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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-11-21, Page 15leisure, features an entertainment Serving over 24,000 homes in Listowel, Wingham, Mount Forest, Milverton, Ariss, Arthur, Drayton, Harriston, Moorefield, Palmerston, ploomingdale, Breslau, Conestogo, Elmira, Heidelberg, Linwood, Maryhill, St. Clements, St. Jacobs, Wallenstein, Wellesley and West Montrose. Crossroads, Wednesday, November 24, 1984. Three Star Challenge made to all Minor Hockey teams in Canada By Maurice Pifher Minor Hockey teams in the area now have a chance to spend a weekend with the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team and attend a Leafs -Islander game later this season, all the while helping the Minor Hockey program and two charities. Canada's estimated 525,000 organized Minor Hockey players were thrown a challenge Nov. 8 at Maple Leaf Gar- dens in Toronto when the "Three Star Challenge" program was announced by Leafs owner, Harold Ballard, and former wrestling champion, Whipper Billy Watson. The unique program, presented by the Ford Motor Company of Canada Ltd., will benefit Minor Hockey teams across Canada as well as the Canadian Paraplegic Association and The Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf. The program asks players to collect pledges from residents of their com- munities based on the number of goals which their team will score during their first three league games following Jan. 1, 1985. . Teams will keep half the funds raised with the other 50 per cent shared by the o charities. 4Mr. Ballard and Mr. Watson, both k own for their charitable fund-raising efforts, said the program could benefit Minor Hockey teams to raise funds for team projects, and at the same time,. benefit the two charitable organizations. They, in turn, enlisted Ford of Canada's support so that all funds, raised would go directly to Minor Hockey and the two charities. ° "We're proud to be a part of this important program," said Kenneth W. Harrigan, president of Ford of Canada, "because we believe the youth of Canada involved in organized minor hockey, and their teams, will benefit directly from the `Three Star Challenge' and will assist two very worthwhile charitable organizations in ---the process." The Three Star Challenge has been endorsed by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association and by its 12 branches across the country. . "Not only will the Canadian Paraplegic Association and the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf become beneficiaries of this outstanding program, but also the over 1,450 Minor Hockey Associations from across Canada," says Murray Costello, president of the CAHA. Former Leaf Bob Baun, currently a director of the Professional Hockey Alumni, was also on hand at the Nov. 8 challenge announcement to acknowledge his organization's par- ticipation in the program. The alumni, made up of former players, managers, referees and training personnel in professional hockey, will be ,•:.; narking on its first program to c. t.. e to youth and their development. HOW TO PARTICIPATE Members of a Minor Hockey team collect pledges on the number of goals their team will score during their first three league games after Jan. 1, 1985. Players record pledges from friends, relatives and neighbors on the form, for the first three games between Jan. 1 and Jan. 19, 1985. For example, if one member of the team has a pledge of $1 per goal scored and the team scores 12 goals in the three games, that team member will collect $12 for that pledge. A team member then collects all pledges, and gives the pledge form and the money to the team's coach. The coach retains half of the money collected for team projects. The other half is sent by the coach to the two charities by Feb. 9, 1985. Just for participating, team members will receive a "Three Star Performer" crest which will be sent to the coach after the pledge money is senf to the charities. WHO CAN WIN Three participating teams will be announced by Mr. Ballard and Mr. Watson as the winners from each of five regions. In each of the five regions, there will be a team with most goals scored, a team with most money collected, and a team drawn from all other teams entered. The winners will be announced on the Hockey Night in Canada telecast on Feb. 16, 1985. Players and two coaches from each winning team will be either flown or bused to Toronto on Friday, Mar. 1 and all will stay at the Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf and see how the money collected is helping those less fortunate. All meals and transportation will be provided. Winning team members will also skate at Maple Leaf Gardens, watch Leaf and Islander practices, visit the Hockey Hall of Fame and then attend the Leaf -Islander game on• Saturday, Mar. 2. On Sunday morning that weekend, there will be a breakfast with the Leafs and then, a special hockey clinic with famous NHL Old -Timers, and then the flight or trip home. RUMBALL CENTRE The Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf opened on April, 1979, a multi-purpose complex providing a range of services unavailable elsewhere.. Rev. Bob Rumball, a former player for the Toronto Argonauts, is executive - director of the centre. At the centre there is a Canadian progress wing that is a home for multi - handicapped communication - disordered children to the age of 21 who need special care, with training aimed at fitting the children back into society. The Variety Club day care is a full- day'program for children of ages two to five, with the emphasis