Author Archives: Brett Roselle

The 15th Tallest Peak: Buying Real Estate in BC

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I figured climbing Mount Everest would offer a more satisfying feeling. Here I was standing on my personal highest peak, having just made my first home purchase here in the beautiful province of British Columbia. In my mind’s eye, I saw this moment as a grand celebration of this life milestone – Champagne pouring and vigorous hand clapping. Instead, I felt like I was at my wit’s end, hunched over and gasping for air at the finish line. 


The reality is I felt like I had just summited the highest peak on planet earth. My mind was oxygen-deprived from the sheer volume of open houses. Attempting to function in a semi-hypoxic state for months as my wife and I repeated the same process over and over with the same result. Getting outbid by someone with deeper pockets and no home inspection. So, as we both stood in the glory of finally finding our home, there was no photo shoot or speeches. It was a quiet, overwhelming sense of relief that the process was complete. And although the journey was far more gruelling than even Frodo Baggins could have imagined, it did feel incredible to have the chapter finished.

There really should be a class about this process in school. In all sincerity, I could have gone without a few social studies classes and taken some “how the hell do you set yourself up to purchase real estate in Canada” classes instead. It was time for us to move on from renting, we just never imagined it would evolve into the process it did. Everyone’s story is different, and our path to purchasing real estate is a long winding story that would be better told over a couple of pitchers of cheap beer (especially now that I have a mortgage!). The story of climbing the mountain of the housing market must start in a place far, far away…

Phase One – Arriving at Base Camp: My path to Vancouver began in the prairies. My wife and I were living in Winnipeg and gutting it out through the pandemic like everyone else when we got some incredible news. We were pregnant! Plans began to take shape now that we were going to be parents. It was time to fulfill our plan all along and move to the west coast. So, we packed up our belongings from our tiny post-war rental home in Winnipeg and started the journey west towards our first stop – base camp at my in-laws’ place.


Phase Two – Trek Towards the Icefall: As the summer months wore on and my wife became increasingly pregnant, we got out to as many showings as we could. We were just getting started, with lots of energy and pep in our step. Nothing was getting in our way at this point. We had a list of ‘wants’ for our first home, and we naively checked them off in our heads as we viewed homes. We went to a lot of showings, but no property spoke to us over this time, as we kept on the hunt through the historic heatwave. A couple of offers were placed to get our feet wet, but spirits were high as we reached the icefall of childbirth.

Phase Three – Camp One (Valley of Silence): The best thing that could have ever happened to us had finally arrived. We have a healthy baby boy who has changed our lives for the better. He is also apparently a nocturnal being, not allowing us to focus on anything other than getting into this new groove as a family. A storm brews in the market during this period of radio silence…

Phase Four – Camp Two: With our sea legs now barely underneath us, it is time to get back on the house hunt trail. The market has continued to gather momentum towards ludicrous speed, and we are feeling the need to find a place to start our family. A blizzard sweeps over the mountain (metaphorically of course as this was September in Vancouver) as more and more offers are placed with increased fatigue. But they all result in the same outcome as the snow and ice lash my face. Belief is starting to wane, but we keep forcing ourselves up the mountain.

Phase Five – Camp Three (Lhotse Wall): The grind is almost unbearable. With a 2-month-old baby coming with us to every showing, the path to finding our home is becoming frustrating. The raffle draws of whether we have a crying child with us are starting to wear thin and the wails pierce our ears after another showing. Offer after offer of being outbid begins to thin the air as the elevation gain is getting to my head. 

“I must reach Lhotse Wall to stop paying rent,” I keep repeating to myself as I pack up my son for the 250th time to go see yet another townhouse. 

Phase Six – Camp Four (Death Zone): It is always the darkest before the dawn. Thoughts of whether we can afford to compete in this market seem very real. We hear rumours of other fallen climbers, who are bowing out before reaching the summit. Months have passed since we started this pursuit to the top. As the sun sets on Camp 4, morale is at an all-time low. A flicker of hope arrives at the possibility of a private sale in our favourite condo complex. There is hope, and I can put on my pack to climb for one more day. 

Phase Eight – Final Summit: At long last, we have come to terms and have purchased our first home. It was a marathon process to get to his peak, as I gazed out over the mess of my belongings in a storage can that has been packed away for months. One thing has become abundantly clear as we settle into our new place and plan for future challenges. The term “home” has nothing to do with where you live, how big or small that place is, or how much money you paid for it. It has everything to do with the people you surround yourself with. What is life without climbing a few mountains with the people you care about? So, I can huff and puff and complain about how challenging it was to get here as much as I want. The bottom line is I would not have done it any other way. 

Home is where the heart is they say. Well, isn’t that the truth? 

