The Yorkton Terriers are poised to win their second straight SJHL championship later this week as, at press time, they lead the Melville Millionaires 2-games-to-0. The impressive and surprising thing to me is how the Terriers have initiated the physical play. I figured the Mils would want to establish a consistent pattern of hitting early in games to slow down the speedy Terriers, but instead it was the Terriers who sought it out and caught Melville off guard. To me, if Yorkton decides they are going to play a hitting game in between the times when they are skating circles around everyone, they become a team without any weaknesses. Should they win, they'll advance to the Western Canada Cup in Dauphin, which will be played at the end of the month and into the first few days of May. Because Dauphin is close in proximity, you can expect a healthy contingent of local fans making the trek east to watch.
There was an instance over the weekend in the NHL too where Pittsburgh head coach Dan Bylsma criticized Philadelphia's Scott Hartnell for going after Kris Letang, who was in his second game back after suffering a stroke ten weeks ago. I didn't see the play, but my argument is that Letang's stroke has nothing to do it. If Hartnell is breaking the rules, he should be penalized. The play the 'stroke card' is ridiculous. If Letang isn't healthy enough to play, then the onus is on Bylsma to keep him out of the game and keep him from possible harm. Common sense, to me, would be to keep Letang out of a game against Philadelphia anyway as those two teams have a real solid history of being stupid when it comes to playing one another.
Friday night, I was all set to write about how happy and pleased I was to see the organization and attention that was paid to the parking lot at the Gallagher Centre. With Spring Expo and the Terriers-Mils series on the go, there must have been close to 5000 people in that location. The attendants did an excellent job and there was more law and order in that lot because of it then I have ever seen. The police were on hand after the game and I also felt that was a smart move as there are always a few overanxious folks leaving the rink who are in a hurry to get home and with all the traffic, that is a recipe for a potentially serious accident.
Well, turns out if you are the City of Yorkton or its RCMP detachment there is just no way you can win. One week you have me complaining in the paper about the chaos, then when they take the steps necessary to rectify it, someone posts on Facebook that because the police were at the Gallagher Centre, they were unable to protect his garage from being broken into. Another person criticized a facility worker for issuing tickets to those who evaded the parking attendants and proceeded to block fire lanes. Apparently, this worker should be ashamed of him/herself for having 'nothing better to do' than walk the lot and write tickets. I don't get it. What if that fire lane was needed for something? Is it then the City's fault for not having wings and a parachute on its tanker so that they can access the building by air? To be clear, I give a grade of A-plus to how the parking lot was handled Saturday night. Bravo.
At some point, I wonder if there will ever be a defamation lawsuit filed over something that is said on Facebook. There was another thread about a reputable Yorkton business that was accused of doing something that was less than ethical. It turns out, the accusation was totally false and without merit but I wonder how much damage was done anyway. People have a tendency to read something and not go back to it and see the matter was, eventually, cleared up and there was a misunderstanding. There also seems to be a vendetta against a handful of businesses and that is completely unfair and wrong. Fortunately, the people who are spewing this nonsense have their names attached to it, so in the event of a future civil matter it shouldn't be too hard to identify who's at fault. This makes it a lot better than anonymous message boards.
Nice person mentions this week to Laura Krantz, Loressa McLeod, Tanya Quinney-Lerat, and Sheila Johnson.
