Anyways.

The last post was cut short due to a phone call I had to take from my friend, Gabi, who helped get Hockey Folie off the ground.  Unfortunately, unlike the many other calls that I have taken from Gabi since being in Toulouse, he did not have good news.  You see, when we started Hockey Folie the plan for the first year was for me to get the program running (or rolling?) while supporting myself through teaching English.  Then following Gabi’s coming graduation from UM, he would come to Toulouse next Fall for the second year of HF.  We hoped that after this period the program would be established enough so that it could continue on with little involvement from ourselves.  Everything was looking good, especially when we learned that after the initial two years HF would become a permanently funded program of the Mairie de Toulouse. However, our plan for next year was contingent on Gabi’s acceptance into the same English Assistant program I just completed.  (Since HF is a volunteer position and can only take place once a week, it is necessary to have an outside job while in Toulouse.)  When Gabi called, it was to tell me that he was in fact not accepted for next year.  Oh, the shock and disappointment.  I was bummed for Gabi because I know that he would have made an excellent coach as well as English Assistant.  But I was also of course disappointed and worried about the program’s mere existence.  In fact, I still am.  While Evelyne has been the biggest support this year and could most certainly handle the organizational details of HF, she cannot be depended upon to provide a coach to volunteer his or her each week.  What will happen to HF next year is still to be determined.  We have put in calls inquiring more information about Gabi not being accepted and seeing if anything can be done but there has been little positive response.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, one day after receiving this disheartening news, I did receive a much more satisfying phone call.  It was Evelyne and she was calling to let me know that Cheryl, who had been one of the most devoted and passionate participants all year had signed up for Hockey Folie.  Cheryl will be receiving a full set of equipment including her own hockey style roller blades which she had admired throughout the whole thing.

In the end, this last call represented a lot.  We might not know where Hockey Folie will end up (however, with Evelyne’s determination and the fact that we have already got it off the ground there is a good chance that it’s not over), but some of our goals were certainly achieved.

While I’m slightly lost not being on a bus filled with French high school students going back to the suburbs of Toulouse on their half-day, there are great deal of good memories and experiences to keep me content this afternoon.  However, the positive parts of the program are more difficult for me to write about than certain feelings of doubt or regret.  On the train ride back south, I  encountered a feeling of emptiness in returning to a Hockey Folie-less Toulouse.  These feelings are understandable considering that, along with teaching English, HF is the reason that I was here for these months.  But I also have to wonder if one doesn’t always encounter a certain emotional hole when a program such as this one comes to an end.  Looking back on all the different sessions – some more successful than others – I have to wonder how or if I could have squeezed more out of the situation.  The basic question is what more could I have done to ensure that participating in a roller hockey program helped make a positive impact in the lives of these kids?  And to go even further, did I even succeed in making an impact?

The point is that everyone who worked on this helped to get the ball rolling.  When we started HF it was not with the idea that roller hockey, or sports in general, is going to fix all the worlds problems, let alone fix all of one individuals problems.  The idea was more that by offering a positive activity and environment to young people, and one that they can participate in for many years to come, you get the ball rolling for more positive events to happen.

I had to leave for a doctor’s appointment before finishing this post and right after getting back I received a phone call from the states.  Some new complications for next year’s program just arose and I need to try address it.  This post will be continued…

Oh la la.  The inaugural season of Hockey Folie officially ended yesterday with a hard (well, semi-hard) practice, games and a small celebration.  What can I say?  It was sad to say goodbye to the many kids who I worked with and got to know over the past months.  They all worked hard; I put a considerable amount of time and energy into trying to make the program work; and therefore it’s hard to comprehend when it just ends.  Fortunately, the kids made me some fun souvenirs so that – in their words – I don’t forget them.  They gave me a Hocklines T-Shirt signed by all the participants, along with handwritten thank you letters and homemade bleu-blanc-rouge keychain and a necklace.  Normally I’m not one for jewelry, but here I might have to make an exception.

The fact that this chapter of Hockey Folie is over has yet to totally set in with me.  But in ten minutes I’m leaving on a seven hour train ride to see family and friends for Easter weekend and this should give me plenty of time to reflect.  I’ll start sharing these thoughts early next week.  A+.

Time flies.  This next week’s session is going to be the last for Hockey Folie 2009-2010 and I can’t believe it.  The good news is that we got the program started and – so long that Gabi is accepted into the English Assistant Program (my current job) – HF will go on for another year.  The even better news is that if we (me, Evelyne, Gabi, and the A. Scott Foundation) succeed in having a second year of the program, HF will become an official part of the Marie de Toulouse’s budget/offered programs.  Nothing could be more rewarding than to have this program keep rolling, and more kids experience the benefits of hockey, long after I left.

