The Great Canadian "What High School did you go to?" thread

[megadude]

Heart Lake SS in Brampton. Home of the Hurricanes. Because you know, Brampton is famous for having hurricanes. Nothing to do with alliteration.

Second smallest HS in Brampton. But we did have the Canadian Olympic boxing trials there once for some reason. Brian Williams of the CBC showed up while we were wandering around the gym. We actually got to go into the ring and start doing suplexes and other wrestling moves to each other. We were all shocked by just how soft and forgiving the surface of those rings are.

Also, there was a murder behind the rec. centre our school was connected to at the skate park. But this was after I left and just before my brother graduated. Couple of kids decided to try something out. One kid used the other kid's belt and put it around his neck and strangled him to death.

I guess the only famous alumni is Michael Cera. My sister was in drama class with him and actually did a play with him. He was already in Frequency at this point, which was a good movie but according to my sister, he didn't talk about much if at all and not many people realized. He started filming Superbad and Juno shortly after graduating if I'm not mistaken.

Didn't produce any great athletes but one I do recall playing against us in soccer was Paul Stalteri of St. Augustine, which was the powerhouse of Ontario highschools for a few years. They handed us our biggest home defeat. He went on to win the Bundesliga with Werder Bremen and then play in the Premier League for Spurs.

Geographically it was a nice setting. To the west was trees and bushes where it then dropped down to a path and then to the Etobicoke Creek.


https://twitter.com/torontofooty7s/s...61740691529728


To illustrate how small my school was, wikipedia only mentions 3 notable alumni, one of which is Michael Cera. But looking at two other highschools I briefly attended, for night school and summer school, Heart Lake's pales in comparison, particularly to Notre Dame, which of course used Fighting Irish for name and logo.

Notre Dame:
Jeff Adams, wheelchair track Canadian Paralympian
Phil Oreskovic, NHL and OHL player
Melissa Grelo, Canadian Television Personality cohost of The Social (Canadian TV series) and Your Morning on CTV
Steven Bednarski, historian and actor
Trey Anthony, executive producer and star of Da Kink In My Hair
Dave Thomas (basketball), former National Basketball League of Canada basketball player
Tory Lanez, rapper/singer
Steven Halko, NHL player
Atiba Hutchinson, professional Canadian soccer player
Fernand Kashama, CFL player
Kalonji Kashama, CFL player
Jerome Messam, CFL player
Zach Pop, Major League Baseball player[9]
Jamaal Westerman, NFL and CFL player
Jabar Westerman, CFL player
Shaquille Johnson, CFL player

* Dave Thomas I met at his house because my dad went to go visit his dad as they were coworkers. When I entered the house there was a pair of massive basketball shoes. Saw a kid couple years old than me watching March Madness so I watched with him. Then I was watching MSU during their NC run in 2000 and saw him on TV. He then went on to represent Canada and I believe still works for Basketball Canada.


St. Thomas Aquinas:
Anthony Gale, Olympic Sledge Hockey, Bronze Medalist, 2014
Luciano Borsato, former professional NHL hockey player
Sean Monahan, NHL hockey player who currently plays for the Montreal Canadiens
David J. Phillips, actor/producer in Hollywood
Jessie Reyez, singer/songwriter[citation needed]
Kwasi Poku, Footballer who currently plays for Forge FC in the Canadian Premier League[citation needed]
Lowell Wright, Footballer who currently plays for York United in the Canadian Premier League[citation needed]
Ezequiel Carrasco, Footballer[citation needed]

[niwell]

^A friend of mine went there as well! She was one year ahead of Michael Cera I believe and vaguely knew him.


I went to Bowness High School in NW Calgary, which was the HS in the former town so dates back to the 50s - albeit with many additions over the years. It wasn't the HS in the catchment area of my mom/stepdad's place (that was Sir Winston Churchill) but more equidistant to my dad/stepmom's outside the city and still accessible by public transit. I also preferred to go there over Churchill as it was smaller and known as less cliquey.

