Biography and Sports Donald S Hall

Don's early years were split between hockey and studies. Don's love of hockey started as a child, playing on the outdoor rink on his elementary school ground. Like any Canadian boy, he spent hours in the freezing cold practicing in his yard. He bounced the puck off the wall a lot, and took a window out once too! There were enough boys in the neighborhood that they could usually get a good game of road hockey going when the snow on the road was right.

He played goal in Junior A (U-20) hockey for the Lethbridge Sugar Kings. He won MVP for the team in their 1969 playoff run to the national (Memorial Cup) semi-finals after they won the Alberta championship. Beating Red Deer in the finals in seven games, they then played Victoria Cougars and beat them in six games. When they came home the team bus got a police escort into the city and there was a rally at City Hall.

He was invited to, and attended, the Los Angeles Kings training camp in 1970. There a dream came true - he got to try to stop one of his heroes Dickie Duff. The other junior goalkeeper that was there was Billy Smith who later won four Stanley cups with the New York Islanders

He didn't pursue a pro career, the pull of physics and math was too strong, but while in Lethbridge he played for cash in the commercial league to help put food on the table.

At graduate school he played goal for one year for the varsity team at Queen's

In Lethbridge Don got into lacrosse, playing goal at both the Junior and Senior levels. He helped found the first Lethbridge Lacrosse Association. The first year there was only a junior team, then the next year they had a senior team as well as most of the guys had passed the age of twenty.
Don was manager of the junior team.
He took to lacrosse immediately. The scores were higher than hockey, so there was less pressure to keep the other team from scoring, and the smaller goal allowed more creative play.

Don and Judi married early after their second year at university. Majoring in physics, he got his BASc with Great Distinction.

Don and Judi then went to Kingston Ontario where they did their Masters and PhD degrees. Don pursued theoretical mathematical physics, modeling the theory of liquids. This established his fascination with large computing models, back in the days when you handed a stack of cards in at the computer centre.

In addition to their studies, it was a chance to explore the scenic Thousand Islands, and the big cities of Toronto, Ottawa, and Quebec City.

After that, they moved to Deep River Ontario to work at the Chalk River Nuclear Labs. Life was a mix of nesting (building a house on a treed lot), work, and travel.

Judi caught a severely disabling virus enroute to a NASA conference and shared it with him. The result was ME/CFIDS. This had them returning to their Alberta roots, and ten years were a write off. Since then Don has mixed a caregiver role with software development.

Initially Don wrote haiga and longer form poetry. Don published my haiga in both online and print journals including Daily Haiga, Haiga on Line, HaikuPix, Sketchbook, and Simply Haiku

It was those long hours of his disability and caregiver role for Judi that led to the idea of creating their science fiction. It gave them something interesting to talk about, to create, and ultimately to share with others who might be going through similar problems and be looking for a distraction - a series to get lost in that is not excessively violent. Judi is the ideas person and writes the first draft with pencil and paper. Don is the technical consultant and the man who does the work to turn ideas into what you see.

Now in his mid 70's Don is still significantly disabled with the additional problem of Parkinson's disease.

To give back some of the opportunities they have had, Don and Judi have established the Don and Judi Hall Scholarship in Physics & Mathematics at the University of Lethbridge.

Author Donald S. Hall

Personal Biography Donald S Hall