Unicycle Hockey Exhibition games during Inline Hockey Tournament at major mall.

So I get this phonecall...(actually this one was an email) from the lady
who heads up the InLine Hockey club where we play. They have a set of
portable boards used to create a temporary rink and to get some
additional exposure for their sport, they've arranged to have this rink
erected at a major shopping center in Pretoria.
The rink will be up for a period of a week and they'll play two
tournaments on the two Saturdays, with lots of practise time and
'give-it-a-try' time during the week.
Would we be interested in playing some exhibition games?
Is the pope catholic?
Are the Kennedys gun-shy?
Does a one legged duck swimming upstream in winter get a cold arse?

Uhm, yes.
We have to pay a pretty hefty fee to get to play as they have to cover
the costs of erecting the rink. We'll make a plan, we'll get some
sponsorship or else we'll all chip in. We'll make a plan.
We can't miss out on this kind of opportunity to get this kind of
exposure.
They also added some info about us to their website.
C'heck it ou' (http://tinyurl.com/mt64c)t.


Just in case you want to drop them a line and thank them for hosting
Unicycle Hockey, you can m'ail them he'
)re.

I'll keep you updated with info and a write-up of the games.


--
GILD

'three short gs and a long e-flat™'
(http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5_1.wav) - 'world jump
day' (http://www.worldjumpday.org/)
'if i'm murdered, don't execute my killer.'
(http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1539/)
'harper' (http://tinyurl.com/c9epx)
'NAMASTE!' (http://tinyurl.com/4qcxw)
'Dave' (http://www.lyricsdir.com/d/deep-purp...ld-in-time.php)
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GILD wrote:

So I get this phonecall...

....

Would we be interested in playing some exhibition games?

Wow, good luck. I hope it goes well. It's always nice to be contacted
about these things.

Unicycle Hockey

I'm glad to see that you've seen the light

I'll keep you updated with info and a write-up of the games.

Please do.

Cheers,

Roger

That's an excellent opportunity, good work Dave!


--
MrBoogiejuice

---unicycle for Bilious - The Oh-God of hangovers---
Make crumbs not War!
Just blame it on the boogie...
www.unicyclepics.co.uk Get your pics out!
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The day started rather stormily.
Not because of dodgy weather, but because we're doing a Circus School
job at another shopping center in Pretoria.
Between the end of that job and the start of the game, we have an hour
to do a 45 minute drive, find parking get ready, get on the rink and
play UniHoki.
EISH!
Devin stays in Pretoria, he knows how to get there, but he has to go
home first cause he forgot some basics. Like his stick and his shoes.
I'm amazed he remembered the unicycle.
Garth has a vague idea of how to get there.
He'll follow Devin (till Devin has to turn off to go to his house - so
he'll be a bit late) to get on the right route and we'll all follow
Garth.
As we leave the shopping center, everybody decides to buy some pies
first.
Must have victuals.
We leave at 12h45.
No stress. I'm waiting for Alan and Andre to get ready to follow me
following Garth.
Who's following Devin.
Please try n keep up.
Which I didn't try to do cause I assumed Garth would wait for the
convoy to form up.
Plan B.
It takes a while for Allan to join myself and Andre in our
mini-(secondary) convoy, at which time Garth and Devin are simply
distant memories.
I phone urgently but Garth's phone rings merrily to voicemail.
I start stressing. And I don't do stress well.
I phone Devin. He could've been a Californian Surfer Dude. Not a
problem, he tells me, just come out of the parking lot and go up to the
traffic lights (we call them robots but I'll spare you that little
cross-atlantic confusion today) and turn left. Follow that road till
you get to DF MALAN Road then turn left again. From there, you'll have
to turn right into Schuman street and follow that untill you go
straight thru the middle of Pretoria, out the other side, and find the
highway, follow signs to Johannesburg and the next offramp will take
you to the venue.
Lovely.
All this on a cellphone, while I'm trying to eat a pepper steak pie and
some chips and avoid being killed by minibus taxis who believe they're
carrying militiamen in Beirut and are in a quite a rush to get to
wherever they're going.
I'm getting phonecalls from other players. "Where is this place?"
"I'm here, where are you?"
I'm really, really tense by now.
The TV guy from SuperCycling phones.
"Where is this place?"
I try n give him directions to a place I'm desperately trying to find.
In the meantime, the road is doing all sorts of interesting things that
Devin didn't tell me about.
"Go Straight" isn't meant to be confused with the S-bending, slipway
route I had to follow to stay on the road I wasn't on.
No wonder he's such a good player.
Then I get a phonecall from Devin, "Sorry man, Schuman doesn't start
that low, take BLOOD, and then left in..."
How it happened, I have no idea, but I found the highway. Andre and
Allan are blissfully ignorant of all of this.
They think I have a clue.
Ha!
We hit the highway, armed with Devin's warning "It's a tricky bugger,
take the fork left, but then take the right hand side fork and the left
hand side fork off the right hand fork".
No wonder the Chinese use chopsticks.
"But just keep following the JOHANNESBURG signs and you'll be fine."
Great.
I'm following the Johannesburg signs. Somewhere between the various
right- and left hand forks, Nigel phones. "I'm at the IMAX theatre..."
I manage to get him to the Arena side of the complex, but in the
process miss the final fly-under JOHANNESBURG sign.
I see it, from the wrong side of the road, as I hang up the phone.
I phone Devin, man-o-the-hour. He tells me to panic.
I take the next offramp, cross over the bridge, get back on the
highway, heading the right way now.
As I take the JOHANNESBURG fork, I notice that Allan isn't behind Andre
anymore.
Phrantic Phonecall.
Turns out Garth took a wrong turn somewhere and hooked up to the back
of us and since we seemed to know where we were going, he joined us.
Untill he decided that we were about to take a wrong turn.
He managed to get Allan's attention, but Andre and myself went
blissfully along and didn't make a wrong turn.
Suffice it to say that their corrective measure included going thru the
same tollgate twice, and having to pay, both times.
As jy dom is moet jy kak.
We eventually arrive at Menlyn.
A monster of a shopping center where even the parking attendants admit
that it can be a bit confusing.
I eventually manage to find parking, I manage to find the rink and sit
down to relax.
Just briefly.

