metro » 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.