Tag Archives: coffs harbour

The big banana

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We’re staying at an Airbnb and Amy is worried about poop.

Dog poop.

We’ve been in Sawtell, NSW, Australia, since Sunday, near the ocean, with Sorenne in a 4-day, full-day hockey camp, leading up to the annual Coffs Harbour Big Banana 3-on-3 Ice Skirmish.

The poop isn’t that serious, it’s just with Ted the wonder dog running around the yard, the excitement of hanging out with the kids at the arena and other dog-type burdens, Amy worries we won’t find all the poop, leading to a bad guest rating.

It’s not nearly as severe as the Mad Pooper runner, who has repeatedly defecated on the sidewalk in front of a family’s Colorado Springs house.

Cathy Budde and her kids first saw her taking a bathroom break on their property about seven weeks ago.

“They came in screaming, ‘You’re not going to believe this!’ ” Budde tells KKTV. “They’re like, ‘There’s a lady taking a poop!’ So I come outside and I was like, ‘Are you serious? Are you really taking a poop in front of my kids?’ and she’s like, ‘Yeah. Sorry.’ ”

Other people in town have since reached out to Budde, and said that they’ve seen the runner defecating outside of a Walgreens and in their backyards.

Budde has also posted a sign outside her house asking the woman to stop, but it hasn’t made a difference.

“I put a sign on the wall that’s like ‘please, I’m begging you, please stop.’ … She ran by it like 15 times yesterday, and she still pooped,” Budde says.

No one’s poop issue came up during a couple of local news segments leading into the tournament this weekend.

The Big Banana tourney started as a two-club match between Newcastle North Stars and Southern Stars from Brisbane with Coffs Harbour as the halfway meeting point for the 3-on-3 ice hockey weekend.

The tournament, now in its seventh year, includes seven clubs represented by 23 teams from NSW, QLD and ACT. Players ranging in age from 5-to 15-years-old in four different age divisions will play from the evening of Friday 29 September until Monday 2 October in the afternoon, totalling around 75 games (they’re 20-minute games). Some 150 players and their families are expected.

Amy had the bright idea to start a facebook page for the tournament

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1620931114644346/

And I helped with some media. The two local TV stations ran bits this evening (one below, both on the facebook page), and I did a radio interview which will be on ABC tomorrow a.m.

Go Stars.

Thermometers and hockey

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“Do you always bring that thing with you?”

coffs-hockey-team-16“Don’t you?”

The thing was my tip-sensitive digital thermometer which is always in my backpack, which is always on my back, and the occasion was the annual BBQ at the annual Coffs Harbour 3-on-3 hockey tournament.

With 120 guests to serve, I always arrive packin’.

The meat was safely-temperature-verified-grilled, no bare hand contact was achieved through either tongs or gloves, and cross-contamination was minimal (the parents all know what I do, and they knew I’d be watching).

Amy and I played sous chefs for a couple of hours, prepping onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and watermelon.

Coffs Harbour Big Banana 3-on-3 Skirmish, now in its sixth year, started as a two club match-up between Newcastle North Stars and Southern Stars from Brisbane with Coffs Harbour as the halfway meeting point for the 3-on-3 ice hockey weekend.

doug-ref-oct-16The tournament has grown each year to now include nine clubs represented by 26 teams from NSW, QLD and ACT. Some 175 players ranging in age from 5-to-16-years-old in five different age divisions played in 80 games.

I coached, acted as medic, refereed for the first time since completing that 14-hour training and was called upon to be the badass coach when kids got unruly around the pool and BBQ area.

Amy did scorekeeping, merchandizing, and overall hockey mom stuff, like getting Sorenne prepared.

So many other people contributed in similar ways.

Great kids, great parents, it’s our church, but without the god stuff. There’s singing and dancing, but not so much the hymns. More AC/DC.

 

Squirts Stars, thermometers and gender stuff

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In Canada we call the little kids that play hockey, Novices.

sorenne.coffs.horbor.14In Brisbane they call them Squirts.

Novice is better.

Whatever they’re called, mucho kudos to the Brisbane  Southern Stars Squirts (5-9-years-old) on winning all six games at the 4th Annual 3-on-3 tournament at Coff’s Harbour, NSW, during the school holidays (Oct. 4-6, 2014)

I was out a couple of games, but Sheldon (another Canadian) ably stepped up (and his wife helped me), and his daughter Noelle, who may actually be younger than Sorenne, rocked it. I spoke with the kids afterwards to address any concerns and they seemed cool.