By the time Al and Garth join us, we're running a bit behind, but
nothing serious.
We get the kit (BEEEG thanx to Allan for sponsoring and sorting that
out for us), pick teams and take to the rink.
A bit smaller than we're used to but a lovely smooth surface.
The bevelled corners are more angular than we're used to and this
really nice as the ball is less likely to hug the wall all the way,
making it virtually impossible to play. It comes off the wall nicely,
but at a different angle to the brickwall we're used to at the Rangers
Rink.
All told is was a very close game with nothing given, nor asked.

There are some pi'cs up in the ga'
(http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/?g...d=221985)llery.

For disturbingly obvious reasons, I quite like this one...
[image:
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery2/m...8d4e21cb8e65b]


While this one gives a better idea of the venue.

[image:
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery2/m...8d4e21cb8e65b]

There is also an 18mb video cl'ip up her'
(http://www.100acre.org/juggle/unihoki_060715/)e.

I did an interview with the guy from SuperCycling after the game.
That's to be broadcast in August sometime.
He'll let me know.
A lady also came up to me during halftime.
She's involved in a stunt company and they're looking to add some other
interesting activities to their roster.
Unicycling caught her eye.
They also operate a 'Bridge Swing' just outside Pretoria.
"Ah, can I do a bridge swing on my unicycle?" I ask.
"If you do it on your uni, you can have the swing for free" she tells
me.
I like her already.

On our way out we decided to pop into a skate park just around the
corner and found a stunning inline rink.
Narrower than we're used to, but much longer.
We're playing again at Menlyn on Wednesday evening at 19h00 and next
Saturday at 13h00 after which we're heading off to the skatepark to go
play another game on their rink.

We've now got a couple of venues.
We're thinking about hosting the first World Cup Unicycle Hockey
Tournament in 2010.

Anyone interested?


--
GILD

'three short gs and a long e-flat™'
(http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5_1.wav) - 'world jump
day' (http://www.worldjumpday.org/)
'if i'm murdered, don't execute my killer.'
(http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1539/)
'harper' (http://tinyurl.com/c9epx)
'NAMASTE!' (http://tinyurl.com/4qcxw)
'Dave' (http://www.lyricsdir.com/d/deep-purp...ld-in-time.php)
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Great write up. sounds like heaps of fun. I'd love to come. Would it
take me long to get there?

Cathy


--
cathwood

Say no to unicycle genre discrimination! - MrBoogiejuice

http://www.chuckingandtwirling.co.uk
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Not long, just ask Devin for directions.


--
GILD

'three short gs and a long e-flat™'
(http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5_1.wav) - 'world jump
day' (http://www.worldjumpday.org/)
'if i'm murdered, don't execute my killer.'
(http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1539/)
'harper' (http://tinyurl.com/c9epx)
'NAMASTE!' (http://tinyurl.com/4qcxw)
'Dave' (http://www.lyricsdir.com/d/deep-purp...ld-in-time.php)
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Phew! I was getting jittery just reading that.

Good on yer for the excellent exposure. Did you get funding sorted in
the end or did you have a whip round?


--
MrBoogiejuice

---unicycle for Bilious - The Oh-God of hangovers---
Make crumbs not War!
Just blame it on the boogie...
www.unicyclepics.co.uk Get your pics out!
Send submissions to
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The shirts were sponsored by Alan, who stuck his website unicycle.co.za
on the back.
We dipped into the Juggling Club fund (money earned by doing things
like the circus school gig) to pay the entry fee for the event.
We've got a signage company interested in sponsoring us as well.

As soon as we can come up with a decent logo-design, we're looking at
getting a sign made to go up on the side of the clubhouse back at our
home rink.

Any suggestions?


--
GILD

'three short gs and a long e-flat™'
(http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/beethoven_sym5_1.wav) - 'world jump
day' (http://www.worldjumpday.org/)
'if i'm murdered, don't execute my killer.'
(http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1539/)
'harper' (http://tinyurl.com/c9epx)
'NAMASTE!' (http://tinyurl.com/4qcxw)
'Dave' (http://www.lyricsdir.com/d/deep-purp...ld-in-time.php)
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Hey GILD, didn't the springboks get absoloutly thrashed by AUS in the
last rugby game?

but back on topic, in your design you need a wheel and a hockey stick
crossed over it, kind of like the mighty ducks symbol but with a
unicycle instead of a duck mask.


--
iridemymuni

The past is in your head, the future's in our hands

~~hold bananas for christ~~
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[image:
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery2/m...69b06bfa4c0f0]


--
iridemymuni

The past is in your head, the future's in our hands

~~hold bananas for christ~~
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