Random Thoughts – Scheer’s New Deputy, Dave Bell, Winter Cycling and More
July 26, 2017
1. Newly minted CPC leader Andrew Scheer appointed Lisa Raitt as the party’s new deputy leader. As I’ve noted previously, Raitt is a capable backbencher and she’ll make a good member of Scheer’s cabinet down the road. She’s definitely no empty-headed Barbie doll the likes of which fill Selfie Boy’s cabinet, but her appointment still reeks of affirmative action. Just because the Liberals and NDP are going hog-wild with gender-balanced cabinets, it doesn’t mean the Conservatives have to blindly follow along like sheep.
2. Though she is being hailed as some kind of role model, I had never heard of Julie Payette, who is scheduled to be our next Governor-General.
3. I can’t help but think that Ken Noakes’ involuntary departure as the general manager of the Meridian Center will be a good thing.
3a. I hope that his successor or successorette will soon be presiding over the historic first cleaning of the glass in the three-year-old building. At least I can hope.
4. Longtime Jets fans may recall that during the WHA era, the princely sum of $9.25 bought you an ice-level seat on one of the orange chairs behind either the north or south end goal. Today it gets you a jumbo hot dog at a Chipman game. How times have changed and not for the better.
4a. Are there really suckers out there willing to pay $9.25 for “meat” shoveled into a casing with a backhoe?
5. IceDogs head coach Dave Bell took everyone by surprise when he suddenly left to become an assistant with the AHL’s Ontario Reign. Certainly no one can begrudge him for taking an opportunity to move up the ladder, as the OHL, after all, is all about development, and that includes coaches, officials and front-office personnel as much as it does the players. But leaving your team in the lurch with just over a month before training camp has a serious odor to it, an odor that may follow him all the way out to California.
5a. I don’t envy IceDogs GM Joey Burke. He sounded like someone who was completely blindsided by Bell’s announcement and now he has to scramble to find a coach.
6. This almost comical article on winter cycling penned by Anders Swanson came across my Twitter feed today. In it, Swanson, a Winnipegger, cavalierly states that, “in a city, the risk of being harmed by the weather while cycling is reduced to nil with a basic scarf and jacket.” Um, not exactly. As someone with thousands of miles of personal experience in this regard, trust me, you need a whole lot more than a scarf and a jacket when trying to get around Winnipeg on two wheels in January. Add a down parka, the thickest pair of mitts that money can buy, a couple of layers of socks, some longjohns and a good balaclava. Even then, you can soon end up with frostbite on your face and searing pain in your fingers by the time you get to where you’re going.
In his piece, he also stated, “Those -30C days do happen in Winnipeg, but they are pretty uncommon.” Sorry, Anders, they are quite common. And they last for weeks on end with the wind chill values reaching into the -40 and even -50 ranges.
7. Once again today, Mayor Sendzik sure didn’t miss his opportunity to bash Donald Trump. No doubt his Liberal masters are pleased as punch. I only wish he cared as much about his city as he did about being a good Liberal.
7a. A “good Liberal” is a contradiction in terms, isn’t it?
7b. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a municipal politician who didn’t run under a party banner pushing partisan politics as hard as he has.
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