We may have gotten outshot every game, but superstar goalie Ronan Hoy registered two shutouts and pulled us though every other game. Each team member was awarded a gold medal, and coach Doug Powell’s medal is already proudly hanging downstairs with old-timey hockey paraphernalia.

Cole Hardiman was a scoring machine while brother Liam was no slouch (thanks for your help, parents Susan and Brad), while Onrii and Didier Dalgity chipped in as well. John Kelly, Alex Wentz Luke McNamara, and Ethan Poole all knew their role and to watch little kids change on the fly, pay attention to offside, and spread out and pass the puck was gratifying when we haven’t really practiced it.

sorenne.stick.hit.oct.14I apologize if I missed anyone, just like when I wake up in the morning and apologize to my wife for anything that may happen, and apologize when I go to bed for anything that did.

And of course we don’t teach little girls to hit other players in the back of the calves where there is no padding; that would be unsportspersonlike.

I didn’t go to the BBQ but Amy did and took a tip sensitive digital thermometer. A coupe of the dads said “Really?”

It’s food safety 1978 here, and more about that next week.

Thanks to all the parents for their time and helping to build the sport.

In a related but sorta unrelated story, my friend Elizabeth Weise, one of the few remaining reporters at the The USA Today, sent out a note asking now that “Apple and Facebook include egg freezing as a benefit. I’m curious what working mothers might think of this. One woman I know said it made her feel as if these companies were in effect saying to employees that they should have kids later on, on their own time. She worried anyone who actually had kids would be seen as a slacker who wasn’t committed to the job. Any thoughts? I’d love to quote some real mothers in the story.”

Also, “Anyone have thoughts they’d like to share with USA Today on Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comment yesterday that women in tech don’t need to ask for raises, they should just trust the system to do well by them.”

braun.sorenne.hockeyI can put you in touch with Beth.

How about another gender story? Most people know this– it’s a not a secret.

My comment to Beth was that as a father of five hockey-playing daughters – he’s a jackass.

We’ll work more on positioning for the rest of the season, as well as the basics.

Also, the girls-only session last week was a success. When we started the Guelph girls hockey league in about 1996, (that’s in Ontario, in Canada, a town of about 120,000), the girls came out of the woodwork and now is a vibrant league with house league, various rep teams, and probably some 1,000 girls playing.

girls.hockey.international.oct.14

dp

Dr. Douglas Powell

powellfoodsafety.com

barfblog.com

dpowell29@gmail.com

 

Hockey, thermometers and disbelief

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News has been a little slow because we spent the long weekend with 120 (ice) hockey players in Coff’s Harbour, a primarily fishing town about five hours south of Brisbane, and home to the big banana.

powell.coffsAnd a decent-sized rink, so it was a 3-on-3 games.

The Saturday night is a large BBQ for parents and players of all ages and, as usual, I volunteered to cook and brought a couple of tip-sensitive digital thermometers.

Unfortunately, I spent the night in the hospital for other reasons but, the show must go on.
temp.burgers.coffs..harbour.14Proving that even French professors can use a thermometer, by all accounts Amy was a food safety master.

Although a couple of the parents said, a thermometer, you’ve got to be kidding, Amy had all the answers.

The team I co-coached won gold.IMG_0038 But fun was had by all.powell.coffs.3

big.banana

8 sick with Salmonella in Coffs Habour, Australia

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Coffs Harbour is, I’ve heard, a lovely beach town in northeast New South Wales on the Pacific Ocean, not too far south of the Gold Coast.

The Coffs Coast Advocate reports a total of eight cases of salmonella Coffs Harbourpoisoning in the Coffs Harbour region have been reported.

“Four people were admitted to the Coffs Harbour Base Hospital and another two received treatment at the Emergency Department and were discharged,” said Paul Corben, director of the Public Health Unit.

“A further two people received treatment at home from a general practitioner.”

No idea what caused this, but given Australia’s history with raw-egg related outbreaks, and the prevalence of mayo and aioli made with raw eggs, especially at seafood places, it’s where I’d start.

A table of raw egg related outbreaks specific for Australia is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/raw-egg-related-outbreaks-australia.