Pwned by Whitby

Whitby and I have never really got along.

It’s not that I don’t like Whitby – I lived there briefly and worked downtown for several years – it’s just that we never bonded. We weren’t bros, you know?

I was trying to figure out why we weren’t good buddies – we are neighbours after all – and I came up with a few reasons, though they’re mostly lame.

There’s the downtown, for one. It looks like something suited for a little town of 10,000 or so, not a metropolis of more than 100,000 people. And while we’re on the subject of towns, what’s with the aversion Whitby’s political leaders have for calling it a city? Like I said: 100,000-plus. You’re not a town, people, no matter what you call yourself. The City of Whitby. Get used to it.

Getting around the city is a bit of a pain as well. A lot of roads stop and start and there are residential streets that seem to go on forever. I hate delivering there.

The slightly superior attitude some Whhhitbeee residents have towards Oshawa is a bit off-putting too. The government decides where the social services agencies go, but they’re your people too. So stop with the holier-than-thou.

And that’s all I could come up with. Like I said, mostly lame.

There's lots of good stuff in Whitby. The library downtown is awesome, though I do have a bias in that Lene, one of my mothers-in-law, was one of the lead interior designers on the project. And the AMC complex (sorry, Empire Theatres now) is a great place to hang out. Then there's Lynde Shores, where magic happens.

And then it hit me. The real reason for my disconnect with the traditional county seat of Durham is jealousy.

Yah, I said it. I’m jealous of Whitby’s success in sports – at our expense. Mostly I’m sick of getting pwned by Whitby in damn near everything.

My boys have played some form of rep in hockey and/or soccer for years and the number of wins against our rivals could be counted on one hand. Or maybe less. Cam was playing in his third or fourth year of rep/select hockey before his bantam AE team kicked some Whitby butt – assuming control (for a short while) of first place in the league in the process. I remember the occasion being a cause for celebration.

“We beat Whitby, we beat Whitby...”

Check the OHL draft list. It seems half of the ‘AAA’ Whitby Wildcat minor midgets get drafted each spring, while it’s a good year when more than one Oshawa Minor General gets an invite to a Major Junior camp. And that’s no surprise when you have a look at the rankings – published weekly – of triple ‘A’ teams across Ontario at all age levels. It’s a shock when just one Whitby squad doesn’t make the top ten. Oshawa teams? Nowhere to be found.

It’s not just hockey. When Jake played U8 soccer a few years ago his team struggled against Whitby’s ‘B’ team. The ‘A’ team was on another level entirely.

The only sport where we didn’t have any trouble with Whitby was ball hockey, which is sort of the family sport. Cam and Matt have represented Oshawa proudly at the provincial championships many times over the years (the J Man’s turn will come) and I’ve never seen a team from Whitby there. Of course, that could be because they don’t have a minor ball hockey organization.

And I hope they never start one.