on language development, learning speech and sign language. The adult residential program houses multi -handicapped deaf adults who have social, physical, vocational and emotional problems. The aim is to give greater independence tp these residents. The vocational rehabilitation program offers training in such areas as woodshop, auto mechanics, housekeeping and maintenance, helping the hearing impaired to develop their skills to an employable level. The senior citizens program offers recreational and educational activities to both residents and community deaf seniors. The Conn Smythe Sanctuary is an interdenominational church at the centre providing services for the deaf and hearing community. A year-round camp in Parry Sound and eight group homes are located in Canada to serve the hearing impaired and adults with special needs. PARAPLEGIC ASSOCIATION The Canadian Paraplegic Association, through its various provincial divisions, provides in- valuable support and assistance to new spinal cord injured persons. Not so long ago, persons suffering paraplegia or quadriplegia would have ,spent the remainder of their days in extended care units, hospital facilities or special institutions. Today, with improved medical science and rehabilitation, person with spinal cord injury survive and can return to the community as active participating citizens. .. The association provides such ser- vices as personal and family coun- selling, financial assistance to obtain a wheelchair; guidance in career finding, help in getting transportation, housing, information on travel and recreation and consultation with community and government bodies at all levels to foster and promote improved societal con- ditions for the physically disabled. The association's role is all the more important when you consider that each day, three Canadians become disabled for life from paralysis, and the typical paraplegic or quadriplegic is an active and often athletic person. aagaaliAeaaa rwitE �.0„ttthc,t. LEAF CAPTAIN—Probably nobody was more excited on the day of the announcement of the Three Star Challenge than Bobby Watson, left, and Danny Rud- dock, right, Minor Hockey players who met Toronto Maple Leaf captain Rick Vaive. AN OLD PRO—Former Maple Leaf goaltender Johnnie Bower fired pucks in front of the two, young Leaf goaltenders during a team practise session just prior to the announcement of the Three Star Challenge. REE ` oronto ap e ea s owner Harold Ballard and former wrestling champion Whipper Billy Watson announced the challenge recent- ly, a program designed to befefit Minor Hockey in Canada, the Canadian Paraplegic Association and The Bob Rumball Centre for the Deaf. Attending the press conference for the event were, in front (I to r) Minor Hockey player Danny Ruddock, Garry Stoc i Marg Lawson of the Canadian Paraplegic Association, Minor Hockey player Bobby Watson; at back (I to r), Whipper Watson, Leafs Vice President King Clancy, Ford Canada President Ken Harrigan and Harold Ballard. amine in Ethiopia Opportunity to Demonstrate Our Compassion By John Martens In the last week of October the news media, and especially TV confronted us with the horrible famine in Ethiopia in a'�dmost dramatic manner. We suddenly became aware that, after all, on this globe, despite the so- called "green revolution", which enabled nations like India and others to become nearly self-sufficient in food production, there are still large sectors of the earth's surface where lack of rain makes famine a too -often recurring reality. The sight of men, women and chil- dren dying before one's eyes, their fingers pathetically twitching in agony, as if desperately clutching at the last miserable shreds of an existence rends the heart. The sight of a little child, perhaps three or four years old, sitting in a corner like a frightened, uncompre- hending little animal is heart breaking. Suddenly in its last moments of earthly sufferings, the child puts his hands over his eyes and head in an ultimate gesture of despair, to block out the sur- rounding scenes and, sounds of horror. The scene pierces the heart and makes one want to explode in an aimless rage. These sights must open our eyes to the plight of so many of our fellowmen. In Europe, and especially in England and North America, an aid campaign of unprecedented dimesions is picking up steam. It is suddenly realized that we can do better than let children and grown-ups waste away and die in a far corner of the world. It is tragic that this realization, coming from the grass- roots, from the masses of ordinary, hardworking people of the Western world, was not evident earlier in the councils of the mighty and in the circles of the powerful of this earth, who are directing the fortunes of mankind. Everybody actually sensed that some- thing was wrong in Africa and that the spectre of hunger was constantly hovering over the Black Continent. No- body can be fooled into believing that the famine in Ethiopia occurred sud- denly from one day to the next. LEFTIST RULE Probably the fact that Ethiopia is ruled by a leftist clique, made the West reluctant to offer large=scale aid initially. Perhaps the regime would fall amidst the chaos of hunger and guer- rilla warfare, or so it was hoped. Mere- ly sharing that hope, however, does not absolve us from aiding our fellow earthlings. The hollow eyes and utter helpless- ness of our fellow creatures in Ethiopia plead for help now. The imploring eyes and wasted bodies of little children, whom Jesus himself bade to come to Him, the wailing of their mothers, we cannot resist unless at