I believe there were about 1200 students which was relatively small for suburban Calgary. We had the various cliques (jocks/nerds/skaters/goths) but everyone got along pretty well and it was easy to have acquaintances outside your little bubble. Also the "townies" who lived in Bowness which was a lower-income area at the time - they were all very nice but related stories in shop class of various petty crimes they did outside of school hours. It wasn't known as an academic school but seemed decent at most things, plus had big woodworking/automotive/cosmetic programs. I think it helped out a lot that there were kids of various incomes and backgrounds at the school as the catchment area encompassed the old town of Bowness and newer suburbs across the river. Most people walked or took the bus and only a few had cars. We still had a smoking area outside, and while I didn't smoke would occasionally hung out with people who did on spares. The football team was pretty good I think but also nobody really cared if you were on it.

Worked out very well for me as someone who had a bad experience with cliques in the final year of Junior High - I was able to carve out a small closer friend group but also had people I'd hang out with during spares/lunch/skipped classes from various other groups. We'd often go to the bar down the street which allowed students during the day to play pool and foosball. I fit into the mould of someone who wasn't particularly popular but far from an outcast and didn't have much trouble talking to anyone (aside from girls, but I digress...). Rarely directly invited to parties but if our group went to them it was always fine. Never put too much stock in HS being "the best time of your life" and saw it as a stepping stone to University and leaving Calgary. Something that was encouraged by my parents who both left home for Uni and settled elsewhere in the country. Though they may have preferred if I moved back eventually! That being said I was also the type who preferred to coast and get marks in the mid-80s as opposed to work harder (or much at all, really) and achieve higher grades. A strategy that proved a bit of a shock when I went into first year engineering...

Haven't really kept in touch with anyone aside from one friend who moved to Edmonton right after school and now lives in Vancouver. Also the art/band kids ended up doing pretty cool stuff afterwards, both in Calgary/other cities and I am acquaintances with a few online.

Looked it up now and it appears they did some massive renos since I was there and I imagine the student body is a lot bigger:



When I went it looked like this: https://maps.app.goo.gl/rQs5uU2zgLejy9f36

[MolsonExport]

some "famous" alumni of the Big Hunk of Shit (Beaconsfield High School, Beaconsfield, Quebec) include (very incomplete list):
1970s

Dave Williams -astronaut.

Geoff Kelley — Quebec Liberal MNA.

Stephen Toope — President of University of British Columbia.

Glen Murray — former Winnipeg mayor and former Ontario MPP.

1980s

Mark Kelley — veteran CBC journalist, current co-host of The Fifth Estate.

Carolyn Waldo — two-time gold and one-time silver Olympic medallist and CTV Ottawa sportscaster.

Cas Anvar — film, television and stage actor, director and producer and former artistic director of Shakespeare in the Park. Most recently played Dodi Fayed in a film about the last two years of Princess Diana’s life with Naomi Watts playing Diana. To be released in August, 2013.

Alain Goulem — theatre writer and director and film, television and stage actor. Most recently his voice was used in the Assassin’s Creed III video game.

Mark Montreuil, former NFL defensive back for the San Diego Chargers

1990s

Andrew Walker — California-based film producer and actor. Most recently produced the documentary Stolen Seas, about Somali pirates.


One of my classmates (in each of five years) was Kent Hughes, who is the current GM of the Montreal Canadiens.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Sounds like Degrassi High.

yeah, BHS was very much like Degrassi (Jr.) High. The show everybody panned, yet everybody secretly watched, because it was so relatable.

[SFUVancouver]

Per Wikipedia, U-Hill's notable alumni include:

--Gordon Campbell, (Class of 1966), former Premier of British Columbia and former Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
--Torrance Coombs, (Class of 2002), actor on The CW's Reign, also a regular on The Tudors and Heartland
--Emi Nakamura, (Class of 1997), economist. Awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2019
--Pat Onstad, (Class of 1986), retired professional soccer player, MLS Cup champion and member of the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame (2015)
--Changpeng Zhao, co-founder and CEO of Binance

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by logan5

Maybe this will make you feel better, but there was one kid in the elementary school I went to who was clearly gay. Myself and others of course gave him a hard time. Anyways, years later at the reunion I had the opportunity to apologize. He was like “oh well, that was so long ago”, but I could tell it still affected him, and the apology meant something. Pretty sure those people that harassed you are very apologetic in their adulthood.

