Tony's Column Thirty

Tony’s Column

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Apr 29, 2010

Someone you can look up too.

Hi Everyone, I am going to write about a friend of mine. No this is not someone who has died. No this is someone who I think is a very good role model. Burke and I met in Junior high on a trip to Brockville. We went to the same high school were we both were on student council together (that’s right I was VP of my high school, shocking isn’t it) which wouldn’t of happened if Burke hadn’t been my running mate. Burke is the kind of person that inspires trust and he is the type of person who leads by example. Which brings me to the reason why this weeks column on him. Burke is doing some volunteer handy work for a women’s shelter. He is giving his time and doesn’t ask for any thing in return. He gets back what he gives. He got a nice write up in the Free press this week and I know that Burke isn’t one to toot his own horn (His wife and I will do that). We so often look at Athletes and stars to be role models when there are many who are right their in our neighborhoods. Burke may not be able to swing a golf club or score a game winning goal (but he did once lift and move the back end of a car, true story) but he is a hero not only to his lovely Wife and Daughter but to all the people at the shelter. He is showing these women and children that their a still good and decent Men out there. Guys like Burke should be getting more press and accolades than say someone who has cheated with over 121 women. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in so it is up to guys like me and you to extol their virtues. I have (and still do) volunteer work and I do it not for any fame or glory, I do it because I give and I get back. I like to believe I got a little bit of this inspiration from my friend Burke. So kudos to you Burke and everyone take time out today to say thanks to the Burke’s of the world that you know. These are the kind of people we should have our kids try to be or aspire too. I know a little girl who definitely will. Till Next Time. Tony

Apr 22, 2010

Let’s Talk about Me, Mr. Farve

Hey Everyone, the NFL Draft is well underway and their could be some interesting developments happening. Could Big Ben be on his way out of Pittsburgh, will T.O. rejoin Donavan in Washington, are the Rams going to trade away their number one pick to Cleveland or some other team for some quality players. These and other questions will be answered in the next couple of days. I know the big question on most people minds will be: How ill Brett Farve turn this into a weekend about him instead of about the draft. I’m sure that right now ESPN has someone camped out on his lawn for a Brett sighting or sound bite. Will he play won’t he play. Personally I don’t care but he is really messing up the Vikings with this constant wavering. How can the team go forward if they have to wait on this pre-Madonna. Yes I am taking a shot at the great Brett Farve. Yes he holds the record for passing but he also has the record for interceptions too. He also would have lost the Superbowl he was in if not for Desmond Howard’s kick returns for touchdowns. He has now thrown not one, not two but 3 Interceptions on his last possession of games that his team has lost. 2 Conference championships and one the kept the Jets out of the playoffs. Brett it’s time to go buddy, take your memories and rings and have fun fishing in Mississippi. Next time we see you at an NFL game I hope it’s the either the Hall of Fame game or on the sidelines being interviewed as you visit one of your former team. The more you come back the less people are respecting you. Till next Time. Tony

Apr 16, 2010

The Boys of Summer return

Hi Everyone, Baseball season is underway and it kicks off with My Champion New York Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox. You might think that this is going to be a big pro NY championship rant on how they are going to repeat. Well sorry to burst your bubble. This is the opposite. This is about 2 teams that can be considered the Premier League, the Regular League consisting of Philly, Chicago, Texas, Anaheim and other and the Minor league feeder development teams like Toronto, Milwaukee, Florida, Washington, etc. that get teams for the other teams. Well I still think that this year one of the feeder teams might be the champs. Unfortunately after they win, they will sell off all their talent to the other major teams, the top players ending up on the Premier League teams, the rest being dispersed amongst the rest of the regular league teams. My pick this year is Florida and after hearing on the sports today that there Manager has to make the playoffs to keep his job, I can see them going all the way. They will stay close until the trade deadline, pick up the players they need for the run (rent-a-players) and do what they have done twice in the last 14 years, win the world series. They seem to work on a seven year plan. If this is right they should also meet the Yankees again and find a way to win. This will also give the rest of the feeder teams some hope, at least for a few season. Till Next Time. Tony

