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- i coaches with specific drills. "It's an expectation to be a repre- sentative of the Belleville Minor Hockey Association when you're meeting other reps throughout the province/' he said. While his duties are demanding, Freeland's passion for hockey and his love of kids makes it all worth while. "Hockey has been a big part of my! life/' he said. (So has teaching. Freeland re- tired last June after 35 years in teaching, the last several at Queen Elizabeth School in Belleville). He believes there are three cor-, nerstones to hockey and life in gen- eral -- love of play, the importance of participating and the challenges of competing. "Every player's participation and every family's participation is essen- tial. That's one of the things that make team sports such an attrac- tion." As a youngster, Freeland played hockey for various rep teams in Scarborough. "I never pursued it as a career because I was never good enough." So he turned his attention to coaching and managing. He coached his first team -- a public school team in Toronto -- in 1959. He's kept his hand in minor hockey ever since. He moved to Belleville in 1969. Like teaching, coaching or man- aging teams, there are rewards, said Freeland. "I'm a notch on their ladder whether it's hockey or school and there's some pleasure in that." Freeland has become somewhat of an authority on hockey rinks. He's been in hundreds of them from as far away as Woodstock to Orillia. "Rinks are like schools and churches in the sense that what takes place on the ice, while it's the purpose for people being there, is really just the end product of a lot of smaller jobs." Hockey rinks become alive be- cause of the people inside. "They make a rink." Freeland boasts Belleville has some of the best rinks in Ontario. "Belleville shouldn't take a back seat to anyone. We should have pride in our rinks. Take it from someone who's seen a lot of rinks."