64 DEGREES?

           Here’s an interesting fact for you. On March the 1^st, 2014 Deb and I flew back to Regina from Cancun, Mexico and there was a 64 degree Celsius difference between the temperature there and the temperature here! 64 DEGREES! Yikes! What a difference! Talk about a shock to the system. Yes, I know, I can feel your sympathy from here.

            If timing is everything, then our timing was about as good as is gets as we were on the Mayan Riviera for what was the coldest week of the winter yet in these parts. The whole darn winter has been too cold, if you ask me, but that last week of February was a killer. So I was told…numerous times.

Apparently, the 2013-2014 version of our Canadian Winter was the coldest since 1971, or something, and the second coldest in decades, but if this past weekend’s temperatures are any indication of what is to come then we should be done with that minus 50 crapola for this winter. I hope. If not, I may just have to find my way back down to Mexico again…by hook or by crook.        

One of the major factors in choosing a Hot Holiday is to escape winter, if only for a very short time, and, hopefully, shorten our too long Canadian winter. To that end, Debbie and Perry’s Excellent Mexican Adventure met the above criteria.

I could bore you with all of the details about how we spent a week at Playa Del Carmen and swam in the Caribbean Sea every day and we soaked up the +30C sunshine and a few cool beverages and snorkelled with the turtles at Akumal…twice…and went on an eco-tour of some cenotes, (a natural pit, or sinkhole resulting from the collapse of limestone bedrock that exposes groundwater underneath; especially associated with the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico) and then we toured some Mayan ruins and basically enjoyed a wonderful week out of the -50C Canadian winter…but who wants to hear about that?

As we all know, “it’s a small world after all”…and that statement was even more evident before we left Saskatchewan. Turns out, a fellow employee and her husband were going to the exact same resort as we were! Who knew? And then, while Deb and I were boarding the bus to transport us from the Cancun Airport to our resort some guy on the bus yells, “Hey Perry!” and, sure enough, there was an old friend and teammate from my fastball days in Regina! He and his wife were going to the exact same resort as we were, too! I know it really is a small world but do you know how many resorts there are along that coastline? Lots. Lots and lots, so it made the coincidences even more incredible. 

I also went there knowing full well that there was a strong possibility that the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team would be in the final Gold Medal game that was to be played early Sunday morning. 6:00 AM to be exact. I even packed some appropriate Canadian hockey attire and was quite prepared to get up and go to the 24 hour Sports Bar but our early flight and the fact that I found the game on our room TV and there was 24 hour room service and a stocked fridge…suffice to say I watched the game in our room. And loved it! And I wasn’t the only one as you could hear cheering coming through our balcony door screen from many other rooms.

It was a great start to a fantastic vacation. Later, we celebrated the win with old friends and new and the Canadian colours were in full display throughout the resort making it an even better home away from home!

“We are continually shaped by the forces of coincidence.”-Paul Auster (1947-).

 

LET'S GO TO MEXICO!

A year ago, in an effort to shorten the long Saskatchewan winter, Deb and I joined ten of our friends on a “hot holiday” trip to Mexico. The experience was so great that we have decided to do it again this year. But due to scheduling conflicts we missed an earlier chance to go back with many of the same folks that we went with last year so this time around Deb and I are flying solo. And we are stoked.

            We searched and we searched and debated and debated about when and where to go and we finally found a great resort and booked a time to go. Like so many other instances in my past I failed to really look closely at the calendar before making our final decision. The good news is that we are going to Mexico, the bad news, if we can even call it that, is that our arrival time would put us in Mexico merely hours before the Gold Medal Game in Men’s Ice Hockey in this year’s Olympic Games. I know! It’s almost a bummer.

            As I am writing this merely hours before our Canadian Men’s Hockey Team is scheduled to meet the Americans in the semi-finals I may be sounding unCanadianly cocky that we will indeed be in the Gold Medal Game. But I am confident that Canada will be there in the final game and Google has assured me that there is a twenty-four hour sports bar located at the resort that, next to actually being in Sochi, Russia, will be the perfect venue for watching an Olympic Gold Medal hockey game. I’m also confident that we won’t be the only Canadians there to watch the game.
            If history is kind, (our Canadian Men’s team followed up the Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey Team’s Gold Medal performance in Vancouver in 2010 with a Gold of their own), we’ll be watching a repeat of double hockey Gold Medals again this time around. Wouldn’t that be nice.

