51³Ô¹ÏÍø

It's this all-boys school in Dunbar, Vancouver. Two campuses. 51³Ô¹ÏÍø kids live in Harker Hall. I wasn't one of them. Day kid life.Here's the thing nobody tells you about that place. The motto is "Without Fear or Favour" which sounds like something out of a medieval movie, very fancy but what it actually means is they don't really care what you do as long as you're not an idiot about it. I refereed hockey for five years. Like, hundreds of games. Kids screaming. Parents screaming. Coaches losing their minds. That's my weekend. And the school just... let me do it. Didn't ask questions. Didn't make it weird. That's rare.

Winning Official of the Year from Arbutus Club in 2024. They gave it to me for professionalism and dedication. It felt good. Reffing is thankless. Parents don't clap for you. Coaches don't thank you. So that award meant something.I'm proud I stuck with refereeing. Five years. Hundreds of games. Got yelled at by parents, coaches, players. Still showed up. That teaches you something about composure. You can't lose your temper. Can't argue back. Just make the call and move on.The Head of School's Leadership Award was meaningful too. Not because of the award itself. Because it meant people noticed the work I was doing when nobody was watching.I grew up by learning to handle conflict. That skill applies everywhere. School. Work. Life. If you can stay calm when someone is screaming at you about offsides, you can handle pretty much anything.

I would've asked my economics teachers more questions. Not about tests. About their careers. Some of them worked in finance before teaching. I should have picked their brains.Advice for someone considering St. George's: find something outside school that matters to you. Reffing was mine. Could be anything. Construction. Volunteering. A part time job. Having an identity beyond the campus helps. Keeps things in perspective when school feels like too much.Also, get comfortable being wrong. Reffing taught me that. You miss calls sometimes. You learn and move on. Same at school.

Flexibility because the school let me be a student, a prefect, a referee, a construction worker. They didn't make me choose one lane. That's rare. I appreciate it more now that I'm at McGill.

The rinks around Vancouver are all different. Some are freezing. Some have good coffee in the lobby. You learn which ones.Snack bar had protein bars. Grabbed one before games.The top of the Junior School field at night. Good spot. Quiet.Don't bring too much stuff. You won't need it.And if you referee, get good skates. Your feet will thank you after a three game weekend.

Small classes. Teachers knew my name. That's helpful when you're missing class for a tournament in Burnaby on a Thursday afternoon. I took economics. I am at McGill now. The teachers didn't just throw graphs at us. They used real examples and made it stick.The workload was fine. Not a cakewalk. But I had to stay organized because refereeing ate my weekends and construction ate my summers. T. Jones Group. Learned carpentry. Learned how a company actually runs. That was more useful than some of my classes, honestly.

The hockey setup at St. George's is solid because of partnership with UBC. Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Nice rink. I knew it from the referee's perspective though, not as a player. Different view of the ice. You see everything.I played a bit. House league. Nothing serious. Reffing was my real athletic commitment. Five years. Hundreds of games. You learn to stay calm when people are losing their minds at you. That's a skill.

I got nothing except i went to one musical because a friend was in it. It was fine. The art room exists somewhere on campus. Never found it. No strong opinions.

Prefect of Learning was my main school thing. We actually did stuff like tutoring, study skills and exam prep, not just posters on a wall.M&M Food Market for eight months doing retail, customer service and restocking freezers. I learned how to talk to strangers. That's a life skill nobody teaches you in class.

Didn't live there. But I crashed at Harker Hall sometimes. Friends had rooms. Common room was the hangout. FIFA, homework, instant noodles at midnight. The boarding parents were around but not in your face. Boarders had to manage their own meals and laundry. I respected that. Day kids have parents for that stuff.

The dining hall was fine. Breakfast was the best meal. Sunday brunch everyone looked like they'd just woken up. Sweatpants everywhere. Good vibe. The cookies were popular for some reason. I never understood the hype but I grabbed them anyway.

Vancouver is a real city and that matters. I could leave campus and be somewhere completely different in fifteen minutes. Dunbar Village for coffee. Downtown for food. Rinks all over the Lower Mainland for games. The mountains were close. The ocean too. I didn't appreciate it enough at the time. Too busy driving to hockey rinks in Burnaby and North Van.

About 1,200 kids. I had my people. Reffing friends from outside school. Class friends. Prefect friends. Groups mixed fine.What I liked was that nobody expected me to be one thing. I was a prefect who worked construction. A hockey guy who didn't play for the school team. An economics kid who spent weekends in rinks wearing stripes. Nobody cared.