Hi! My name is Kathy Pippy. I am proud to be called a “hockey mom” who now works full-time in hockey. Kids call me “MamaPips.” I love my family very much. They are most important to me. But, I have learned through my many years of hockey travels, that I have a larger hockey family too! I spend most of my days helping hockey girls and hockey families. It’s truly my passion. I love traveling, visiting hockey cities and exploring. Everyone who knows me knows I love to find great little restaurants and share the good food (and wine!) with friends!
This is a hockey blog designed for fun loving hockey people! It was borne out of persuasion by many well intended hockey friends who encouraged me to share my “knowledge” with even more hockey friends. I love my hockey jobs. I love my hockey friends. I have travelled the world over to watch good girls’ hockey. Where there’s good hockey, I’m usually there! Some people have even accused me of secretly having a twin or a “doppelganger” to help me with my “work.” Did I say I love my hockey jobs? Hopefully this blog will become a useful, but mostly fun resource about things to do, great restaurants to eat and most importantly where to have a good time in hockey cities around the globe!
Well, if you like good food and good wine, then you HAVE to like good coffee! Personally I LOVE good coffee and I have to have the beans, grind them myself. Nothing like the smell of freshly ground coffee. I have always loved good coffee….but, my real LOVE of coffee started on my first trip to Rwanda. I never knew Rwanda had good coffee, but man do they ever. You just don’t know about it for any number of reasons, but most of which is this tiny country just doesn’t have a very strong export mechanism YET. And, all the coffee is farmer grown, then brought to a co-op, then sold. Very amazing. I saw it with my own eyes; farmers (lots of women too!) bringing their coffee beans to co-0p. Anyway, I started at Bourbon Coffee which is the Rwandan Starbucks. I highly recommend it. If you visit Boston on a hockey trip, you can find one near Harvard Square. There are only two more in the USA – Washington DC and Manhattan.
However, no need to fret if you can’t get your Rwandan coffee fix soon….I have a solution! My good, good friend, in hockey and in life (!) started her own hockey roasting business called Ohiopyle Coffee Roasters. I convinced her that she NEEDED to sell Rwandan Coffee. Not only does she now buy Rwandan free trade coffee in bulk, she roasts a KP blend! Trust me, it’s good! So feel free to reach out to Ohiopyle Coffee Roasters on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and just ask for the KP Blend!!
For Pittsburgh hockey fans the brand-new UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex is the holy grail of ice hockey training facilities. If you have an opportunity to come to #UPMC66 to play a game or tournament, you won’t be disappointed! This is the home of the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite hockey program presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods (have to always give them a plug for their awesome support of boys’ and girls’ hockey in Pittsburgh!) What a good meal we could host in the Pittsburgh Penguins kitchen!! Check out the rink: www.penguinsrinks.com
The Old Winery Restaurant (NOTL, ON) It’s set in a beautiful restored, you guessed it, old winery! Typical Italian trattoria serving what I would classify as Italian comfort food. I had the handmade ricotta gnocchi in gorgonzola cream sauce. Friends had the pizza which is baked in a wood fired oven. The selection of local wines is really good too. We had a large group which they easily accommodated us, but the bar was great too and would love to go back to this spot! HIGHLY recommend.
Olde Angel Inn (NOTL, ON) Last year the IIHF U18 World Championships was held in Buffalo, NY (only 30 minutes drive from NOTL) so on an off-day a group of us came on an “advance trip” to check out where we would spend a week this year. We stopped in for lunch at the Olde Angel Inn. Having just returned a couple months earlier from a trip to London, it warmly reminded me of a traditional English Pub with traditional English pub fare! I enjoyed the Shepherd’s Pie last year and I enjoyed it again this year. Not being a big beer fan myself, I found the place a bit lacking on the cocktail options, but my friends all appreciated the beer options. I would definitely recommend this spot for some comfort food on a blustery afternoon with some friends!
7 Entoteca (Oakville, ON) I know that’s not Niagara-on-the-Lake, but I spent the first night of my trip up there with a Selects family in Oakville, ON (about 1 hour from NOTL) and ate dinner at this fun industrial looking uber trendy pizzeria called in Oakville, ON. This was the best thin crusted pizza I have eaten since Italy and the wine selection was very good. A bit pricey, but it is Canadian $$ so that’s like a 30% discount currently on the exchange! If going with a large group, I recommend reservations (note: I said it was trendy!) and also if you are looking for a quiet intimate dinner, this is not your spot. However, my friend and I enjoyed the food and it was a fun place to catch up!
The event is technically held in St. Catharine’s — and I will post about a few spots there, but let’s be honest: Niagara-on-the-Lake sounds so much more fun, even though they are only 20 minutes apart! Soooo anyway, this is actually the perfect location and setting for me to kick-off my blog as I am spending the week in Ontario, Canada attending the IIHF World Championships which to me is like a culmination of so many tournaments, here in North America (US & Canada) and Europe — the best of the best coming together in one spot — as there are over 70 girls from Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic & Russia that have participated in Selects Hockey events, most of them having playing in a LEGACY Global Sports World Selects Invitational over the past 5 spring/summers. So, in one way or another, all of these 70+ girls have played for one of our Selects organized teams! There are 9 Canadians and 11 Americans, all of whom played together on either East Coast Selects or West Coast Selects, including both teams’ “C’s” and 1 of Canada’s “A’s” and both of the Team USA’s “A’s.” So, it’s a great-great time to spend with all of these friends who have become part of our Selects family.
I am spending the next few days with a handful of Minnesota families on Team USA. Let’s just say there are more than a handful and they are more than a handful in more ways than one — some of you will get that! But these are some of my best hockey friends! We have already had lots of verbal jousting and late night “discussions” as each contributor to the debate is willing to agree to disagree as one proclaimed because “he knows he’s right!” But it’s been awesome to just hang out (albeit with lots of good wine) instead of being stuck in a hotel for a week. Plus everyone is in for good restaurants and more good wine and of course we’ve been watching lots of hockey.