our own peril. Never mind hiding behind the astro- nomical, obscene amounts of money spent on armaments by the world powers, funds which could have wiped out world hunger long ago, or behind the avarice of greedy corporations or of powerful labor unions. A grassroots movement las to do the job now; the ordinary people of the world must wake up and be their brothers' keepers. Now a shocked world begins to realize that there is a task waiting in Africa, where it is feared the famine will spread far and wide. In Ethiopia some eight million people are in deadly peril. For millions, aid may come too late because of the in- comprehensible procrastination in- dulged in for so long by the govern- ments of the world. Where have those governments been? Where have we been ourselves? We were dreaming our little summer reveries about expensive visits by 'popes and queens and marvelling at the pomp and pageantry at such . times, surrounding the spiritual and temporal leaders of this world. National elections at home and political campaigning across the border perhaps had our rapt and un= divided attention. In the meantime exhausted African mothers tenderly wrapped the skeletal remains of their youngsters in pitiful rags before en- trusting them for good to the hot, merciless desert sands. The mothers soon will follow their children and when there are no more mothers and children, the world will forget and the Ethiopian famine will be relegated to the realm of statistics. HUMAN COMPASSION But stop fora moment. Innumerable people of goodwill and compassion are arising and by their efforts show their humaneness and feelings of brother- hood. What a chance is here also for us to demonstrate that we are above the level of the animals. We have the ability to organize, to extend our sympathy and pity across the borders of our own clan and reach beyond our own little circles of interest and even across the barriers pose., by nationalistic senti- ments. Many remember the injunctions of their Christiam faith, exhorting them to extend the cup of water — how precious to those East African fathers and mothers — to their fellow creatures in need. Men and women of goodwill arise! Show the world that you do not stand for men -abetted disasters as long as there is breath in you! To be a full human being — does that mean to receive an abundant share of this earth's riches or is it to catch a flicker of hope in the eyes of an emaciated child or a despondent mother? Give, support organizations like Oxfam, CRWRC and others and enable them to help now in Ethiopia. Don't delay. Act now! Cynical considerations and com- plaints about all those highly -paid government officials, teachers or in- dustrial workers may not provide us with an alibi at this juncture of the road. We must decide to choose the route to the Ethiopian camps of despair, bearing the lovely gift of heart- felt and compassionate succour or continue in our ownself-seeking, merry ways. • We are only human insofar as we identify with the most miserable of mankind. With Mother Theresa we are convinced that we see Christ in the faces of the suffering and poor. John Wesley's famous words: "There, but for the Grace of God, goes John Wesley," when he met a doomed man on his way to the gallows, remain true also in this respect. We do not really believe, do we, that we were born "by an accident of geography” in this plentiful and fruitful land of ours? Only by giving generously from our pl nty, can we prove that we have understood John Wesley's words. Apart from this, who can stand at the edge of a sea of misery and remain un- moved? The tremendous response to the pleas for help are asure indication that God's grace and love works miracles, perhaps more than ever before. Is it not a privilege to be part of it all? To show compassion and love instead of cynicism? Let us not be found wanting, for history shows a remarkable pattern of retribution when we violate the most basic rules underlying our conscience or religious convictions. We can fool ourselves for a long time, but not permanently, when we think that every man is an island unto him- self. That message was so abundantly clear last week when our TV rooms were filled with the sobs of distraught mothers and children, too ill and weak even to eat. The real world was brought home to many of us. We can forget, temporarily, but that world remains. ALL MUST SHARE How about showing that each of us shares • in the responsibility for this world and its destitute, whether we belong to the well-heeled elite or the mundane circles of society and those wanting to be there; whether we live a free -life style or include ourselves in the Moral Majority or such movements, or whether we are to the left or light of the -political spectrum. "Arise, people of goodwill of all nations, unite; you have nothing to lose but a few dollars and you can even keep your gold chains and bracelets!" You will win a smile here and there over yonder. Eyes full of trust will glance up at you from a lovely child or a beaatiful mother, both made in the image of our common Father in Heaven. Is not all this worth more than many rubies, just like a good housewife is? Remember Oxfam, CRWRC or the or- ganization of your choice, working to represent you among your brothers and sisters of Ethiopia. Do not say it cannot be done, for the billions every year spent on drugs, booze and pornographic material in the U.S.A. alone surpass the cost of help in Africa many times over. The money spent on cat and dog food every year would go a long way wiping out world hunger. The choice is up to us.