Three days after unveiling the Yorkton Cycling Network Plan, the City was forced to alter a section on Gladstone between Broadway and Smith, reverting it back to the way it used to be, although one lane will become a 'shared' lane for vehicle and bicycles. Originally, I thought it was a good idea to install these bike lanes and I still do, but the timing was off. There wasn't much anybody could have done about it as we had a disastrous summer. Having said that, I look at education being a key to getting this off on a better track next spring. I was driving east on Darlington last week and there was a bike rider in the far right hand side, in fact, she was biking to the right of the actual bike lane itself. So, that defeats the purpose altogether.
I noticed on the CBC website on Monday morning that police are linking Estevan's oil fuelled economic boom to an increase in drug abuse. Authorities have almost doubled the amount of arrests in various drug crimes from this same time period of last year. In light of the spike in drug crime, I feel it's important to note the folks seeing cougars in Estevan are not hallucinating. There have been some cougar sightings in Saskatchewan this month. It's important to take precautions.
It sounds like Dairy Queen is close to announcing its plans in the wake of the July 1 flood. When Mark lets me know, I'll pass it along in this column.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders answered a very embarrassing loss in the Banjo Bowl by stunning the Calgary Stampeders on Friday night. However, Ken Miller is under fire for a controversial call at the end of the 4th quarter whereby he asked Eddie Johnson to punt through the end zone for a single as opposed to Luca Congi kicking a 40-yard field goal. In a nutshell, I support Miller. The special teams have been so atrocious it would not have been a surprised to see Congi miss and then the ball returned all the way for a touchdown in favor of Calgary and the Riders would never recover from something like that. Congi missed a short field goal a week ago against Winnipeg and in week six he missed against Montreal and Tim Maypray went back 118 yards for a touchdown. There are other reasons I supported Miller, but I don't want to make this too lengthy. I do feel it's important to note that the team actually appeared to be coached on Friday as opposed to most games where I think it's left up to the players to execute based on athleticism. I also think Miller makes about 10-12 other calls during a game that, as fans, we don't have any knowledge of how crucial they may be at that particular time.
In this day and age of social media, it's amazing to me we don't see more major goof ups than what we did on Friday when it was reported one-time NHL head coach Pat Burns had passed away. Burns, who has lung cancer, is in his final days; but a report that he had died spread like wildfire on Friday. If that story had been a major trade, the first person reporting it would have bestowed himself with a ton of self-credit. But, I can't find anywhere who was the donkey that publicized this awful lie. I also would like to know who else jumped on board the false report without checking sources and, subsequently, also reported on his death. When I worked full-time on the radio, if I couldn't verify from the actual source itself, I also attributed where it was I got the story. Example: Yorkton This Week says blah, blah, blah.
Nice person mentions this week to Rod Pedersen, Stephanie Wood, Rina Quewezance, Tim Bomboir, and Deann Brereton.
