Peace. Happiness. Massage. sports » Start Thinking About Maccabi Steve Stein | Contributing Writer S LaVida Massage gift cards are the perfect gift for everybody. FREE $50 LQ%RQXV &HUWLÀFDWHV ZLWKSXUFKDVHRILQ*LIW&DUGV Offer Expires: 12/31/16 $49 95 &XVWRP0DVVDJH 6HVVLRQ 0LQXWH6HVVLRQIRU1HZ&OLHQWV (Reg. $79.95) /D9LGD0DVVDJHRI%ORRPÀHOG7RZQVKLS 3617 West Maple Road %ORRPÀHOG7RZQVKLS0, /D9LGD0DVVDJHFRP%7_ Session includes time for consultations and dressing. Franchise opportunities available. Call 248.360.6157 Open 7 Days a Week | Extended Hours | Licensed Therapists You Can Feel the Difference! Call or Book Online! 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.