LeasideLife issue 43 opt 2_LeasideLifev1 15-10-22 3:08 PM Page 1
No. 43 • November 2015
Leaside Life
Athlete of the Year, Page 3
DANIEL GIRARD
leasidelifenews.com
ICE CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: Karen Dewey-Decker’s three daughters, from left, Jaclyn, 10, Jordan, 14, and Megan, 12, play in a much larger Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association than their mom did some 25 years ago.
The biggest home for girls hockey in Ontario By DANIEL GIRARD Karen Dewey-Decker began her minor hockey career in the late 1980s wearing borrowed equipment. Few of her female high school friends played the game. She was familiar with the ice from weekly public skating with their family, but that was always in figure skates. “It wasn’t that we were deprived or that anyone was keeping it from us,” says Dewey-Decker, 45, who played two seasons of house league with the Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association (TLGHA) before she graduated from high school. “It’s just that at that time girls weren’t really part of the conversation about playing the game.” A quarter-century later, girl talk is hockey talk around Dewey-Decker’s house. With three daughters – Jaclyn, 10, Megan, 12, and Jordan, 14, – playing HOCKEY, Page 4
How we voted Leaside voters mirrored the shift to the Liberals that saw Rob Oliphant elected in Don Valley West on Oct. 19 as part of a Liberal majority government. Liberal support was highest in South Leaside with 57 percent, 54.6 percent in North Leaside and 50.7 percent in Bennington Heights. For the respective areas Conservative percentages were 36.4, 38.7 and 43.8. The overall vote for Leaside plus Bennington Heights was 55.8 percent Liberal and 37.6 Conservative. The NDP got 4.2 percent in that area. In the overall Don Valley West riding the percentages were Liberal 53.8, Conservative 37.6 and NDP 6. In Bennington Heights almost 87 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot, while just under 81 percent did in South Leaside and just under 77 percent in North Leaside. Voter turnout in Leaside was again higher than in surrounding neighbourhoods. Leaside has consistently had among the highest voter turnouts in Ontario, in all municipal, provincial and federal elections over the past decade. ■