Ping Pong Dreams Shattered

Saturday, October 27, 2012

I know it’s been awhile since I last posted. Well....not much has been happening. Just the same old routine. However, we have been busy the last few weeks preparing for a ping pong tournament in Iqaluit this weekend. With a team of 7, 4 boys and 3 girls, ranging from Grades 9-12, we have been practicing every day afternoon, and putting all our efforts fundraising in school and in the community so that the tournament expenses would be covered for. With 7 super excited players and motivated to come back as champions, and two coaches (myself and Jeff), we arrived at the Hall Beach airport yesterday afternoon. Then everything changed for the worst!

Due to poor weather conditions and the failure for the plane to land at its previous stop, there were excess passengers on our flight and even though we had seats reserved, apparently, this did not matter. We were told that they only had 7 out of our 9 seats available. While still in shock, the time was ticking to tell the bad news. We decided that we only needed one coach to go, me, so we had to tell one player that they couldn't go. Luckily, she took the news very well and there were no hard feelings. When we told them our decision at the counter, they told us we needed to get rid of one more!!! In complete anger and shock, our next let-go was extremely heartbreaking. Then after that move, we were informed AGAIN that another two had to be left behind. And now there were only 4/9 players who could ago! We decided the best decision and most fair decision was to not go at all. I can really go on and on about this situation but we’re keeping our heads up. It’s horrible and unfortunate that it even happened.