished academic record has been highlight successful in a number of sports, most prominently, basketball, rugby, soccer, ice-hockey and cheer leading.

Junior Varsity Boys:

There was no jet lag evident for our Junior Varsity Boys as they hit the court and came out full of fight. AJ had the honours of scoring the first two points for the tour, with the rest of the team all contributing to the scoreboard. When we got our passing game happening against the full court pressure we hit our straps, leading at quarter time by six points (12-18). Matt was applying some great defensive pressure with a team effort on the fast breaks to capitalise on the turnovers. Jake, Max and James provided some much needed assistance off the bench. Three pointers by Joel Dent and Matt helped to keep us in the game but some bad passing let Kitsilano back into the game with scores tied at 28 all at the half time break. After an intense half time chat by coach Holmes, Mason came out and scored the first points for the quarter with Darcy and Joel Duncan providing plenty of drive down the court. Jet lag seemed to hit about half way through the third with the Titans down by 4 points so coach Holmes called a much needed time out. We came out with a bit more gusto and pegged the lead back to 2 with AJ adding to the scoreline. Stuart started the scoring off in the fourth quarter to tie the game. Another Joel Dent three pointer took the lead out to three points. Darcy kept the scoreboard ticking over with another 2 points but Kitsilano still were right in the game. After a few rapid fire shots from Kitsilano we were down by 1 point with 2 minutes to go. A handy pass from Matt to Mason and consequent score put us up by 1 with 1 minute on the clock. Kitsilano hit the lead by 2 points with 42 seconds to go but Darcy remained calm and levelled the score. If the boys were tired before, welcome to overtime with another three minutes on the clock. Mason kept the scoreboard ticking with the first 8 points, with some strong rebounding by AJ and Darcy and great team pressure. Stuart added another 2 points to seal a fantastic finish seeing us winners by 7 points – 55-62.

Varsity Girls:

The Varsity Girls were riding high after the boys’ overtime success, starting with a great team effort that saw them 0-7 up only 1 minute into the game. Emily was the first to get the Titans on the scoreboard from the foul line. Kayleigh and Ellen led the scoring charge, with Sarah, Emilia and Gabby applying the defensive pressure to create turnovers. Emmason was fighting hard under the basket and Ella was rebounding strongly. The girls were looking good and at quarter time led by 10 points (8-18).  At the start of the second quarter, Kayleigh, Ellen and Emily kept the scoreboard ticking over. The team’s defensive pressure was causing headaches for Kitsilano with numerous turnovers. Emilia was proving very strong with her rebounding and scoring. Kate hit the court and straight away got involved in the game with some solid passing. The girls kept up the relentless pressure to have a huge lead of 31 points (13-44) at half time. Coach Adams kept the pressure up in the third, with the girls coming out firing. A great team passing saw the scoreboard ticking over with contributions from the whole team and tight defence was the key to Titans holding their lead. The girls went into the three quarter break leading 23-54. It was a clinical display in the fourth quarter with the Varsity Girls coming out convincing winners by 47 points (27-74) thanks to a great team effort.

Varsity Boys:

The pressure was on for Coach Buckley with two out of two wins already on the board. It was an unsettled start for our Varsity Boys who were applying great defensive pressure but failing to capitalise at their end. The boys finally hit their straps with shots finding the range from Matt, Oli and Malok and a much-needed three pointer from Toby. Our defence was proving a stumbling block for Kitsilano and we headed into the quarter time break 6 points up (12-18). It was up and down in the second quarter with Titans letting Kitsilano back in the game. A three pointer and foul shots from Jaidyn helped to stem the tide, with Malok and Oli adding to the scoring. Oscar and AJ were bringing in some great rebounds. At half time we had maintained the 6 point lead (27-33). The lads came alive in the third quarter with some great team play, capitalising on some tight defence. Oscar continued to get the rebounds with Jaidyn, Malok and Matt finishing off at the other end. Conall was proving strong under the basket. At three quarter time we were 18 points up (44-62). A sequence of Matt Withers and Toby three pointers started us off for the final quarter with boys finishing off strongly to hold the lead and finish 22 point winners (61-83).

The Flag!

Foolishly we were so worried about the Withers family monopolising the flag, we forgot about the dark horse de Wit family. How silly we were. In our first daily double, we are proud to announce that Toby and Michelle de Wit are the winners of the Day 2 flag – yes, it was a joint effort. Toby earnt the honours of his second flag in two days after having a day he’d rather forget. In his exuberance to experience all the trip has to offer he seems to be forgetting/misplacing a number of items. In addition to losing the room key yesterday, he lost his Skyride ticket on the 100 metre walk to the Skyride and his wallet … twice. The first time he lost the wallet was slightly humorous as it was found in a matter of minutes. The second time wasn’t quite so funny. After getting back to the motel from our day at Grouse Mountain, Toby realised his wallet had not made the return trip. After much searching and more patting down, it became apparent it was either on the bus, stolen or still at Grouse Mountain. A call was made to both locations but with no success – the bus company would search and let us know and bring it in the morning if they had it. Now, enter Michelle for her 2019 flag debut (may I make note, Michelle is a previous three-time winner from the 2015 tour). During the evening, Michelle noticed that another name had been registered on Toby’s card, so before any money was taken an urgent call was required to the cash card company to put a hold on funds. Unfortunately, the call had to be made on a landline. After finally finding the number to call, assistance was required to dial out and get a line and then she was away. After a lot of explaining and retelling of information, she was about to be put through to another operator when they accidentally hung up on her. Delighted, as you can expect, there was more panic as she again tried to find the number to call and dial out. She knew you had to dial ‘9’ to get an outside line, from there it was a bit sketchy so she threw in another ‘1’ (that’s for long distance) then dialled the number. There may have been two others in the room with her (you don’t need names) but when she went deathly quiet with a “pardon me” and “ooh, sorry, I’m from Australia” it caught our attention. When she mouthed ‘911’ we realised what she’d done. Very funny for us, not for Michelle. As she was answering questions from the Canadian Police, the people in the room may have been laughing which then made her laugh, so when the police asked “are you okay” and she answered a laughing yes which also could have sounded like a crying yes, they responded with a “it doesn’t sound like it, we’re going to send a car out to check”. And you know what, 2 hours later there was a powerful knock on the door and sure enough, there was the police. Absolute gold. After filling out the necessary paperwork and ensuring she was not under attack, the police officer saw the funny side of it, and agreed to our requests for photographs – just for posterity of course. For two out of the three people in the room, I don’t think they’ve laughed so hard in quite a while. Footnote: Toby’s wallet came back on the bus the next day….