Travel Diary: Belfast: A Hockey City With Fewer Troubles
By DAVID ABBOTT
When Zoom Airlines announced the start of a direct flight between Vancouver and Belfast beginning in May, it was a vote of confidence for a city that, after four decades of despair, is undergoing a rebirth. It is a city of fewer troubles than many within the EU, and is clearly savouring the renaissance that started a few years ago.
During various visits last year it was a pleasure to stroll around the city centre that was heightened while watching a thriving social hub of young well-dressed couples sipping cappuccinos at fashionable cafes. There’s a clutch of new boutique hotels and first-class restaurants that are world-class,some like chef/owner Paul Rankin’s that are pulling customers from the suburbs, sending a signal that it’s safe to come out of your home.
Business can only get better when Europe’s largest shopping mall opens in the heart of the city next year. Tourists from the UK will likely flood in.
But, it certainly was strange walking downtown Belfast streets at night. You are alone. There is no one else on the street. It’s somewhat uncomfortable. The pubs are packed but outside there’s a stillness. I wondered where everyone was and later learned nobody lives downtown any longer.
A walk along gentrified Laganside made me wonder at the cleanliness of the river. It’s not drinkable but at least you wouldn’t die if you fell in. Walk a little further and you’ll discover the gleaming Odyssey home to the Belfast Giants Hockey team the catalyst for the awarding-winning documentary When Hockey Came to Belfast about which you’ll read more in this paper.
Around Town
The celebration of St. Patrick’s week in Vancouver included an invitation to a “Kitchen Party” organized by Melissa Carr-Quinlan, ably assisted by husband budding actor David Quinlan, at John and Ann Carr’s Dunbar home. The “hooley” was to celebrate the arrival of two teenage hockey addicts from Belfast, Paul and Andrew, who were on a two-week visit, with their parents, as guests of the Vancouver Canucks.
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| DAVE ABBOTT on stage at the Celtic Heritage Society dinner on St. Patrick’s Day with Paul and Andrew visiting from Belfast, (stars of the documentary When Hockey Came to Belfast). Dave introduced the boys to the audience at the dinner dance. |
Newfoundlander Linda Conway, on a visit to Belfast some years earlier, birthplace of her parents, discovered the Belfast Giants hockey team. And although familiar with the sectarian differences and violence in the city she was intrigued to discover two boys who, despite being from Protestant and Catholic communities, were good friends.
Ice hockey, unlike soccer or Gaelic football, was and is non-sectarian. She decided to tell their story, with National Film Board assistance, and produced the award-winning documentary When Hockey Came To Belfast.
The two 17-year-olds, whose names may not be used because of security concerns, spent their time exploring Vancouver and hobnobbing with Canuck coach Marc Crawford and Dublin-born Olympic boss John Furlong.
Their maturity and poise dealing with numerous press interviews, television shows and personal appearances was impressive. Both trade apprentices they took to public speaking like seasoned performers. They joined a training session with the Canucks and watched the Chicago Black Hawks game. The lads confessed the visit exceeded all their expectations.
The boy’s mothers, Anne Marie and Hannah, admitted they never would have met across the two solitudes. The friendship between the boys brought them together and after this trip, they said “we are like sisters.”
Picking up part of the costly tab for the two-week visit of both families was Jim Yaworski, a Calgarian high-tech guru, who had dreamed of playing professional hockey in the NHL but didn’t make the grade. But he did promise that one day if he couldn’t play he’d buy a team.
Thirty years later, as the owner of the Belfast Giants ice hockey team, he fulfilled his dream. That it loses one million dollars every year is not relevant! This is love.
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| MALACHY MAHON, the former president of the Celtic Heritage Society, took a break from basking in the sun at his new home in New Mexico to visit Vancouver this past March. |
On Parade
Supporters of the Celtic Heritage Society will be pleased to learn Malachy Mahon is enjoying life in New Mexico where his newly built house is close by his private plane which he flies without worrying about the weather.
Malachy’s Paddy's Day Parade legacy lives on, with more than 100,000 watchers on the city’s main artery, Granville Street, enjoying the music, dancing and the bands. Former beauty queen and Celtically-challenged B.C.’s Finance Minister Carole Taylor was Herself for the day as Grand Marshall. She needs to practice her wave. Maybe she should take lessons from former GG/HRH Adrienne Clarkson?
Current Celtic Heritage President Tony McCamley and VP George McDonnell – who between them win the look-a-like-leprechaun contest continued the tradition in fine style After hosting 500 Celtic enthusiasts, including Liberal Minister of Forestry and Housing Rich Coleman, at a successful (made a little profit) Paddy's night at the Greek Church Hall on 31st and Arbutus, the tireless twosome arrived at sparrows-tweat on a semi-trailer flatbed with a plethora of dancers, fiddlers, and singers for the sunny Sunday parade.
On Record
Back in town after shooting a new movie in Eastern Europe The Highlander - The Source singer-actor-composer Jim Byrnes is busier than a one-legged hockey player. His newest CD, due for release next month, House of Refuge – Hope, Longing, Sin and Redemption seems a fitting title since as a young man he contemplated becoming a priest. Perhaps his new gospel CD is a nod towards St. Peter!
Jim accompanied Mayor Sam Sullivan for the closing ceremonies of the Torino Para-Olympic Games where he performed his own composition Of Who Shall I Be Afraid at the closing ceremonies. He’ll do the same for Vancouver’s own 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Whistler.
Hanging Up!
Maeve Binchey is now hanging in the Ireland's National Art Gallery. Over an amusing liquid lunch last year in Finnegan’s pub in Dalkey, she confided husband Gordon Snell (a distinguished author in his own right) consented to being painted into a corner of the giant oil!
Maeve is now hanging about with the likes of Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.
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Dave Abbott is heard three times daily on Vancouver’s 600AM Radio. He can be reached at abbott@telus.net, or visit his website at: www.irishlaughter.com.
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