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62 November 24 • 2016
ure, it’s only November, but it’s
time to start thinking about next
summer’s 2017 JCC Maccabi
Games & ArtsFest. Information meet-
ings for prospective Detroit athletes and
artists and their parents will be held next
month at the Jewish Community Center
in West Bloomfield.
Meetings for team sports will be from
1-2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11, and 6-7 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 15. Meetings for individ-
ual sports will be from 2-3 p.m. Sunday,
Dec. 11, and 7-8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15.
ArtsFest meetings will be from 3-4
p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11, and 8-9 p.m.
Thursday, Dec. 15.
It’s necessary to attend either a Sunday
or Thursday meeting. Attendees will
meet the coaches, get a tryout/audition
schedule, learn about the host locations
and get their questions answered.
Jewish teens ages 13-16 as of July 31,
2017, can compete in Maccabi Games
sports. ArtsFest participants can be
age 17. Acting/improv, culinary, dance,
musical theater, rock band, star report-
ers, visual arts and vocal music/glee are
the ArtsFest categories.
Detroit Maccabi Games delega-
tions will travel south next summer to
Birmingham, Ala., and Miami, Fla. The
Birmingham Games will be July 30-Aug.
4 and the Miami Games, which will
include ArtsFest, will be Aug. 6-11.
So what’s new with the Maccabi
Games? Gymnastics will return next
summer and will be held in Miami. It’s
an individual sport.
Locally, a teen Maccabi Games com-
mittee has been formed. Its 10 members
are teens who are too old to participate
in the Maccabi Games or are still partici-
pating.
“We’re real excited about the com-
mittee,” said Detroit co-delegation head
Franci Silver. “These kids are going to
help us with recruiting and other aspects
like new uniforms, new team colors and
a new logo.”
The committee held its first meeting
Nov. 13. It will meet again Dec. 11.
“It will probably meet every couple
months, but the kids on the committee
are keeping connected through social
media,” Silver said.
Co-delegation head Karen Gordon
came up with the teen committee idea.
Ice hockey will return to the Maccabi
Games in 2017 after a solid debut in
2016. It will be held in Miami.
For information about the Maccabi
Games or to have a question answered
before the meetings, call (248) 432-5482
or email jccmaccabi@jccdet.org.
Looking ahead, it appears Detroit will
be a Maccabi Games site once again in
2019.
“It’s not a 100 percent done deal, but
that’s our intention,” Silver said.
Detroit last hosted the Maccabi Games
in 2014.
WANTED: HOCKEY EQUIPMENT
Do you have hockey equipment around
the house that isn’t being used?
Drop it off Sunday, Dec. 18, at the
Farmington Hills Ice Arena, 35500
W. Eight Mile Road. That’s when the
Farmington Hills Jaguars, coached by
Mark Weiss, will play the MORC Stars in
an exhibition hockey game and hold an
equipment drive for the Stars.
The game will be from 12:45-2:15 p.m.,
and the drive will be from noon-2 p.m.
This is the fifth year the Jaguars have
held the drive. It has gotten more suc-
cessful each year.
All equipment, except jerseys and
socks, is accepted. Equipment for players
of all ages can be donated. New equip-
ment also is welcome.
The Jaguars are a Midget B house
team that plays in the Little Caesars
Hockey Association. Weiss and four of
his players are Jewish. Because the team
has a connection with Frankel Jewish
Academy, it does not play on Shabbos.
MORC is the acronym for the Clinton
Township-based Macomb-Oakland
Regional Center, which provides services
and support for individuals with disabili-
ties and mental illness.
The Stars are MORC’s hockey teams.
About 100 players, youths and adults, are
in the volunteer-run program.
Former U.S. Olympic hockey team
member Pete Ciavaglia, the Stars’ found-
er and director, helped officiate last year’s
exhibition game.
Weiss learned about the Stars several
years ago when his son Emery coached
players for a mitzvah project while he
was a student at Hillel Day School.
*
Send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.