St Pats GAA Club kicked off our 2016 season with a major fundraising event at Quinn’s Steakhouse in April. The Annual Quiz and Raffle night is a highlight on the Toronto calendar for many inside and outside the club. Ten rounds of ten questions, including a picture round, a famous faces round and an audio round and also many general knowledge questions kept the crowd of over 120 thinking all night! The club would like to thank everyone who donated prizes (over $1,200 in value) for the big raffle. The top prize on the night was a Rory MacIlroy signed flag, closely followed by a $150 gift voucher for Brennan Irish Foods. We would also like to thank the Quinn Family who have made Quinn’s Steakhouse the home for this big night for the last couple of years.
And now on to some activities on the field – we have two great teams in the club, a senior men’s and a senior ladies team. Training has resumed for the current season and both teams train at the magnificent all weather field at St Mikes College on Sunday’s at 2pm. We also train Thursday’s during the week and we will eventually be out three times a week when the evenings get a little bit longer. Pat Jordan from Meath takes charge of the men’s team while Sean Morley, a proud Mayo man, trains the ladies team. The ladies team took home their first silverware when they won the Ladies Shield Championship last year – a massive achievement in only their third year!
This year will be a bit of a change in Toronto GAA circles with the majority of the games moving to Saturdays instead of the traditional Sunday. Many of our members are young and we welcome this decision by Toronto GAA as it ensures that all of our members can mix the competitive side of GAA with the social aspect of the GAA family. And that is the true meaning of St Pats GAA club – we welcome new players every year, and the club becomes a place for networking, friendship and a place of comfort. Many young Irish people come here to Canada every year and it can be very daunting and scary. We try to reach out to new people in the city and help & encourage them on their wonderful adventure.
So as we look forward to the new season, we have some key dates and targets in our calendar. First up will be the first league game of the year on May 14th and at that stage we will be able to see how our training up until then has been working out. A week later, both teams will travel together on a bus to Montreal for their weekend long 9-a-side tournament. This is another great social event to get to know more about eachother and also to see another city in Canada through the club at a relatively inexpensive cost. When the second weekend in September comes around, after a long hot summer (hopefully), both teams will look to contest the Senior Championship Finals.
We will also have many other exciting events – Golf Day, World Games, Awards Night, Euro 2016 Games – throughout the year so keep an eye on our website (www.stpatsgaatoronto.gaa.ie) or follow us on twitter or facebook for further details on those events and nights out.