Sage commentary.


Yeah, it was, and is, shitty to be the victim of bullying in high school. I think things are different today, as there is cyber-bullying and sexting, etc. which we never had to worry about. But the physical and verbal bullying was very bad at my high school. The girls dished it out as much as the guys.

Some of the kids who later came out as gay went through a very tough time during high school on account of the extreme bullying, despite being "in the closet". Mind you, one of the worst perpetrators of said bullying came out as gay many years afterwards (I suppose, one of those self-loathing types).
There was also some racism and prejudice, although as I remember it, directed more towards Asians than Blacks.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

In grade 12 though, I started watching a British sitcom on TV called "Doctor in the House" which made medical school seem like a lot of fun

Used to love that show when I was a little kid, Robin Nedwell and Barry Evans. Always remembered the intro theme, I guess I did with every show and I suppose that pointed me towards a career in TV. I think you received the better influence. At one point, I spent a lot of time working in the area near Colonel Gray, passing it frequently.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

I was that deeply unpopular kid who never got invited to the smoking area, the prom, school dances, and being unable to drive, was the only one in my grade 13 graduating class to take the school bus home on the final day. Recently, via FB, I discovered I was the only one not invited to a landmark reunion.

I was the deeply popular kid who did none of that. I was joking with my sister that I've never had a reunion and then said maybe I was the one who was supposed to organize it While I was popular, knew and hung out with every group: sports, brains, theatre and didn't mind high school, it was really just a stop for me. I didn't keep in touch with anybody and haven't seen anybody in 40 years.

[urbandreamer]

About 15 years ago I was into online dating and randomly met a woman who said she'd been an actress in Degrassi High. Since I never watched TV, the show, and her claim to fame meant nothing to me.

[TorontoDrew]

My highschool had a number of famous pro-athletes go through it over the years, NHL, CFL, and Olympic, but none was as famous while Iatteneded Markham High like this guy.

Val Venis (Sean Allen Morley)
He graduated grade 13 when I entered grade 9.
Source: pinimg.com

[VANRIDERFAN]

Harls and I went to the same school in Killarney Manitoba, but a generation apart so it will be interesting to hear his comments on the place.

My years were a lot of transition for the school and the region.

When I started school in the fall of 1966, the High School was fairly new and on the outskirts of town. The elementary schools were the remainder of the two ancient school and a newer "White School" (called that because it was painted white you animals!) plus a four "huts" for the overflow. In grade 5 (1971) we moved the 4-8's to the new addition to the high-school. It had the "Open Air Classroom" foisted on us at the time. What a fucking stupid idea that was and in later years the province paid a lot of money to retrofit the schools for individual classrooms.

Our schools in the area of Manitoba had enough kids to field 12 man football teams and our school was well regarded in the Province for high level teams in many varsity sports.
The student body was mostly farm kids with the town kids being the minority but not by much. There was the usual bullying (which I was a short term victim of and of course reciprocated when the opportunity came). A good portion of the male student body quit school when they reached Grade 10 to join the work force (mostly construction and the oil rigs in AB).

A comment on the bullying. Fist fights were commen and as long as they took place in the parking lot, the staff was fine with letting us farm boys duke it out. That usually settled things. Also during the fall hunting season there was likely more firepower in the gun racks of the parking lot pickups than at the local RCMP det but there was never any move from anyone being bullied to shoot up the school. That never crossed anyone's mind as far as I knew.

The thing that really affected the school was rural depopulation and the end of us baby boom kids. My class had just over 100 kids graduate. The next year was 55 and it just got less and less over the years. My school bus when I started school was a big and full of kids and 12 years later the bus was small with only 2 or 3 kids in it.

Killarney Schools from the 1910's


The elementary school complex in 1967 (white school in background, and the portables (aka "The Huts") to the left)


Killarney High School today

[ssiguy]

My first 3 years were at Strathroy District Collegiate Institute in the original downtown building. They ripped it down and replaced it with a new building on the edge of town which is now an unwalkable distance for many students. Moved to London and finished at South Secondary.