Apr 8, 2010

A New Stadium Cometh

Hi Everyone, on Mar 31 we finally got the announcement that the new stadium was finally a go and that building was going to start in May. No sooner had this been announced when all the nay sayers started popping up. What these people don’t understand is this. When we talked about the Goldeyes park and the MTS center and when they were finally built people loved it. We spend so much time in this city talking about projects instead of doing them or doing patchwork that when it comes time to actually do the project it cost MORE than when it was originally brought up. Then the nay sayers start in about putting the money to other things. Well I heard this same thing when the Jets left town. People said let them go, we can use the extra money for roads, medical, schools, etc. Well most of the roads are still pretty bad, nurse and doctors are still in short supply, school taxes and tuitions are still going up. IF you ask any of those people who were saying let them go in 1997, if things are as rosy today, I wonder what they would say. We need a new stadium, this one has been around since the 50’s. It’s going to cost approx $115 millions to build as opposed to $52 million to refurbish the old one. We made that mistake in the early 1980’s with the old Winnipeg Arena. We should have built an new one back then. Instead almost 20 years later we finally got an new building. Maybe this new stadium will finally kick start the rapid transit system that has only been talked about for almost 30 years now. The way things work in this city we should be up to 2010 standards by say 2070. I hope not because I would like to be around to see some and use some of these things. Until Next Time, Tony.

Mar 31, 2010

Odds and Clods

Wow what an exciting 2 weeks, We had Ann Coulter come to our country and get barred from talking at a campus in Ottawa and welcomed with open arms in Calgary. Unlike the US where they would have spent weeks on this, the news media was over it in a matter of hours. We have had some wacky weather recently rain, hail, snow and Sun in a 4 hour period. We are preparing for flooding and just recently the Ice breaking machine fell through the Ice and is at the bottom of the red until they can pull it out. Concert Tickets have started to average out at a whopping $225.00 each and the NFL has decide to change it`s playoff overtime rule in order to aid those people who whine (I`m looking at you Mr. Farve) because they don`t get a chance for the ball because their defence can`t stop the opposing offence. The only thing surprising about the vote they had is that the Vikings didn`t vote for it and that the Saints coach (who benefitted from it) was against the change. The Vikings couldn`t vote for the change because that would prove everyone right. Well that's some of the odd things from the last few weeks and I haven`t even gotten into the Chris Evans signing as Captain America for 9 movies and the person signed to play Bucky has signed for 3 movies (even though Bucky will probably die in the 1st movie). Till next time. Tony

Mar 16, 2010

Civic Pride, Let’s Get Cleaning

Hi Everyone, well with the spring weather almost upon us (after one of the warmest winters that I can remember) the outside is looking pretty grungy and all that garbage that was covered by the snow is beginning to show it’s ugly head. One of our talk show radio personalities mentioned that he witnessed a driver dumping his garbage out the window of his car as he was driving. This opened up a debate of what to do about people like this. One caller had mentioned about taking peoples license plate numbers and posting them. A noble idea but one that everyone agrees would get misused. One person, who recently moved here, had this to offer saying that maybe it had something to do with pride of the city. I think this person might have something. We are always down playing what we have as a city comparing it to the Toronto’s, Vancouver’s and New York’s of the world. We should be proud of our city and we should take pride in keeping our city clean. I know in the summer if I start cutting the law or my neighbor starts it sets of a chain reaction of others tidying up their laws because who wants to be the one with the tall grass and weeds (I wish one of my neighbors would take pride in his lawn when this happens). We have garbage containers all over the downtown but most time they are overflowing with garbage with litter all over the place. Here is a novel Idea: how about we get some of the welfare recipients to once a week (or even once a month (eyes rolling)) to go around the downtown and core areas to pick up some of this trash and then you can issue them their checks. If they do not show up then they don’t get their cheques. If they have a doctors appointment or are incapacitated then their should be some proof. In the summer turn it into a family event, with a picnic afterwards. Maybe if we instill some pride in ourselves maybe we can clean up our act. Then again maybe I’m the only one sick of clean up other peoples garbage. Till Next Time. Tony