            The first part of history has already been repeated as our Canadian Women’s Hockey Team has just mounted an incredible come-from-behind victory over the USA in the 2014 Gold Medal Game! The never-say-die Canadian women were down by two goals with about three minutes left to play in the game when they stormed back and tied the game in the last minute of play and then broke the American’s hearts with an overtime goal claiming the Gold Medal for the fourth consecutive Olympic Games. What a feat!

            While the past two weeks of Olympic Winter Games watching have been a real distraction from Old Man Winter’s firm grip a little fun in the sun will be a more welcome change. And then combining the two for a few hours will double the fun.

             Last year we hoped that a late February break would shorten the winter considerably but, as luck, or more aptly-bad luck, would have it…winter lasted ‘til the middle of May! Yuck! There are some things we are hoping history repeats (Double Hockey Gold Medals) and, then again, there are some things (Old Man Winter’s strangling grip), that we hope will change. Only time will tell.

GO CANADA!!

“Vacation is what you take when you can’t take what you’ve been taking any longer.” Anonymous.

PAIGE AND RUDI

           It’s funny how four years can make such a difference, you know? Back in 2010 when Canada and Vancouver hosted the Olympic Games it seemed like the whole country got involved. Canada was ripping it up in the medal count and many of us sat in front of our TVs in awe as we watched our usual “also-ran” Canadian Winter Olympic team triumph in so many ways.

            Fast forward to today’s Sochi Olympics and it’s a bit of a different story. We’ve lost the home-ice advantage, it seems, and the time difference between Canada and Russia makes it hard to watch many of the Games’ events live which, for me, takes away from the total “feel” of the games.

            Four years ago I think Canadians were pleasantly surprised at how well our athletes were performing and that transferred into an outpouring of national pride very seldom seen or felt in this big, beautiful country of ours. Don’t get me wrong, I think most Canadians are still welling with pride at our country’s athletes’ performances, good, bad or otherwise, but, as stated above, it doesn’t quite have that…I don’t know…SOMETHING…that you feel when it’s happening at home.

            To me, losing some of the national feel of the 2010 Vancouver Games has been offset by the inclusion in these Games of our local skating heroes Paige Lawrence and Rudi Sweigers. Regardless of their placement in the field of Pairs Skating it is still amazing to see these two skate in an Olympic Games and know that they come from small-town Saskatchewan…OUR…small town Saskatchewan. Small “towns”, as it were, (Kennedy and Kipling).

            Rudi was in the same grade in school as our son Nolan so we saw a lot of Rudi back in the day. Nolan and I were discussing the old days with Rudi and Nolan recalled one particular birthday party of his in our back yard where Rambunctious Rudi took a leap off of our picnic table, got caught up in our clothes line, and did a complete header onto the ground, glancing his head off of the seat of the table on the way down and landing with a resounding thud. Nolan says, “He did a “Swiggers” and jumped up and dusted himself off and said…I’m okay, I’m okay!” Smiling away! And he was. Okay. Thank God. Nolan and I are unsure how many “Swiggers” it takes to become an Olympian but we’re pretty sure it’s more than a few.

            Although I don’t know Paige as well as I know Rudi I know her parents very well and when I saw Leanne and Jimmy on the TV screen in Sochi, along with Paige’s’ brothers Jesse and Dawson, it gave me goose bumps. You’d have to confirm this with them but I think Jimmy and Leanne began their long relationship while Jimmy was playing Junior B hockey in Kipling with the Pipestone Beavers back in the ‘70’s before his famous rodeo days. Leanne was a figure skater and lived at the Kipling Arena, it seems, and her brothers played on the Beaver’s team, too, and her Dad, Dave Toppings, was the team’s long-time manager. Paige has certainly become a chip off of both the old blocks with her skating ability and her bull-rider mentality.

            Paige and Rudi may not have ended up at the top of the podium at the Sochi Games but their hard work and determination has paid off in helping them become world-class competitors in a demanding and super competitive sport and they are truly Olympians that all Canadians can be proud of.

