Your first tournament of the Granite State League 2015-2016 season was held in late February in Concord, NH. After winning the first two games, your team moved into the leader bracket.

The semi-final game was a tough match-up.  You played your heart out but ultimately lost 3-1.

While you scored your team’s only goal, it wasn’t a consolation.  For you, hockey isn’t just a game,  it’s something more meaningful, something that feeds your soul and returns a favor for all your hard work. You took the loss hard, not only as your team’s proven leader but at a personal level.

Grammy and I will always remember you sitting outside the entrance door of the Everett Arena on the sidewalk after the game, looking down, eyes tearing up, not able to say a word. That’s how much hockey means to you.

You learned a valuable lesson that day.  Sometimes, even when you give it your all, you don’t win.  What determines your character and ultimate success as a human being is your ability to put it behind you, welcome a new day, try even harder and never, ever give up.

Everyone had a great time at Grammy’s “retirement” party, held at Martingale Wharf in Portsmouth overlooking the Piscataqua River.  While she’s only 60 years old… young to stop working…  it was the right time for a number of reasons. Grammy and I built a successful business (Beaupre & Co. Public Relations) from scratch beginning in May, 1983.   Having worked together nearly every day for 33 years, it will be a big adjustment for both of us.  We made a great team if I say so myself – she was “inside” and I was “outside.”  She handled the people management and financial side; I handled the client and new business side.  It was a match made in heaven!  thanks for being with us on a special night she will always remember!

Star Wars, always my favorite sci-fi movie, debuted the latest film in the now seven film franchise this week: The Force Awakens.  Uncle Tim, Camden, Ben and Emma (aka The 3 Musketeers) and yours truly made the journey on a cold winter night, the day after the official opening on Friday, December 18. 

It was a big deal for a bunch of reasons:

• It featured the original “big three” actors – Harrison Ford (as Han Solo), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia). and Mark Hamill (in a brief cameo role at the end as Luke Skywalker).
• it was directed by J.J. Abrams (his first Star Wars) who lovingly returned the movie to its  “original three” standard of quality (the second three films were not very good in my and many others’ opinions).  It was like watching the original Star Wars from 1977!
• We went with your Dad aka “Uncle Tim” who was born in 1977 and grew up loving the Star Wars movies.  In the early 1980’s, I  built a six foot x four foot Star Wars set in our basement at 1 Rowland Street in Somersworth, NH that featured a swamp (where Yoda lives), the winter planet “Hoth” (featured in the second movie “the Empire Strikes Back”) and a sand planet (Tatooine where Luke lived as a boy, featured in the first Star Wars).  We’d play for hours with the figurines, battling the Dark Force.
• the movie eventually set all kinds of records including the fastest film to gross $1 billion – 12 days. And the biggest worldwide opening weekend and single weekend gross – $529 million.
• Emma and Ben – you had never seen a Star Wars movie, so this was your first experience.
• Camden (thanks to his Dad) binge-watched all six of them before seeing the Force Awakens.
• whether it was your first Star Wars experience or 20th, it was fun and fantastic.