SDCI has a horrible reputation in terms of academics and was your classic 1970s everyone is drunk/stoned school. My average was a C in the best of times but when I moved to London and went to South which was a preppy WASP school and known as one of the city's best, my average soared to A+.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Val Venis (Sean Allen Morley)

One year, between contracts, I thought it might be interesting to try working at a call centre. I got a job with a big Bell contractor working with high speed Internet. It was supposed to be one of the best call centres (money, perks) otherwise I wouldn't have done it. They (the contractor) lied about pretty much everything regarding the job which turned me off from the start. I lasted longer than most though, one year (before quitting).

Anyway, I think I had in that time two "celebrity" calls, maybe it was only one because I can't think of the other. It was from a guy named Morley from Markham or Oakville. I was into rasslin' at the time and knew that was where Val Venis was from. I asked the man and he told me he was his father. We chatted for a while which was verboten but I didn't care because I could care less if they fired me or not.

[manny_santos]

As a younger high school, my school doesn't have a lot of famous alumni, but there are two current NHL players that went to London's STA: Sam Gagner and Habs captain Nick Suzuki. Both were younger than me so I never knew them.

[Proof Sheet]

This is the list of alumni from my HS with Mike Myers being the most famous. I knew him a little bit (a year older) and his mother and my mother know each other quite well (both from the UK) and she never thought he would amount to anything



Notable alumni
Linda Ballantyne, voice actress
Bill Carroll, radio broadcaster
Gary Dillon, NHL hockey player
John Does 1, 2, and 3, unnamed juvenile members of the Toronto 18
Amin Durrani, member of the Toronto 18
"Tarzan" Dan Freeman, radio DJ and television host
Steve Guolla, former NHL hockey player
Jeff Harding, former NHL hockey player
Mark Kirton, NHL hockey player
Stacey McKenzie, fashion model
Mark McKoy, 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist 110M Hurdles
Mike Myers, actor, comedian, screenwriter, former Saturday Night Live castmember (also attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute)
Elva Ni, winner of the Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant, 2005
Fred Patterson, Humble and Fred, co-host, 102.1 The Edge
Bill Root, NHL hockey player
Vicky Sunohara, former ice hockey player, Olympic gold medallist
Behn Wilson, former NHL hockey player, Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephe..._Institute.JPG

Brutalist architecture at its best

[ScreamingViking]

I went to Glendale Secondary School in east Hamilton, "class of 1988" though I still needed O.A.C. courses for university so I was there until spring 1989. Glendale had a twin (Barton S.S.) that is now closed.

It was a *very* diverse school of close to 1,500 students in that era: we had both Serbians and Croatians!! In truth it was mostly white like the east end of Hamilton was back then, with a few visible minorities in each grade. The neighbourhoods around the school are now largely comprised of people of south and southeast Asian backgrounds, and the school reflects that. Glendale's football and basketball teams had long runs of dominance in the city's public high-school leagues, and it was never a highly academic school aside from a few students known for their high marks.

There was a 50th anniversary "reunion" in 2010, since the school opened to classes in 1960. I was never one of the popular students and academically was near the top but not quite. I did get along well with almost everyone (especially in my final two years, spending spares playing cards with some of the 'cool kids' in the cafeteria and going to some of the parties). At the reunion, there were not that many people from my time at the school, but among those that did attend it seemed the former 'cool' ones were still doing the same drug and alcohol routines they did as teens and it showed to the point of not being able to easily recognize some of them; the ones like me who had largely avoided those issues were simply older versions of the kids we used to be. A couple of my favourite former teachers did show up too, which was nice (and a bit odd to be talking to them as a 39-year-old! I imagine it was more odd for them, seeing so many former students who had become "adults")

I'm still friends with a few people from high school, but my circle of close ones completely changed when I started working at a local franchise of Hamilton's Italian grocery store chain (Fortinos) and befriended co-workers who were mostly Catholic school students... many of them are still quite close to me today, and I met others through the connections I made at the store who are still amongst my best friends. That was a terrific part-time job to have through high school and early university!!

