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Year In
Review
Lots of hockey equipment was dropped off Sunday in the Farmington Hills Ice Arena lobby.
Steve Stein | Contributing Writer
H
ere are some of our favorite
sports stories of 2016.
‘ALL GOOD’
The Farmington Hills Jaguars’ fifth
annual exhibition hockey game against
the MORC Stars on Sunday at the
Farmington Hills Arena and hockey
equipment drive for the Stars once
again was a success.
“All good,” said Jaguars coach Mark
Weiss. “It was a great game (the Stars
won 6-5) and a lot of equipment was
dropped off in the lobby of the arena.
Plenty of skates and sticks and other
things the Stars need.”
Weiss said the amount of equipment
brought in was comparable to last year,
which was the drive’s best year.
MORC is the acronym for the
Clinton Township-based Macomb-
Oakland Regional Center, which
provides services and support for indi-
viduals with disabilities and mental
illness.
About 100 players, youths and
adults, are in MORC’s volunteer-run
hockey program. The program’s found-
er and director is former U.S. Olympic
hockey team member Pete Ciavaglia.
The Jaguars are a Midget B (players
born in 2000 or 2001) house team that
competes in the Little Caesars Hockey
Association. Weiss and four of his play-
ers are Jewish. The team has a connec-
tion with Frankel Jewish Academy, so
it does not practice or play on Shabbos.
HOCKEY AT MACCABI GAMES
Mark Weiss was involved in another
favorite story of 2016. He was the
coach of the Detroit team that com-
peted in the first JCC Maccabi Games
& ArtsFest hockey competition.
The hockey tournament took place
48 December 22 • 2016
at two rinks in Stamford, Conn., with
a dozen U16 teams made up of more
than 200 players competing. The
Maccabi Games began in 1983 and
have been held almost every summer
since then.
Weiss’ Detroit team went 3-3 and
came within one victory of making it
to the medal round. Eighteen players
— the maximum allowed — were on
the Detroit roster.
Weiss said he’s started work on put-
ting together a Detroit hockey team for
the 2017 Maccabi Games.
COOL UNDER PRESSURE
Detroit dancer Melanie Taylor received
a Midot medal at the JCC Maccabi
Games in St. Louis for showing grace
and kindness during a difficult situa-
tion.
Linda Taylor, Melanie’s mother
and the Detroit dance coach, said a
Maccabi Games volunteer “snapped”
at Melanie at a dinner in a case of mis-
taken identity regarding garbage being
placed in the wrong container.
The volunteer was so impressed
with Melanie’s level-headed response
to the false accusation that the vol-
unteer made extra efforts to find out
Melanie’s name and recommend her
for a Midot medal. Melanie is a junior
at Birmingham Seaholm High School.
WHO NEED SPIKES?
It wasn’t a smooth debut for
Rabbi Brent Gutmann in the
InterCongregational Men’s Club
Summer Softball League.
The new rabbi at Temple Kol Ami,
who left a rabbinical post in New
Zealand, played in a softball league
game five days before his first official
day as Kol Ami rabbi.
He couldn’t wear the metal spikes
he recently purchased because metal
spikes aren’t allowed in the league. So
he played in brown work shoes. And
he played outfield with a new first
baseman’s mitt he bought.
He missed his first at-bat because he
needed to change his shoes, but he had
an infield single in his first and only
plate appearance.
Despite the wardrobe malfunctions,
the good-natured Gutmann called the
day a success.
“It was a great way to socialize with
the guys on the team, plus I batted
1.000,” the Dayton, Ohio, native said.
‘THE GREAT WHITE DOPE’
Detroit podiatrist Dr. Stuart
Kirschenbaum lost a longtime and
dear friend when boxing great
Muhammad Ali died June 3.
“We knew each other for 38 years. I
called him ‘Champ.’ He called me the
‘Great White Dope,’ but with affec-
tion and a twinkle in his eye,” said
Kirschenbaum, the Michigan Boxing
Commissioner from 1981-1992 and
boxing commissioner emeritus and
special adviser to the governor on box-
ing affairs since 2013.
Kirschenbaum’s office at the New
Center One building features the
Muhammad Ali Conference Room.
Four original Andy Warhol paintings
of Ali are in the room and Ali’s famous
saying, ‘Float like a butterfly and sting
like a bee,’ is inscribed on a wall.
OH, BROTHERS
Two sets of brothers who are lifelong
friends played last season for the
Bloomfield Hills High School hockey
team.
It was the first time Jordan and
Jonah Stone and Ari and Daniel
Sternberg were on the same team.
Their families first connected 17
years earlier when older sisters of the
boys — Gabi Stone and Carly Steinberg
— met at preschool at Congregation
Shaarey Zedek in Southfield.
Jordan Stone and Ari Sternberg were
born that year. Jonah Stone and Daniel
Sternberg were born two years later.
WEIGHT LIFTED OFF
HIS SHOULDER
Senior weightlifter extraordinaire Jeff
Ellis of West Bloomfield is back com-
peting after briefly wondering if his
weightlifting days were over.
He was sidelined for three months
in late 2015 and early 2016 because of
what he called multiple issues with his
right shoulder.
Physical therapy and a steroid injec-
tion allowed him to begin working
out again in March, and it took him
three months to return to form before
he won a Michigan Senior Olympics
gold medal in August in the age 55-59
198-pound division with a 300-pound
bench press.
“When I first saw my doctor in
December (2015), he suggested I have
an MRI and told me I might need
shoulder replacement surgery,” Ellis
said. “Thankfully, that didn’t happen.”
Ellis has won 11 gold medals, one
silver medal and one bronze medal in
Michigan Senior Olympics weightlift-
ing since he began competing in 2009.
He holds Michigan Senior Olympics
and American Powerlifting Federation
bench press state records for his age
group with lifts of 320 and 286 pounds,
respectively. *
Send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.