 

 

Street Hockey Nostalgia

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There is nothing quite like the first round of the NHL playoffs arriving. As I get excited to consume playoff hockey, I can recall setting up my net on the street as a kid and heading out on my own to create the game-winning goal with a stick and tennis ball. I had an imagination that took me away to the spotlight of a distant rink where it was me streaming down the wing with the puck. The wind blew in my hair as I would run towards the net, firing the tennis ball under the crossbar.

“HE SCORES!” I would hear the announcer call in my imagination. I raise my arms to the crowd in celebration.

I should have prefaced this by saying that I am an only child, and it was not uncommon for me to be out on the street playing hockey on my own. I would let my mind run wild with how I would be involved in the game (typically scoring the game-winning goal). I would create an entire game script, from puck drop to the final buzzer, with key moments and my role in the game.

The current change of season we are experiencing takes me back to that nostalgic place of being out on the street playing hockey as a kid. The sights and sounds of spring arriving, in combination with the excitement of the playoffs, is an energy I can still feel as an adult. The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach as something you have been greatly anticipating has finally arrived.

There is something beautiful about the emergence of spring coinciding with this wonderfully chaotic and physical national pastime of ours. The clash of this new fresh spring season with the war of attrition for the Stanley Cup will always bring me back to my childhood.

When did this version of hockey I so fondly recall start to form? Unsurprisingly, it began as soon as roads started to get paved around the turn of the 20th century. Street hockey has been played informally for a long time in Canadian communities. Once the winter hockey season concluded, “street hockey” naturally formed as a continuation of the winter hockey community to something that was year-round. Street hockey was bound to be created once the snow had melted away, given that hockey is such a fabric of our Canadian identity.

In fact, the first formally organized street hockey event is believed to have been in the Toronto area in 1969. Habitant Arena hosted a street hockey summer program that was the first of its kind on record.

The approachability of street hockey has continued to engrain the informal sport as part of Canadian identity, bringing communities of kids together and strengthening family bonds. Not every kid’s family has the money or means to purchase all the equipment to play ice hockey. But all it takes is one extra stick to include a new kid in the neighbourhood for a street hockey game. Such values are carried on today by the Canadian Ball Hockey Association.

I think back to the times as a young boy when I had to come in for bed before I was done playing outside. I used to hate the feeling of trying to sleep when the sun was still shining and hockey was still on the TV downstairs. The setting sun’s orange hue in my bedroom would keep my eyes wide open as I could hear the older kids outside still playing hockey. I would peer through the slats of my window to see the game continuing on the street below me.

I would think to myself “I cannot WAIT until I can stay out and play street hockey until the sun goes down.” Well, those days would materialize many years later. The culture of street hockey lived on as an adolescent with a community of friends that shared the same passion for the spring and summer versions of the game that I did.

Within a five-minute walk of my parent’s place where I grew up was my buddy Will’s place – Willy, as I call him. His house was the venue for all our games. This street was our Rogers Arena, the place where we always congregated to play. Will’s place had everything we needed. Two nets, two sets of goalie equipment, and most of all a strong community of young hockey players with time to kill once the ice hockey season was over.

This was where my buddies and I would meet and play street hockey until it was too dark to see the ball. Just like I yearned for as a child. Full-fledged 5-on-5 action with subs as well. Cars would re-route and go another way to avoid interrupting the community game. Even though we were no longer kids really, there is something welcoming about coming across a random game of street hockey. Some special kind of magic that makes grown adults take a longer route home and not even think twice about it. That is just the proper thing to do to honour the sport and the local community playing it.

One moment will always stand out in my memory from the games at Willy’s place. There was one rule. Hitting is ALLOWED…when on the grass. If the ball ended up in someone’s front yard, there was a mad rush to get there first. Knowing that your time was limited, as a buddy was likely a few steps away and willing to hit you to the grass and take the ball.

In one game, a young chap that goes by the nickname Nolte was racing after a ball in the neighbour’s front yard with a fence. Willy had a propensity for enforcing this “grass rule” that he came up with. As Nolte was turning to send the ball back into play, he was met with Willy’s shoulder that sent him careening into (and partially through) the fence. Our local community always embraced our big games on the street. This, however, was the first time we were met with some pushback from the fence-owning neighbour. I can still recall the sight now. A gaping, partial human-shaped hole remained in that fence until we all came together and helped patch it up for the homeowner.

Whatever version of street hockey your neighbourhood had growing up, there is always one common denominator. Community. It is the pulse that makes this game so much more than that. It is why this time of year conjures up such strong feelings of connection and nostalgia, as I tune in to the NHL playoffs. We are all kids at heart anyway, aren’t we?