Happy New Year JBAA Members, Supporters, Players, and Sponsors – or if you’re cynical – Happy 2020 Part II,
2020 is dead, long live 2020! If only it were so simple. For this, our first attempt at a quarterly JBAA newsletter (clever name to be determined), we’ll try to stay positive. We’ll also try to avoid the use of Newspeak, though it is becoming popular.
Oh, how great January 2020 was. Not necessarily for JBAA, who lost two matches to their much toughest rivals, Westshore/Velox. But we could all be out, at the pitch, heckling and shooting the shit while watching rugby being played – live and in person.
February was much the same. Losses to Burnaby, wins against UBCOB (those were good), and losses to those British folk in Oak Bay tell the story. But, again, we travelled together, not yet knowing what the hell “social distancing” meant. Even now, the term sounds more like something to be done with a player who refuses to bathe post-game. “Oh, Adam over there doesn’t like water, so we’ve asked him to social distance.”
March saw us win the Cox Cup after defeating those British folk in Stanley Park. Blake van Heyningen cared more about lifting trophies than Chicken on the Run drumsticks – at least back then. Then it all came to an end right after a strange Canada 7s weekend. That weekend, people were still out, enjoying each others’ company. Hand sanitizer and toilet paper couldn’t be found anywhere, but we could still manage to get together and watch rugby on TV, or live, with our friends. The Local and Heron Rock were packed, and we hoped the Beefsteak fundraiser would go on.
Then dread risk fear kicked in, and the world was coming to an end. Everything closed. King Justin Trudeau, second of his name, gave us $2,000 a month. The BC Rugby News twitter feed lit up with teams cancelling their seasons and closing their clubhouses. Then BC Rugby issued a halt to all rugby. It was over, and we were all going to die. But we didn’t.
Club leaders acted quickly – kudos especially to John and Krista de Goede, Barry Robbins, Andrew Moffatt, Sean White, and Dave Ramsay. Barry’s Bootcamp endured (though at times their numbers dwindled to just three, they carried on), players found ways to stay in shape, we put contingency plans in place, Phil Meyer resurfaced some old “Huddy Huddy” gems, and we carried on.
Then our virtual award banquet was pulled off brilliantly – the highlight of which was Andrew Moffatt’s filler language (thank god, he uses “um” and “ah” and not “like”).
The summer is always relatively quiet from a rugby perspective in BC, especially without small Sevens tournaments, but still we endured and got set up for a busy Fall. Caleb Sam won the Phil Mack Trophy, Adam Geggie-Bowker won the Tillman Briggs Junior Bay of the year award, and John de Goede and a few friends spent a weekend shining a hell of a lot of trophies. We’re the most humble rugby club in Canada, right?
Then we asked you about returning to play. You let us know. And we listened. It was July 29th when we made it official that MacDonald would be busy once again. SupaRugby (no points for originality – at all) would go live in September. MacDonald Park would be packed with Seniors Men, teenage boys and girls, and – most importantly – a group of Mighty Minis whose numbers grew a hell of a lot faster than Lord Covid’s.
But not right away. 2020 tossed us a changeup right as we were getting ready to rock – it was smoke, and a lot of it. We’ll spare quoting or paraphrasing John’s email, but let’s just say we think he may have broken a key or two on his keyboard or destroyed his iPhone’s touchscreen when he had to cancel the weekend. Rumor has it, it was after this weekend that he started having Siri transcribe for him.
Then for the next few weeks and weekends we played touch rugby, and we played a lot of it, and we played as much of it as we could.
Club legend, Lew Madley, turned 99 in November – oh, how we wish we could’ve thrown him a party – we’ll keep our fingers crossed this year.
Then in December, Lord Covid decided to come back, and just like that, rugby was over again. MacDonald Park went quiet, and still is. Barry’s Bootcamp endures, players continue to stay fit (and eat chicken drumsticks, and not clean up after themselves in the gym on Sunday nights). But still, we managed to get things done in December. We sold every last Christmas Tree we could get our hands on. Then we chipped every last tree that was dropped off after Christmas. And this year, in 2021 (or 2020 Part II), we’ll continue to be resilient – we always have been and we always will be (see footnotes).
The most important commentary is, of course, saved for last. And this paragraph is important. We lost some of our own in 2020, and they were really good ones. Jack Wright, George Jones, Mike Whittaker, Mike Blades, and Scott Humphrey all died last year. We couldn’t even meet or be together for celebrations of life or funerals. Whenever this piece of shit virus gets lost, we will most certainly have a celebration of life for all of these gentlemen because they deserve it, and they deserve it a lot. May they all rest in peace.
It’s still written on a small piece of paper in the JBAA gym, and we often use the phrase in our Huddy Huddy reports, but this year, more than ever, we truly have adhered to a saying that Pat Dunkley probably never thought would become a part of the JBAA lexicon: “excuses are weak. JBAA must be strong.”
Thank you, JBAA Members, Supporters, Players, and Sponsors, we never heard you let COVID be an excuse – not once.
Huddy, Huddy all you Bays!
Footnotes:
Here are some things we’ve endured since JBAA was founded:
Second Boer War, the Spanish Flu, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, Victoria City Council, that whole “Soviet threat” thing (is that you, Ben?), the 2008 Financial Crisis, Victoria City Council, and Lord COVID.
And we’ll handle anything else the world throws at us too.