I DON’T feel Kevin Martin treated me fairly. I applied last week to take John Morris’ spot on one of Canada’s most successful curling teams of all time. I fired off an email listing my credentials. Two days after I sent my email, Dave Nedohin gets the job. No tryouts. No nothing. Here is an excerpt from the email I sent Kevin and his reply:
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After Saskatoon resident Mark Stobbe was acquitted in 2012 of the murder of his wife, Beverley Rowbotham, he wrote a book.
“This is not the story of my wife’s death,” Stobbe says within the first few pages. Indeed, it is not. In fact, Beverley’s name appears in the book only once, at the end of the book in the About the Author section, where it indicates she was murdered while Stobbe worked for the Manitoba government.
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Young actors in Saskatoon are tackling some heavy material, and they are doing so on the city’s most prominent main stage. The Kinsmen Young Company has chosen the controversial play, The Laramie Project, to perform for its 2012-2013 season at the Persephone Theatre. Will Brooks says it’s a challenge that the actors in the company are ready to face.
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Recently, my wife and I wandered off into Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. She was in search of adventure, although I thought she said, “Let’s wander off for some dessert.”
Not too far into the hike, we came across a soft, cute, fuzzy, baby lying on the desert floor. It looked so inviting it could have been a dessert, I pointed out.
But to make it even more appealing, why not call it a “teddy bear” and then add a romantic “cholla” to its name. We had not only come across a Teddy Bear Cholla plant, but, a baby, innocently lying on the ground no less.

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Jack Brodsky played minor hockey in Winnipeg. He became a fan of the Saskatoon Blades when his family moved to Saskatoon in 1965. Little did he know how hockey would dominate his future as a business enterprise.
Today, he is the co-owner, president and governor of the Blades of the Western Hockey League (WHL). He is in his 15th season on the executive council of the WHL and chairs its education committee. He was president of the bid committee and subsequently the chair for the 2010 world junior hockey championship when the event came to Saskatoon. He is co-chair of the Memorial Cup tournament, which will be held here from May 17-26.
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While it is true that the city solicitor acts for the City of Saskatoon and not the individual members of council, it would seem appropriate that the city solicitor could give a crash course to council as a whole as to what constitutes a “conflict of interest.”
This is not rocket science. As Coun. Pat Lorje so aptly stated: “If a councillor doesn’t have enough common sense to know they are in a conflict that is very troubling.”

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A reflection when First Nations man finds a mirror

I’m a storyteller. That’s the bottom line. Even though I’ve worked in the media for more than 25 years, all I ever wanted to do was tell stories about people. I wanted to tell inspiring stories of ordinary people who overcame situations that would have taken others down.
There is a huge difference between writing “journalism style” and the writing of a storyteller. The following story was recently repeated to me by an elder. I almost killed myself laughing when I heard the story in Cree. However, I think I can write the story in English.
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You can call me Ray,
you can call me J.,
but don’t call me Arya

• The ABBA museum has opened in Stockholm, Sweden. It’s on the same block as the Ikea missing parts store, the Elin Nordegren golf club, the Bjorn Borg hair salon, the Sedin Playoff Retreat and the Hakan Loob oil-change shop.
• Janice Hough, on Arya being the fastest-rising baby name for girls in 2012, thanks to the popularity of Game of Thrones: “And 40 to 50 years from now, women will curse their parents because everyone will know exactly how old they are.’’

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It doesn’t get much more Canadian than television icon Rick Mercer. That’s why, according to Deb and Cliff Wieger, he was the perfect host for Wiegers Care for Kids’ major fundraiser on June 8.
“It’s for a great cause. Who isn’t touched by children? The Children’s Hospital Foundation has been working tirelessly for many years, and now we’re in go time,” said Deb Wieger. “It’s there, it’s happening and the hospital’s going forward, so the timing couldn’t be better for people to get their head around the reality of it. Second to that, in our world’s craziness, who doesn’t want to go out and have fun?”
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