As a partner of Swiss Chalet, I have been given the opportunity to share with you my, Come Home To Swiss, story. It’s one of my fondest memories as a hockey-loving kid, growing up in a small community.
For those of you that don’t know this about me, I grew up in a small farming community, about an hour and a half north-west of Edmonton, Alberta. There wasn’t a school or any organized sports in our community, so every day I stood at the end of my driveway and waited for the bus to pick me up and take me to a nearby town.
Nothing Takes Priority Over Teddy
Or, somedays the bus waited for me to get to the end of the driveway. The bus always showed up 10 minutes before the end of Teddy Ruxpin and I always wanted to find out if Tweeg would finally get Teddy, spoiler alert: he didn’t.
Anyway, the bus brought me and the other kids to the nearby town of Barrhead. Now, I wouldn’t say that Barrhead had all the conveniences of a large city, but it had everything that my friends and I enjoyed, a hockey rink!
Like the time my friends and I invented the game of “hockniss”, a game that was essentially tennis but played with hockey sticks.
You see, I grew up with hockey, I played hockey, I watched hockey, and I made up games that largely revolved around hockey. Like the time my friends and I invented the game of “hockniss”, a game that was essentially tennis but played with hockey sticks. We also invented the game of “hosketball”, but I’ll let you just imagine what that was all about.
Hockey, Hockey, Hockey
Hockey was all we knew. We had hockey practice twice a week, we played two games on the weekends, and in between, we could often be found on the outdoor rinks. We were a high knit group. However, one of the things about playing hockey in a small town is there aren’t enough people to make up more than one or two teams for any specific age group. This meant that we often had to travel a lot for games and tournaments.
On the weekends we would travel to nearby towns and play teams like the Westlock Jerks, or the Onoway Cold Hockey Rinks … I actually don’t remember their team names, but based on the feelings we had back then, I’m sure this is accurate.
Those towns were all relatively close. However, a few times a year our teams would enter into a tournament in the city of Edmonton. These were the trips that my friends and I got really excited about.
During tournaments, we always played two games a day, sometimes three … oh to have that much energy again. And because we were so far from home, it meant that we would eat at a restaurant.
Just a Small Town Kid in the Big City
Living in a city now, I take for granted just how exciting the city can be. As kids, we loved seeing all the cars zooming around, the huge buildings, the malls, and all the restaurants. In our farming community, we had the grand total of zero restaurants and in the town, I went to school there was one. But in the city, the restaurants seemed endless.
However, at the end of a long day of playing hockey, we weren’t going to choose just any restaurant, we wanted a good meal from a restaurant that has been a Canadian staple since 1954, Swiss Chalet!
When we would get to the restaurant, we didn’t even need to look at the menu, we knew we wanted the quarter chicken dinner, a roasted chicken leg or breast with Chalet Sauce, a bread roll and fries (there are more options besides fries, but we always wanted the fries).
As my friends and I sat around the table eating our dinner and talking about the games, we felt happy and content. I’m sure all the parents were stressed about all the logistics, but we didn’t have a care in the world.
Great Memories
As the years have passed and I’ve slowly lost all the medals and trophies from the tournaments, I still remember these special memories at Swiss Chalet, with my friends and family. Memories that I am reminded of every time I bring my own kids to Swiss Chalet and order a quarter chicken dinner.
If you would like to share your own special Come Home to Swiss story, click here and tell it. When you do, you’ll be entered to win 1 of 65 prizes of FREE Swiss Chalet for a year!