The late January, early February period always seems to produce lots of news in this area. Every year it seems like the major events happen all at once, such as the Citizen of the Year banquet, the upcoming Chamber of Commerce president’s banquet to inaugurate their new president, the SUMA convention and other things. The City is also bidding for the Saskatchewan Winter Games.
With all this going on, we really had plenty on our plate already. Unfortunately, the tragedy in La Loche occured.
The shooting, in which four people were killed, was a major shock to the country. For Saskatchewan residents the story really hits home, even though La Loche is hundreds of miles away.
The concern on the minds of everyone at the various civic meetings I’ve been to in North Battleford in the aftermath of the tragedy — at City Hall, at the Living Sky School Division —was about making sure a similar tragedy did not happen here. There was discussion about the safeguards and strategies already in place to try to prevent this sort of thing, and the need to always be aware of what students are doing.
But I also sensed frustration, and a feeling that ultimately this is beyond officials’ control. There is only so much that can be done in terms of preventative measures.
The La Loche situation is a sad story. It makes you yearn for the slower news days, when the biggest story to hit Saskatchewan was the release of players Weston Dressler and John Chick from the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Football fans lost their minds when that happened, but after GM Chris Jones made it clear the reasons were financial, it made sense to me. That is what losing teams do. They release players.
Heck, as a Blue Jays fan I have been through the ringer time and time again with big-name players leaving due to salary concerns. Just last fall, Toronto Blue Jays free-agent pitcher David Price left for the Red Sox. As a fan, I was definitely not pleased, but honestly the amount of money the Red Sox offered Price was absolutely ridiculous, over $200 million. Matching that offer would have been insane. But that’s baseball.
It’s the same thing in the CFL, which also has the nasty problem of a salary cap to deal with. So when a team is losing, even tougher financial decisions have to be made and that usually means having to say goodbye to players who’ve been valuable in the past.
That is pro football, unfortunately.
Speaking of football, welcome to the dead season. Sports fans are in store for three full months of boredom while waiting for CFL training camps to start up.
Finding a replacement for my weekend fix of football games is always a tough task in my household. These days, I tend to focus most of my off-season time on soccer games from Europe and on NASCAR from the United States. There is no shortage of basketball to watch, but for some reason, basketball just doesn’t cut it.
If football fans want something to do for the next several weeks, watch American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson on FX. That is the miniseries about the famous case from 1994-95. I tuned in the first episode last week on Citytv and it was riveting stuff. What’s more, as an O.J. junkie from back in the day I recognized a lot of the characters in the miniseries instantly, including even the bit players like Bill Hodgson and Paula Barbieri and Al Cowlings and “houseguest” Kato Kaelin of course!
And, of course, because Robert Kardashian was part of it all, they had to throw Kardashian references into the show. There was a scene from Nicole Brown Simpson’s funeral in which the younger versions of Kourtney and Khloe were seen running around. All the pop culture junkies will want to tune in.
I don’t have much to say about the Jian Ghomeshi trial in Toronto. That whole case is just depressing. It sounds as if defence lawyer Marie Henein did quite a job ripping the accusers’ credibility to shreds in court last week. As I said, it’s depressing. We’ll see what happens.
Among other items, it is only two more months until the provincial election April 4 and we are in a bit of a political “black hole” with the legislature out of session and the various parties still preparing for the election.
The good news for political junkies is the American primary season is in full swing and February is a busy month. I have personally been scouring the Internet watching live coverage of the political rallies and debates.
The Iowa caucuses were last week, and New Hampshire residents go to the polls Feb. 9. This will be good news for viewers of local cable TV, as the stations from Boston have been running nonstop attack ads from the presidential candidates. These are all aimed at the New Hampshire market nearby. So if you are wondering why you have been seeing so many ads for Jeb Bush on Boston TV, that is why.
The good news for political junkies is there will still be plenty more primaries and caucuses to go, starting with states like South Carolina and Nevada. This should continue to give candidates like Donald Trump plenty of opportunities to hold rallies and insult their opponents, and provide this year’s U.S. election race with the much-needed entertainment value that is sorely missing from politics everywhere else in the world.
That’s all I’ve got.
