Nine Degrees of Continental…

Last Saturday I organized a party for a friend. This is always fun. Well, the result is always fun. The actual organizing part can be really awful. Especially when most of those that thought it was a great idea at the beginning and offered all kinds of ideas and help have evaporated leaving you to do everything. Oh, they show up the day of and have a great time, but there is a definite lapse. You know this already though.

The party was for Jim Oreto. He ran Toronto’s Bill Bolton Arena for 39 years and was retiring. I have played hockey at Bill Bolton since I was seven years old, just a year or two after Jim took over. I still play there on the Tuesday night men’s league. My son plays in his teenage league on Fridays and my daughters have taken lessons there. It is certainly a community centre.

Something about wigs happened at the party. I really did not think that a party dominated by middle aged hockey hacks would have this happen but it did. A wife of one of the guys was there. I recognized here because she is a client. She got a wig from me last summer. I got a wonderful thank you card from her last fall. But that was not the real wig surprise.

One of the guys introduced me to his wife. He is Russian and just a bear-hug of a man. Always with that cheerful smile. He even laughs with a Russian accent. His wife says that she has met me before. I am at a loss. She said that she bought a wig from me two years ago and that she is not surprised that I do not remember her. I asked the ultimate question; “Was she happy with it?” She was very happy with it. Then a friend was going through chemo as well so it was lent to her. And then just recently a relative started going through chemo so it was given to her. It seems that my wigs really get around.

It was a great evening for Jim. But it was a great night for me as well. Not only did my hard work pay off for all my hockey buddies. But it seems my hard work also pays off for women that I have never even met.