2 Friday, April 5, 2024brooklintowncrier.com SALES (905) 721-6599 SERVICE (905) 721-6588 PARTS (905) 721-6577 445 Winchester Road East, Brooklin Check out our Pre-Owned Inventory on our website! 2024 ELANTRA • 2023 SONATA 2024 VENUE • 2024 KONA 2024 TUCSON • 2023 SANTA FE 2024 PALISADE • 2024 SANTA CRUZ VIEW CURRENT SPECIAL OFFERS AT HYUNDAICANADA.COM OR COME SEE US! Monday - Thursday 9:00am-7:00pm Friday 9:00am-5:30pm Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm Sunday Closed 1201 Dundas St. East, Whitby SALES 905-668-5846 SERVICE 905-668-8871 PARTS 905-668-8853 "I've never been busier." Ethan Markham is returning ipads his OFSAA tournament borrowed for scorekeeping the week before. It's one of the myriad of tasks he needs to complete, including a final report, a balancing of the books, and bills to pay after Brooklin High hosted the 2024 boys and girls provincial hockey championships. A phys. ed. teacher and head coach of the boys team, he'd been all over this since before COVID. "We'd applied in 2018 and were going to host in 2021 but then Covid wiped that out." Backed by a committee of staff and student volunteers from the school, his life was consumed by the enormity of the event: 64 schools, 1600 athletes, numerous local hotels and rinks, a double banquet at Ontario Tech to accommodate 1600 meals served in five hours, booking officials, and staying awake. As if that wasn't enough, just before the tournament, his family of four added a new member: a puppy. "How exhausted am I? Pretty exhausted. I think I spent every waking moment on OFSAA trying to piece it all together. I didn't have much of a March break. But I had lots of great help. The overall sentiment was that the players had a great experience." There were, he says, numerous "untapped benefits" to hosting. "It brought a lot of business to the region. Hotels, restaurants. It was great for bringing money into the community." One challenge was obtaining officials. Because all the games were played between 8 am and 4 pm, finding enough available officials was tough. He ended up getting some from as far away as Peterborough and York Region. "One worry," he recalls, "was what kind of quality would we have. It turned out we had very few complaints." He added a coach to the roster to help lighten the load a bit. The team, which practiced once each week at Vipond, had a strict policy that if boys didn't come to practice, they couldn't play that week, which explains the need for the 25-player roster. Would he do it all again? "Differently," he says. "On a smaller scale." This tournament hosted teams from A to AAA on both the boys and girls sides. "There are obviously many more challenges with a larger event like this. I did have concerns about all the levels at one time, but it worked out great." Spring rugby at the school began this past week, another of his coaching passions. The nap was for Easter weekend. Less than half the picture: Ethan Needs A Nap By Richard Bercuson