Mar 9, 2010

Our Golden Moment

Hi everyone, unless you have been under a rock or living in another country you probably know that both the Canadian Men and Women’s hockey team won the gold medals. The Men had to do it the hard way and as a nation held it’s breath in the overtime and there was a collective sigh of relief when Sidney Crosby scored the winner in Overtime over the Pesky Americans. Give the Americans full marks they came to play. Crosby was able to salvage what was a sub par performance in the last 3 games to etch his name in Canadian hockey history. Was this goal as important as 1972, I would say no. I was there in 72 watching as Paul Henderson scored the winning goal over the Russians. I watched in 76 as Sittler scored the winner of the USSR, in 88 when Mario scored the winner from Gretzky (what most people don’t realize is the play was started in the Canadian zone by former Winnipeg Jet Dale Hawerchuk). This win definitely holds a place in Canadian lore, as it was the winner that gave us the Gold medal on Home soil but also we went from never winning a goal medal on home soil to setting the Winter Olympic record for Gold Medals by any nation. For this I say, way to go Canada, and way to go Sid for giving us the 2nd most important goal in Canadian History but giving a new generation a where were you when this happened moment. Till Next Time Tony. PS. Did you know at one point 80% of Canadians were watching the Gold medal game. Makes you think that only 20% of the NHL teams are in Canada. I’m just saying. This is the 2nd best TV numbers in the US for a hockey game (the 1980 gold medal game drew more) were there were 30 million Americans watching at the high point.

Feb 27, 2010

Olympics anyone.

Hey Everyone, When I was starting to do this weeks column I couldn’t decide on what I wanted to touch on. Do I talk about the teachers who made a bad error in judgement and have their antics put up on Youtube. I was thinking about talking about the Own the podium strategy that has not worked out so well for Canada. I am going to focus on what you could say is almost a religion in the land of Ice and Snow, which we call the Great White North: Hockey. Our Men’s team last night put the boots to Team Russia to advance to the Semi finals tomorrow against S….lovakia. What, what happen to Canada vs. Sweden. Well the Swedes were upset by Slovakia. The Goaltending of one Miroslav Halek and timely scoring help the Slovaks to victory. If the Montreal Canadiens are even considering still trying to trade this guy they are off there rockers. This guy has been playing great for his country and he has been playing really well for the Canadiens. I hope he has a slip tomorrow night and returns to form next week when the Habs start what is hopefully a playoff drive. If Canada should be Slovakia tomorrow this country will go wild and don’t expect to bother anyone on Sunday after Noon. I hope it will be the US they face but I have a feeling they will be meeting the Fins (Finland). Either way this is an exciting time for Olympic Hockey especially with the women going for Gold Thursday night. Here’s hoping the Men are going for gold on Sunday. Let’s also hope both team can win. Till Next Time. Tony

Feb 22, 2010

Crazy Weather

Hey Everyone, They received mounds of snow on the east coast in the US. So much snow that Washington DC was closed down for almost 3 days. On the West coast of Canada were the Olympics are going on, there is one ski hill where they have no snow and it has to be trucked in. On the other ski hills they have too much snow and more is on the way. Right now on the prairies we are having an unusually warm February (which is great). Florida is colder than normal. Is El Nino responsible, maybe La Nina. Maybe the dreaded Global warming. Maybe it just the natural progression of things. I mean the world looked a lot different a few million years ago. Maybe it just time for a change. Till Next time. Tony

Feb 15, 2010

Yes They Can!!!

Hi Everyone, Well the Saints did it, they won the Superbowl. I am still in shock and I still get a big smile every time I think about the game. It was one of those things that you kind of hope for but you are never sure you will get to see in your lifetime. What has also made me happy is watching the so called experts eat their words. Most of them didn’t give the Saints a chance. The Saints used the game plan that had got them 13 straight wins. The Kept the game close by half time, they got an early score in the 3rd, they scored points in the 4th and got a timely takeaway late in the game. This gave them a 14 point victory. Considering the Odds were Indy plus 7 points, I consider that a huge upset. Peyton Manning is still a great QB, but this is still a team game and the Saints played like a team. I’m so happy I got to experience it. Till Next Time. Tony

Feb 6, 2010

Can the Saints Do it?

Hi Everyone, tomorrow is the Superbowl and I have to tell you I’m excited. The only thing I wish is that I was in Miami to watch the game personally. You see for along time I have been a Saints fan, they are the only NFL team I have seen play more than once live. I have been through at lot of Lows and the few highs that they have experienced. It is now a great feeling that they have made it to the show and the only thing better will be if they can win it all. They have a tough test ahead against the Colts but I believe their up for the challenge, well me and Saintsnation. Of Course, if you talk to the experts the game shouldn’t be close. We will see because anything can happen. That’s why they play the game. Till Next Time, Tony

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