The façade has been updated a little since I was a lad:

Source

Also: https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/glendale/

Oh, and the major "claim to fame" was having The Cult's Ian Astbury attend the school while he lived in Hamilton as a teenager. I had no idea about the alumnus who became a serial killer.

[Xelebes]

I went to Jasper Place Composite High School back in 2000 to 2003. It was the largest high school in Edmonton but not by population. Had a six story tower which had the band room on the top floor. Spent a lot of time there. My mom went to the high school in the 1970s and was on the swim team which had at least one Olympian on it.

When I went there, there was two campuses. One academic campus which had all the IB courses. I spent most of my time there, when I wasn't spending my time on the sixth floor in the band room. In the main campus, there was the Russian wing, the raver wing and the preps hung around the parking lot.

Of the famous people there:

Gizmo Williams (teacher, was a CFL player)
Adam Gregory (country singer)
Brenda Holmes (Olympian swimmer)
Quanteisha Benjamin (r&b singer)
Timo Ewald (founder and owner of Nexopia)
Daryl Katz (owner of the Oilers)
Mike Comrie (Oiler)
Bill Stevenson (7-tie Grey Cup winner with Eskimos)
Kelly Hrudey (goaltender and Sportsnet personality)
Pierre Leuders (Olympic gold medal bobsledder)

[megadude]

Mark Kirton went from hockey to real estate. I had him come over to appraise my house when I was thinking of selling. Went to his office too. He reminded me of Bill Paxton in True Lies. Similar look and personality but not sleazy.

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

This is the list of alumni from my HS with Mike Myers being the most famous. I knew him a little bit (a year older) and his mother and my mother know him quite well (both from the UK) and she never thought he would amount to anything



Notable alumni
Linda Ballantyne, voice actress
Bill Carroll, radio broadcaster
Gary Dillon, NHL hockey player
John Does 1, 2, and 3, unnamed juvenile members of the Toronto 18
Amin Durrani, member of the Toronto 18
"Tarzan" Dan Freeman, radio DJ and television host
Steve Guolla, former NHL hockey player
Jeff Harding, former NHL hockey player
Mark Kirton, NHL hockey player
Stacey McKenzie, fashion model
Mark McKoy, 1992 Olympic Gold Medalist 110M Hurdles
Mike Myers, actor, comedian, screenwriter, former Saturday Night Live castmember (also attended Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute)
Elva Ni, winner of the Miss Chinese Toronto Pageant, 2005
Fred Patterson, Humble and Fred, co-host, 102.1 The Edge
Bill Root, NHL hockey player
Vicky Sunohara, former ice hockey player, Olympic gold medallist
Behn Wilson, former NHL hockey player, Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephe..._Institute.JPG

Brutalist architecture at its best

[logan5]

Famous Killarney Secondary (Vancouver) alumni… Milan Lucic, logan5. There’s a list in Wikipedia, but I have never heard of any of those people, though there are band members from Loverboy and Trooper in there, just didn’t know the names.

[MonkeyRonin]

I went to Marshall McLuhan in Toronto. Here it is with Yonge & Eglinton's towers looming over it in the background (good skyline views from some of the classrooms):




It's relatively new school - it only opened in 1998 - but it actually has a pretty interesting history. I believe the building itself dates back to the WWII era, at which time it was a secret air force research facility - it's claim to fame being that James Bond-author Ian Fleming was posted there and it's where the world's first anti-gravity flying suit was developed. It was then an RCAF training facility until the 90s, when the TCDSB bought it and renovated & added an addition to the rear.

It was supposed to be some sort of revolutionary "high tech", multimedia-focused school, which never really panned out. It ended up being a pretty standard high school; though it did definitely have above-average computer labs & equipment for the time, and a decent arts program with fairly well-appointed studios, dark rooms, etc.

Anyway, it was a fine school; nothing special, but I had a decent time. Mainly took art & design classes, and just smoked a lot of weed. About a thousand students, mostly pretty chill. Still good friends with a few of them (one of whom is also an SSP'er! albeit not active anymore).