Sports
Yossi Offenberg is a die-hard fan of ball hockey, which is like roller hockey, only in shoes. He’s 48 and grew up in Toronto, where he and his friends would wait eagerly for the Saturday morning synagogue services to end so they could they rush home for lunch, and then out to play ball hockey in the streets.. They did this until the stars came out and Sabbath was over. Offenberg says those cold winter days were some of the best days of his youth.
Freedom House: Dancing in the Flatlands is a new performance work by Claudine Naganuma. The piece will be shown three times at East Oakland’s EastSide Cultural Center this weekend, starting with an 8 p.m. performance Friday night. Naganuma is the director of Danspace, a dance studio in Rockridge, and the founder of the dance company dNaga, which will be performing the piece.
“I like how this plant feels,” said Devynn Meleg, 7, as she paused to investigate a silver bush during her morning walk. “It feels so weird!” Her mother Brett, watching with a smile, wore a bright yellow vest with reflective strips and a “Safe Routes to School” logo printed on its front. Along their walk, they pointed out spiders spinning webs, a cat sitting in a window and a yard where chickens used to live. The two had set off…
Under the Friday night lights in East Oakland, The McClymonds Warriors’ football team fell to the Bishop O’Dowd Dragons, with a final score of 33-26.
On a Tuesday afternoon, in a Piedmont Avenue studio between a yogurt shop and a purveyor of vintage European goods, Yania Escobar has her kinder warriors—a half dozen 3 to 5 year olds — gathered around one of the many perfect circles outlined on the gym floor in colored tape. Escobar crouches over. She steps from one foot to the other, swaying side to side, while moving her arms about in front of her.
The amphitheater outside of City Hall was the site of a spirited pep rally for Oakland’s sports teams Monday morning, as Mayor Jean Quan led the crowd of about 100 fans in a “Let’s Go Oakland!” chant, urging them to get louder and draw people out of their downtown offices.
Silver and black was out in full force Saturday afternoon as fans packed the O.co Coliseum parking lot hours before the Oakland Raiders defeated the Detroit Lions 31-20 in the third preseason game of the year.
On Saturday afternoon, thousands of people from around the Bay Area walked, ran, and pedaled their way over to the 2nd Annual Pedalfest bicycle celebration at Jack London Square. Hosted by the East Bay Bicycle Coalition, the festival featured a variety of events for all ages to enjoy including BMX stunt jumps, bicycle dances performed on a tight rope by clowns and bike races inside Jack London Square.
Forget about the London Olympics. Friday, the real Olympic fun was right here in Oakland at Soccer Without Borders’ Oakland Olympics, an annual event bringing together displaced refugee children between the ages of 5 and 19 years old from Bhutan, Iraq, Nepal, Gabon, the Ivory Coast and El Salvador, among other countries.