Season's Greetings! Hello and Merry Christmas! Are you all ready for Christmas?! I'm trying to get an earlier start this year; I'm half finished the Christmas shopping part, and now I've started writing my yearly Christmas letter. Hopefully the postal strike will end soon so that I can get this in the mail to you! If it doesn't, at least I'll have a good excuse for being tardy, for a change!

Well, I'd like to start by wishing you an excellent holiday season. I hope you have a fun Christmas and I wish you the best of health and happiness throughout the new year. Joyeux Noël et une Bonne et Heureuse Année! Frohe Weihnachten und viel Glück im Neuen Jahr!

My goal is to make this form letter a little shorter this year so that I can print it on a single piece of paper. It might be a challenge, but I'll try not to be quite as wordy as in the past!

In case you missed the news last year, I finished my Masters degree in Computer Science in the fall of 1996, and thus I have finally entered into the real work world (my parents were happy about that!). I have been working as a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto. I have been teaching two sections of a first year computer science programming course that uses Java, and one section of a fourth year computer science course called "Operating Systems." I have been working for a company and independently doing private tutoring for Java programming.

I have also been doing some contract work. I have written an internet technical report search engine for the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) and for the graduate Department of Computer Science (DCS) at the University of Toronto. I have also done contract work for the Canadian In-Line and Roller Skating Association (CIRSA) and for Rollerdrome. I have just started my own company, which is called "ALH Computer Solutions."

The women's hockey web pages are still going strong. In the month of November there was an average of 727 people who visited the pages each weekday! I have just registered a new easy-to-remember domain name. So the next time you're surfing the web, be sure to check out www.whockey.com. The whockey is for "women's hockey" of course, but I'm sure you figured that out! :-)

I am currently in the process of finding a sponsor who will financially support the pages. There are a few major companies who are interested, but nothing has been finalized yet. If all goes well in securing a sponsorship, I plan to put more work into the pages in the new year.

I was very involved in in-line hockey again this past summer. I played for the Toronto Franklin-Labeda Typhoon. We participated in five tournaments in California, Sarnia, Waterloo, Vancouver, and Las Vegas. Our team placed as follows:

• NARCh Winternationals, Huntington Beach, California: Gold
• NARCh Qualifier, Sarnia, ON: Bronze
• Canadian Hockey InLine Nationals, Waterloo, ON: Gold
• North American Championship (NARCh), Vancouver, BC: Silver
• USA Hockey InLine Nationals, Las Vegas, Nevada: Gold

And you'll never guess who was the top scorer at all five tournaments!! Yours truly! I couldn't believe it myself! The prizes for this were a nice bonus, as I won a pair of CCM leather hockey gloves, a set of wheels, a pair of Nike running shoes, a pair of Fila in-line hockey skates, and a USA Hockey InLine golf shirt, respectively.

The other exciting news is that I was awarded Female Amateur Athlete of the Year by the Inline Hockey News. I was supposed to go to Santa Monica, California to accept the award, but unfortunately we could not find a sponsor to pay for the flight in time. I am grateful to Shari Hitt who read my acceptance speech for me.

Last season I played ice hockey for the Newtonbrook Panthers of the Senior AAA Central Ontario Women's Hockey League (COWHL). Unfortunately my injury was really bothering me, so I only managed to play 6 games last season. We placed 2nd at the Ontario Provincial Championship, losing 2-1 in overtime to the North York Aeros in the gold medal game.

You're probably thinking, "how could she play all that in-line hockey if the injury is still bothering her?" Well, surprisingly the injury is not so bad when I play in-line hockey, but it really gets aggravated when I play ice hockey! I think it's because there are more stops and starts in ice hockey. I also did a lot of rehab this past summer (thanks Rita, Kate, and Gord!) which has improved the injury significantly.

A lot of my teammates from the Newtonbrook Panthers will be playing for Team Canada at the Olympics, so our team had to fold this season due to a lack of players. I have switched to the Mississauga Chiefs Senior AAA team this year. Our team is playing very well, and we have a 6-2-0 record so far. We will be practicing hard for the Provincial Championship, which will be held from Feb 6-8, 1998 in Cobourg. If we win the Provincial Championship, then we would represent Ontario at the Canadian National Championship in Calgary, Alberta from March 18-22 1998.