“If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride-and never quit, you’ll be a winner.” Paul “Bear” Bryant. (1913-1983).

SAD DECISION AT VETERAN'S AFFAIRS

 

            I guess I just happened to be in the right place at the right time as I was in the Kipling Goodtimer’s Dressing room at the Kipling Arena right before the KW Oil Kings playoff game last Friday night when I glanced at the TV that was tuned in to the Winnipeg Jets’ home game against the visiting Vancouver Canucks and there were Paige Lawrence and Rudi Sweigers conducting the ceremonial face off for the game! Good for them! With the level of pride that has been displayed from the skating pair’s home towns and local skating clubs I can only imagine how their immediate families are feeling. Wow!

            The XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia will begin on the 7^th of February and I am sure that Paige, Rudi and the entire families are absolutely thrilled with their inclusion on the team. Like them and the rest of  The Canadian Olympic Team I can hardly wait for the games to begin.

            However, the swelling pride in the Canadian Olympic Team and the support for all things Canadian that accompanies these kinds of events was tempered by the Conservative Government’s handling of the Veteran’s Affairs Department’s budget cuts and the closing of eight Veteran’s Affairs regional offices across Canada, including one in Saskatoon, which many are calling a betrayal to men and women-young and old-who have served their country.

The office closures, which provide support services to veterans across Canada, are part of a move by Veterans Affairs to shift more services online and to Service Canada outlets which Veteran Affairs says will enhance veteran services. Many Veterans don’t agree with this assessment and feel the cuts and closures will diminish the support that they now receive.

Exacerbating the veteran’s outrage was Veteran Affairs Minister Julian Fantino’s actions when he was to meet with seven ex-soldiers to discuss the Department’s budgetary decisions. First of all Fantino was late for the meeting and then he was confrontational while discussing the changes with the seven veterans during the discussion. Many, including the ex-soldiers, called Fantino’s behaviour “shameful” and “disrespectful”. Fantino has since apologized for how the meeting with the vets was handled but, apparently, the apology doesn’t extend to the budgetary decisions.

The Conservatives portray it as increased efficiency; the opposition parties, public service unions and veterans groups call it cost-cutting to the detriment of those who put their lives on the line for their country.

I am not sure how much “cost savings” there will be in the closures and cutbacks in the Veteran’s Affairs Department but, in my humble opinion, no monetary considerations should be given when discussing the support for our troops who have given so unselfishly of themselves so we can enjoy the freedoms that we have in this country.

            There isn’t a person in Canada that hasn’t been affected by our Armed Forces whether they have served in the Forces personally or they have a family member serving in the Forces or they have lost a family member while he/she was serving in the Forces or they have recently become a Canadian citizen or even if they just moved to Canada last week. Everything, and I mean everything, that we are so proud of as Canadians can be attributed to the sacrifices of our Armed Forces. Lest we forget.

“It’s penny-pinching on the backs of veterans who sacrificed all for this country.” Chris Malette, The Belleville Intelligencer.

 

GHOSTS AT BEKEVAR?

            On January 22^nd the half-hour TV show, The Other Side, which airs on the APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network), showed its episode on their investigation into the purported spirits in and around the Bekevar Church. It was the first episode of the new paranormal investigation series’ thirteen episodes into paranormal activities in a number of Saskatchewan locations.

According to their website the show is “Lead by intuitive Jeff Richards, The Other Side is a thrilling series that seeks to find the most haunted corners of the Canadian prairies. Along with researcher Priscilla Wolfe, paranormal investigator Bill Connelly and spiritual advisor Tom Charles, Jeff hopes to reach out to these restless souls who seem to be wedged between the physical world we live in and that of the spirit world, and bring them the peace they need to move on.”
            I’ve been hearing tales of the Bekevar ghost, or ghosts, ever since I moved to Kipling in 1970 with my parents and two of my eight siblings. My Mom had lived in and around the Kipling/Bender/Bekevar area as a youngster in the 1920’s and early 1930’s and had attended services in the church many times. The church would have been fairly new when Mom was going there, as it had been built in 1911-12, so it wouldn’t have been much of a spooky place at that time, I wouldn’t think.

