'Twas The Night Before the Big Game
With apologies to Clement Moore.
‘Twas the night before school and all through the Manor,
‘Twas the night before school and all through the Manor,
Not a creature was stirring, not even Jerry and his hammer.
The balls were all pumped and ready for play
In hopes that post-COVID sports would save the day.
The children were all nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of races, goals, spikes and volleys danced in their heads.
Alex in his sweats and Bryan in his cleats,
Were plotting corner kicks and plays to put other teams on their seats.
When out on the brand new Innes Field there arose… a dome? But I digress.
Trish, Rachel, Glenn and Jay
sprang from their chairs to see what was the matter.
Away to the volleyball net they swept
Only to have their masks soon leave them out of breath.
The LED lights on the breast of new-fallen dew
showed Dave, Kyle, Kody and Gord, unsure what to do.
“More cohorting,” they said, “This will just not do.”
But what to their wondering eyes should appear
But a parade of SUVs and sports cars
With many soccer players popping out of vans,
They knew in a moment they better come up with plans.
More rapid than most runners, the XC coaches came.
And they whistled and shouted as they called out their names.
Now Merrick! Now Jamie! Now Marianne! Now Caitlin! Now Katie!
On, Leslie! On, Kathryn! On, Julie! On, Adam and Amy!
To the top of the road, to the top of the hill.
They made XC running a thrill.
And then, in a rainstorm, Doch finally heard from the stands
The whistling and cheering of our family fans.
As G.T. and David taught teams to attack the net,
They came down the field with nary a fret.
Justin and the unicorn were ready to play
It really did not matter the time of day.
The players all dressed in green from head to cleat
They were ready to play in the snow and the sleet.
A bundle of volleyballs Jenn had flung like a sack
Hoping the grads soon would be back.
The young volleyballers learned to spike
Under the guidance of Jess and Mike.
The field only had room for eleven
But that did not stop us from playing almost every Grade 7.
Mills, Franktony, Johnson and Ben were up to the task
They kept them all without even an ask.
Ashley and Pete sprang to their team with whistles
And soon had the boys moving like missles.
We screened, we tracked and took time to trace.
That never stopped us from winning the race.
As the fall season came to a close and I could see that it went just so.
I cried out to all, “Where would we be without Joe?”