Other than the trips with my in-line hockey team, I went on two other trips this year. I went to Switzerland for two weeks in May, and then to Dallas for 5 days in July.

I spent my first week in Switzerland with my friend, Monika Profos. It was very kind of her to take some time off work to show me (and another friend from Great Britain) around. We spent some time in her area (Zug), and one day she took us to see a castle in Rapperswil. Then we drove to Germany to see the Dachau concentration camp. It was quite the eye-opener.

Then we went to Zurich to play in an in-line hockey scrimmage. After the the scrimmage I continued to Thunstetten to stay with Bizu and Gina at the Mossiman's house. The next day we played a little softball outside and then I went to Rütschelen, where I spent my second week in Switzerland.

I stayed with the Röthlisberger family in Rütschelen. This is the family that I lived with during the 1992-93 season when I played hockey for DHC Langenthal in Switzerland. It was so much fun to spend some time with them again! The family has grown by 2 members since I lived with them. Hannes and Jaqueline now have 4 children (Tim, Linda, Eva, and Basil). They sure kept me busy! :-)

On my second last day with the family, they had a party for me and invited all of my former teammates from Langenthal. It was great to get to see everyone again!

My other trip this summer was to Dallas. I visited my friend Rich Arakelian who was a very close friend of mine at the University of New Hampshire (we were in Computer Science together). He showed me around his area, and we did fun things like shopping, playing mini-golf, watching movies, and mainly just catching up, as we hadn't seen each other for 7 years.

Some exciting news is that my older sister, Leslie, got married to Bill Greene on February 1st 1997 at our farm! The wedding ceremony took place on skates on our pond. As a matter of fact, even the minister was on skates! It was a lot of fun. After the wedding, the guests tobogganed, skated, and played hockey during the afternoon. The supper was catered in our house ... who would have thought our house could hold more than 150 people for supper! After dark, we went out to the pond for some moon-light skating to music. The weather was about -5 degrees Celsius, which was perfect (cold enough for good ice, but not cold enough for frost bite!).

Other weddings that we attended this summer were for my cousin Kathy Todd & Jeff Zajac, my roommate Kelly Nicholson & Colin Thompson, and my cousin Shelley Mundell & Steve McLean.

My Addresses & Phone Numbers
My Address: PH#6, 666 Spadina Avenue - no longer valid Toronto, ON M5S 2H8 (416)972-1987	Or you can always use my parents' address: R.R. # 9 Peterborough, ON K9J 6Y1 (705)295-6253

My address is still the same as last year. I live in an apartment very close to the University of Toronto campus. My two roommates both play for the University of Toronto women's hockey team. Their names are Sue Ann Van Damme and Keely Brown. They're great roomies! Oh yes, and I can't forget our other feline roomie ... Heaton ... the cutest black and white Persian kitty that you could imagine! With infinite amounts of energy I should add!

My Mom and Dad and my sisters, Leslie and Nancy, are all doing very well. Things are going well with the Hunter Farm Bed and Breakfast. My Dad is still working as a Mechanical Engineer at General Electric Canada. Leslie and Bill live in Etobicoke. Leslie has her Victorian Bridal and Gifts business, and Bill runs a bike store called Chain Reaction. Nancy lives close to Bay and Dundas Street in downtown Toronto, and is working practically across the street doing work on maps or something like that! Nancy's boyfriend's name is Dave.

I'm still going out with Marc Ouellette (5.5 years!). The picture of us below was taken at Kelly & Colin's wedding in August. Right now Marc is really busy trying to finish off his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Toronto. His thesis is in the area of Computer Graphics, and is entitled "Numerical Methods for Illumination Integrals." He hopes to finish up by the Spring of '98.

Well, that about wraps up the news for this year. I didn't quite manage to fit in on one page, but hey, maybe next year! Take care and enjoy your holidays! Have a wonderful Christmas and may God bless you and yours.

Love,

Andria ( Snipe / Taz / Dandy )