By the middle of the 1960’s, though, many things were changing and a new Bekevar Presbyterian Church was built in Kipling and the old church was only used on special occasions and year by year less and less activity was held in the building that had been the heart of the Hungarian settlement of Bekevar for so many years.

Many of us are aware of how an empty old building, creaking and groaning and cloaked in darkness can become an extremely scary place but it felt like more than just my imagination spooking me when I was brave enough to enter that church at night on too many occasions in my youth.

I am unsure as to when the stories of the ghosts of Bekevar began but by the early 1970’s Kalman and Irene Varjassy’s boys were telling me stories of a woman clothed in white or black appearing on the roads and flagging down rides and then mysteriously disappearing again and leaving only her gloves behind as evidence that she was even there at all. The boy’s stories were my inspiration for the writing of The Bekevar Ghost poem that I penned a few years ago which has been posted in this newspaper on occasion. The poem is not a factual account at all and I took great literary license in the story line strictly for the poem’s rhyming and flow.

However, other stories report lights, shadows and figures in the upper windows and the sound of the church bells tolling. Another report states that there is a male presence whose spirit protects the church. The stories are obviously widespread enough to have caught the attention of many spiritualists and ghost hunters as there have been more than just “The Other Side” people who have looked into the Bekevar Ghost phenomena.

Interestingly enough the old Bekevar Hall, which was built in 1950 near the Bekevar Church, was moved to Kenosee Lake in the ‘60’s and is now part of the Moose Head Inn. The paranormal activity in the Moose Head Inn is very well known and is the subject of The Other Side’s Episode 6. The Western Development Museum, North Battleford and Duck Lake are a few of the many places that have been investigated by the show in its 13 episodes this season.

The Other Side’s Bekevar episode has an interview with long-time Bekevar/Kipling area resident Adele Daku. The Bekevar Church was a huge part of Adele and her family’s life and for her it is a place of many happy memories. Adele was baptised and married in the church and her daughter was married in the church, too, and Adele was the church organist for many years. In her interview she stated that the only Ghost in the church is The Holy Ghost, emphatically showing her feelings on the subject of spirits in the church.

There are believers and non-believers and I would encourage you to find the episode and watch it. It’s well worth the time. You can find the episode online here- http://aptn.ca/fullepisodes/theotherside/. You can also find a copy of my poem The Bekevar Ghost here: http://pnhubbard.blogspot.ca/2008/11/first-post.html.

“They say that shadows of deceased ghosts, Do haunt the houses and the graves about, Of such whose life’s lamp went untimely out, Delighting still in their forsaken hosts.” Joshua Sylvester (English Poet -1563-1618).

OECD-CANADA ONE OF THE BEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD TO LIVE

According to the OECD, (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development-an international economic organization of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade), Canada is among the best places in the world to live, but we already knew that didn’t we. Their “Better Life Index” finds Canada among the leaders in most of the twenty-four indicators measured. The indicators include Jobs, Community, Education, Environment, Governance, Health, Life Satisfaction, Safety and Work-Life Balance. In fact, Canada ranks third behind only Australia and Sweden. Not too shabby, eh?

            I happened to read the article about the OECD rankings the day after CBC Television's Hockey Day in Canada celebrated Canada's national sport and  a week after our local skating stars Paige Lawrence and Rudi Swiegers qualified for a spot on the 2014 Canadian Winter Olympic Figure Skating Team representing Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia in a few weeks. I was already welling up with local and national pride so the OECD announcement was just icing on the cake.

            Since 2000 the CBC's Hockey Day in Canada has celebrated the game of hockey and its connection to our country and culture. Like so many other Canadians, my introduction to the game of hockey came through my parents love of the game and the Saturday night broadcasts on CBC television. The grainy black and white images came into our living room while the whole household tuned in week after week every winter. In fact, I don't think I can actually remember life before hockey.

            Being a prairie farm boy my Dad grew up playing the game in northern Saskatchewan and my brother Jack, the oldest in the family and fifteen years my senior, grew up playing the game, too, so there was little chance that my other brother, Gord, who is eighteen months older than me, and I would grow up without hockey in our lives. We played it on the outdoor and indoor rinks, the streets, both winter and summer, in the school gymnasium, in the basement and when we weren't physically playing the game in those places we were playing our table-top version of the game with the same intensity that we brought to the real versions. It was always hockey, hockey, hockey.