The larger, less-experienced, but just as charming group

When will I learn?  After a hard week at school, I anxiously awaited the first HF session since before France’s winter break.  Given that I had felt really comfortable before the break, I felt prepared and ready to be back at the rink with the kids.  While getting all of the equipment ready I could hear their voices approaching, a little more noise than usual.  Then in walk many faces, faces that I have never seen before.  This was when things became difficult.  It’s not that I don’t like having new participants come; on the contrary, I want new participants to come.  There have been kids new to the sport/HF at virtually every session.  But instead of having a ratio of maybe three new kids to seven returning participants, I now was looking at five returning participants and eight beginners.  This poses some significant challenges to both our stock of equipment as well as my ability to instruct.  Ultimately, it took nearly 45 minutes (nearly half the session) to find enough skates, helmets and gloves to work for everyone.  At the beginning of HF it would take this long even with a smaller group, but we had recently cut this time off since our returning participants know what equipment they need and how to properly put it on. (continued after the pictures…)

After we got everyone going, I had to face the issue that more than half the class had never participated before.  Working with thirteen kids still stretches my language capabilities and also prevents me from being able to give too much attention to just one individual.  Doubting my level of control over a larger and less-experienced group I made the decision not to bring the sticks and pucks out.  The returning kids, who are pretty into playing hockey at the moment were disappointed, but I’ll make sure to make it up to them today.  After explaining my situation to the administrators from the Centre Aèré, hopefully I have the same surprises/problems.

It’s 3:00pm here in Toulouse and I’m supposed to be at the last Hockey Folie session before the kids’ Winter Vacation.  Instead, I’m in my apartment frustrated and severely disappointed.  For towards the end of my hour-long commute from the center of the city out to the Gymnase de la Ramée I received a phone call from my roommate, Pierre.  He was frantic as he asked me if I knew the whereabouts of his car keys.  My first thought was, “absolutely not.”  But checking my gym bag to confirm my initial belief, I found that I did in fact know where his keys were–in my hand.  Apparently, when leaving the house today my anticipation blinded me from noticing that I grabbed his car keys instead of my own house keys, leaving him without a way to get back to work.  Because this was my fault, and Pierre has a famously uncompromising boss, I had no choice but to return home in order to give him his keys back.  Fortunately, thanks to Thibault, Hockline’s always helpful coach, HF is still going on today and our participants will have their fill of hockey for the week.  Unfortunately, I am not there.

Feeling as down as I do right now about missing the last practice, I realize how much the kids and this program have come to mean to me.  Of course, I had an idea before today that I look forward to the moment each week when the kids run into the rink, really excited and ready to put on their skates.  But not until today did I understand how profound of satisfaction and enjoyment I get each week from sharing what I can with the participants and being a part of their progression as hockey players.  (The above picture might give you an idea of why/what I’m missing.  Sad.)

If there’s any consolation for my disappointment right now, it’s knowing that I still have time left to enjoy with the participants and also just being thankful to have had this truly incredible opportunity.

For the program’s first day, we hosted sixteen children at the first Decouvert (Discover) session.  I was completely lost.  Granted, I did not have the experience or confidence that I now have when working with the kids; but the mere technical issue  of how to get sixteen youngsters suited-up into gear when it’s just myself and an assistant from the centre aéré was enough to make me wonder if the program could work.  So after the Decouvert sessions were over Evelyne and I decided that it would be best to host two groups of ten children in six week periods.  Although we made this request to the Centre Aéré, nothing seems to quite go as planned.  Several of the original participants have stopped going the Centre Aéré altogether and others only come sporadically.  Therefore, in the past six weeks I have seen a cast of around twenty different faces with ten who come on a regular basis.  This isn’t all bad which is good because it’s pretty much out of anyone’s control.  (Maybe the only thing to do would be to get the parents more involved, but that’s a whole other issue).

This past week provided some insight into my question over the varying numbers and how that affects the quality or efficacy of the program.  There were only seven players there, yet six of them have come at least five times.  Consequently, they were the players who have made some of the most progress and are developing a real sense of the game’s fundamentals.  So keeping in mind that the current arrangements provide me with few options to have more control over the number of children who participate and how consistently they show up, I decided that the fact there are at least eight children currently really excited about their new sport is enough to keep going.  I might not even change the groups after this coming holiday break and instead encourage some of the people who have been on the fringes to come more often while keeping the consistent participants.
And if you want to see how much progress they have made, check out this video of Ismaël scoring a goal.

