I have a few friends in eastern Canada, who are going through a terrible ice storm that has resulted in power outages for most. There are a few who had to deal with a Christmas Day without heat and lights and it's believed a number of citizens were without electricity for as long as a week. Of course, while this was going on, the Yorkton area was hit with a deep freeze of -50 (with wind chill) and one individual remarked to me that -50 was better than an ice storm. I suppose that's true if comparing one day to one day. But, when comparing a once every twenty years winter storm against day after day of frigid weather each year, I will take the ice storm.
Some faith in humanity was restored Christmas Eve when I looked around St. Gerard's Catholic Church and saw the place was packed with people taking in the service. On our way to church, we noticed a couple of other churches appeared to be full as well. In a day and age where we hear from squeaky wheels who don't like to integrate religion into this time of year, it was sure nice to see there is an incredible amount of silent majority who feel otherwise. You don't have to be an 'every Sunday' church goer to appreciate the meaning of Christmas and judging by the number of people who left their home to attend a service somewhere, it's clear there are a lot of folks who still 'get it'. Maybe there is hope for the human race after all.
As we hit the New Year, a lot of people will make New Year's resolutions to lose weight, exercise, eat smarter, and be more health conscious. By the second week of February a lot of those resolutions will be distant memory. One thing that has helped me from going totally off the rails is keeping a lot with a smart phone app. Yes, you can waste a lot of time on your smart phone doing needless things, but there are a ton of useful programs on there to help manage your health as well as your finances. It would be prudent to try them out.
McDonald's Restaurants took a needless hit from the media over the Holidays. The Globe and Mail had a story about an employee resource website that discouraged fast food eating and it was insinuated that McDonald's was, somehow, being hypocritical by selling fast food on one hand and then telling its employees to avoid it on the other hand. This was blown way out of proportion and it was never once mentioned by the Globe and Mail that the jist of the article was geared around moderation and letting employees know that being around fast food all the time makes for a tempting choice to have it all the time. They were simply letting employees know the pitfalls of such a diet.
I'll be shocked if Canada does not win the gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Malmo, Sweden this year. At the time of this writing, they were off to a good start with a 7-2 convincing win over Germany. They haven't won since 2009 and Hockey Canada does take some sort of strange pride in using a screwball evaluating process to compile a roster, but when you are as good at hockey as Canada, there is no excuse for being shutout of a gold medal for the last four years. Look for them to return to the top of the mountain this year, even if they have left some very deserving players at home when they should've been on the roster.
You could make an argument that Hockey Canada was done more to ruin the game of hockey in the last dozen years then they have to make it better. Ask yourself if the game is more entertaining now or ten years ago. I'm not talking NHL. I'm talking minor hockey, including junior.
Speaking of junior, there is no guarantee you will see a Yorkton-Melville SJHL playoff series this year. There are four head to head regular season meetings left, so let's pack the rinks in both communities as the Terriers and Mils are both extremely good and near the top of the standings yet again.
I've seen it debated on various social media websites where the best place in Yorkton is to get your pizza from. I recall the newspaper in Brandon doing an annual survey and publishing those results and it being a hotly popular topic. I'd like to do the same thing, only through email. If you wish to take part in a Yorkton dining survey, please send me an email to [email protected] and I will email you a short survey and then let the people who participate know what the results are. If Yorkton This Week wants to come on board, we can publish the results in the paper. Of course, there is some sensitivity involved because you never like to upset a sponsor who doesn't win the survey. So, let's keep it to email for now. Hopefully we get good participation. Your answers will be anonymous, except to me.
Nice person mentions this week to Bill Chow, Logan Fraser, Jeff Goebel, Marlo Shore and staff, Brad Lewthwaite and staff, and Adam Chernoff.