            The last time I actually played in a hockey game, though, was about four years ago in the Dale Blackstock Memorial Rec Tournament and during the course of the weekend both of my skates broke. I was thinking...hmmm...that could be a sign. Then a few months later I herniated a disc in my lower back and that sign was a little more emphatic so I haven't played since the fall of '09.

            Although my back recuperation has not worked out as well as I had hoped it would I gladly accepted a new pair of skates as a birthday gift last month and I'm thinking that I might not be done with the old game of hockey just yet.

            Hockey is only one of the many aspects of life in Canada that makes it such a great place to live and I didn't really need an OECD Better Life Index report to tell me that we've got a pretty good thing going on here in The Great White North but it's always nice to hear it anyway.

            "Every day is a great day for hockey."-Mario Lemieux (1965-).

BAD NEWS FIRST!

           As we prepare to pack up from 2013’s version of the Happy Holidays, and I hope yours was as good as mine, (holidays not packing), we find ourselves arriving at the time of year when we must take a look back on the high-lights and low-lights of the previous twelve months activities on good old planet Earth.

            I have been reviewing many different television shows, newspaper articles and websites sharing their views on 2013’s top stories in news, sports, business, entertainment, etc. What strikes me the most about the stories is not really any one individual story, because there are so many, but it is the type of news coverage that most people pay attention to.

            Again, it’s the old “chicken n’ egg” syndrome…do we only concentrate our time on bad news stories because of humanity’s “train-wreck” fixation or are main stream media outlets so fixated on “train-wrecks” that we are sucked into the “bad-news vortex”. Perhaps a little of both, don’t you think?

            Case in point-if you go to the Yahoo-News-Canada-Homepage there is a toolbar near the top of the page that lists the news categories by subject and reading them from left to right in order of importance they are:  Home-Canada-World-Business-Entertainment-Sports-Health-Technology-Science-Blogs- and then waaayyy over here, second to last no less, there’s a heading for “Good News”. The only category that isn’t ahead of “Good News” is “Odd”, which I find kind of…well…odd.

            Anyway, sorry, I seem to be losing my way here. The regular readers of this column will recognize a continuing subject theme that I have touched on more than a few times in the past regarding our mainstream media and their coverage of the news and all I really wanted to do was a review of some of the top stories from this past year but I have been distracted by my research while finding, again, a deeper meaning in what we deem as newsworthy.

            Another case in point- The Associated Press, “which was founded in 1846 and is an American multinational not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City who is committed to independent, comprehensive journalism and has covered all the major news events of the past 165 years”- recently released its list of the Top Ten Sports Stories of 2013 and not one of the top five had anything to do with an actual sporting event. They are: 1.)-The Boston Marathon bombings; 2.)-Lance Armstrong comes “clean”; 3.) The NFL Concussion Settlement (The NFL's settlement of lawsuits brought by thousands of former players over head injuries in football); 4.)-Baseball Drug Bans; 5.)-Aaron Hernandez (New England Patriots football player) arrested for murder; 6.) Boston Red Sox win 2013 World Series.

            Yes, the bombings occurred during the running of the Boston Marathon but I still wouldn’t call it a “sports” story. The “story” is the radical extremists who built and detonated the bombs. Lance Armstrong and Major League Baseball’s PED, (performance enhancing drugs), conundrum also involve sports but the story isn’t about sports, it’s about ethics in sports and New England Patriot’s former tight end’s vicious life style is a story that plays out too many times per day in the United States and Canada but because Hernandez could catch a football at the professional level his story is elevated to one of the top five stories of the year in the “Sports” category. I might be splitting hairs here a little on the above subjects but, to me, it encapsulates the overall methodology of news reporting which is- bad news first.

            I have many wishes for 2014 and I will wish, once again, that humanity will strive to do better and be better and here’s hoping that as a society we will start to recognize the importance good news and good things play in our world and maybe somebody could lead with that for a change.  

“The bad news is that only the bad people reach the news because they are noisier,”-Javier Bardem (1969-).