Congratulations to Wayne Schnurr of Oakville, ON who won the 2009 Great Canadian Big contest.
Here is Wayne's winning story:
"I woke up Sunday morning not sure what I was going to do. As you know, we have a great community ice rink in my neighborhood. You also know that Julian received some skates from my family at Christmas. Since the weather had been sub-zero for the previous week, I figured that the ice would be perfect and thought today's the day that Julian should learn how to skate. Even though we had been to the Marlies game the day before, when the time's right to learn to skate, you have to take advantage of it.
I called him up and he was very keen. I picked him up 20 minutes later. As we ate lunch at my place, I told him that most people fall on their butt 20 times the first time they skate. If he only fell 15 times then that should be considered a success. He was still very keen.
As we walked the 1 minute that it takes to get to the rink, he started talking about how his feet were cold, his hands were cold and he was tired. As I started to help him put his skates on, he suggested that his feet have grown a lot in the one month since he received the skates and suggested that they might not fit. The confidence was clearly gone and he was busy building up his excuses. After all, who could expect a cold, tired kid with suddenly-big feet to be able to skate?
He walked in his skates about 10 feet to the edge of the ice and then froze as he thought about stepping onto the ice. He mumbled every excuse possible about how maybe this wasn't the best day to learn. Finally, after a couple of minutes I was able to prod him onto the ice.
He held my arm tightly as he moved a few feet and then... splat... he fell onto his behind. His spirits were hurt more than anything else but he managed to get up. This happened a couple more times and he was getting very frustrated. I gave him my "it doesn't matter how many times you fall, it only matters how many times you get up" speech. Finally, he fell and refused to get up. He covered his face and I thought he was going to cry. My cause wasn't helped when a girl from his school skated up to him and said "Wow, you really suck".
I thought the day --- and his short-lived skating career --- were over. As this point, the story could have 2 possible endings. Ending #1 would be for us to leave the rink immediately and probably never return again. Ending #2 would be ..... Julian was convinced to give it one more try. In order to make sure he didn't go over the edge with his frustration, the next half hour was spent essentially walking him very gingerly around the ice. Eventually, he was able to stand if not skate. Then he was able to move around the ice on his own. We kept kidding him that he has the world's worst memory since he kept forgetting that he didn't know how to skate. As you can imagine, his head was getting bigger and bigger and his confidence was growing by the minute.
Julian then spent the next couple of hours (yeah, that's not a typo) practicing his skating on his own and trying out his new hockey stick. I eventually had to drag him away from the rink. He's still a very novice skater and clearly this is just chapter #1 in his skating career. But, for a while I didn't think there would be a chapter 2. Now I'm positive that there will be many more chapters to come.
I think he learned some important things that day. And learning how to skate was probably the least important one.
-Wayne
Click here to read other great stories from alumni members across the country.