Over the summer most of my energy went into finding the equipment necessary to accommodate our target number of twenty participants.  I drafted letters, grant-proposals and other informational materials that were then sent off to equipment manufacturers, retailers, hockey-clubs and foundations with the hopes that someone would support a program that had yet to begun.  Somewhat understandably, the response was minimal.  Fortunately, our work did pay off when Michigan-based, Warrior Hockey, generously donated shin, elbow and shoulder pads to the program.  The nice people at Play It Again Sports in Ann Arbor also understood the value of such a program and offered me an excellent deal on used inline hockey skates.  For the helmets and gloves, Steve Armstrong and the Ann Arbor Pioneer High School Ice Hockey community then did their part in helping out this proud alumni by running an equipment drive.  Although there were times when I was unsure how much equipment we would eventually be able to bring over, in the end we had more just enough to get the l’Hockey Folie off the ground.

Brand new equipment donated from Warrior Hockey

In late-September, I arrived here in Toulouse to be an English teaching assistant and run HF.  This is when my education in French bureaucracy began.  As promised, Evelyne had arranged a partnership with an after-school program at Le Centre Aéré de la Ramée, a community-center run by the city.  Children from Toulouse’s quartiers sensible (sensitive neighborhoods) are bussed here on Wednesday afternoons following their morning classes.  In France, student’s are at school until around 5:30 meaning that most extra-curricular activities take place on their weekly half-day Wednesdays.  It was with this arrangement that we decided to have the program be once a week since that is when the children were available.

For insurance reasons and in order for us to have access to the inline hockey rink where the program would take place, the program also needed approval by le Marie de Toulouse (City Hall).   Although Evelynne had submitted my proposals (translated by my dear friends, Francis Glorie and Alice Nuttin) in August, we were still waiting to hear back from the city when I arrived.  After hearing that the city not only approved but was very enthusiastic about our program, they then told us that, for insurance reasons, we must wait at least one month before the program could begin.  Was this grace period really necessary?  Apparently so.  As anybody who lives in France can tell you, there is little one can do in the face of French bureaucratic decisions and processes.  While waiting for the day when HF would finally begin, I did spend time working at Hockline’s roller hockey school which allowed me to (somewhat) prepare myself for the coming program.

Just when we thought that everything was going to begin, another sports group claimed that they had priority access to the rink.  A week went by where we told that the program would consequently only be able to happen once every three weeks.  How were our participants supposed to improve or get to know the game playing at that rate?  Again, I was thankful to have Evelyne on my side.  She made another appeal to le Marie de Toulouse, reminding them of the many benefits our program would have for the students and including that I came all the way from the states for HF (you do what you gotta do).  They finally gave in and we were granted full-access to the facilities.  Finally, at the end of November and nearly two months after I arrived, l’Hockey Folie kicked-off.

Shortly after my graduation, I came to Toulouse on behalf of the A. Scott Foundation in June 2009 to make the preliminary arrangements to start HF the following autumn.  Having little experience organizing such projects on my own (I had previously worked on other projects with the A. Scott Foundation) and knowing only a few people in Toulouse, I was unsure of how it was all going to work out.  After contacting various organizations throughout France and meeting with local educators, entrepreneurs, people involved in the sporting community, and basically anyone that would talk to me, the country’s governing body for inline hockey, Roller Hockey France, put me in contact with Evelyne Bonnegarde.  This reference was invaluable.  Evelyne is the president and founder of Toulouse’s most prominent inline hockey club, Hocklines.  When we met, I told her about my idea to start a hockey program for young people who would normally not have the exposure nor the funds necessary to participate in a roller hockey club.  “Perfect,” she said.  Ever since starting Hocklines, Evelyne had wanted to introduce such a project but lacked the personnel and resources to get it going.  Together, we would make it happen.

Even with our shared desire to start the program, I still worried about the important details.  What equipment was needed and how could it be obtained?  Where and when would we be able to play?  Most importantly, how would we be able to find and attract young people to participate?  Again, Evelyne had nearly all of the answers.  With the city’s approval, she believed we could use the public rink where Hocklines is currently housed.  She also explained that there was a Centre Aére (after-school center) very close to the rink where children from nearby neighborhoods go every Wednesday after their half-days of school.  The only thing left was the equipment.  Hocklines had some equipment available for interested persons to try, but not enough to support the whole program.  This equipment was also strictly for lending purposes and I envisioned having equipment available to offer to HF particpants who would (hopefully) continue playing long after I left.  So with the idea that the project could work and some idea of what we would need I went back to Ann Arbor for the summer to try and do my part in bringing it all together.

To be continued…

Ah, the first blog post.  I really made a mistake in waiting so long to document what is turning out to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.  But what can you do?  For now we’ll have to just work with what we have.  I am going to try and write a summary of what has gone on with l’Hockey Folie since I arrived in October and where we are now.  Then maybe we’ll be able to figure out where we’re going.