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2/28/2009
March 1, 2009
It was a touch of class this week that the St. Francis Browns alumni, with help from University of Calgary fund raising leader Jack Neuman, introduced the Gary Deman scholarship which will mean one St. Francis football player will receive financial aid while playing for the Dinosaur football club, a team that is on the rise under head coach Blake Nill. Alumni members hesitated not in backing the program and while they raised enough to get the program started some feel they only touched the surface and there could be more that would like to contribute and maybe allow two, or even three, Browns the opportunity. In his amazing career at St. Francis, Deman saw 52 of his players go to the Dinosaurs and when they won the Vanier Cup in 1985 , 15 former Browns were on the team. The suggestion now, though, is will anybody else pick up on the idea and honor a former coach or leader in a similar fashion. Established schools like St. Mary’s and Bowness have readymade recipients I’d say, like Father Whelihan at St. Mary’s and Don Daum at Bowness. I think it would be great that those schools or others like Crescent ...
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2/7/2009
February 8, 2009
Billy Powers’ column for: February 8, 2009
You may have asked yourself, as did I, why Calgary’s Flames played a 1 p.m. game against the Anaheim Ducks yesterday down at the Pengrowth Saddledome. Well, I can answer that question for you.
Flames General Manager Darryl Sutter and I were guests of Dusty Woznow Friday night at the always successful and 38th anniversary of the St. Stephens’s Ukrainian Catholic Church men’s dinner and the topic came up early. Darryl explained that each year the club submits 60 dates to the National Hockey League which are then entered into a computer which, in his words, “spits out 41 dates that we must live with. We are allowed to argue, I think, six or seven and last year there was but one change. It all revolves around the television networks who basically dictate when we play.” Was he happy with a 1 p.m. contest? Not on your life. Said Darryl: “We played on the road in Colorado and Dallas on Monday and Tuesday came home late Wednesday morning, faced Chicago on Thursday and 36 hours later were back on the ice against Anaheim.”
He further explained, though, that “if you look at the ...
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1/24/2009
January 25, 2009
When my, and it could be our, old friend Ed Chynoweth was laid to rest last year one of his many accomplishments that came up time and again was his decision that education was more important than hockey in the ranks of the junior game in Canada and for sure under his direction in Western Canada. And I have it on good authority that his legacy lives on.
Last week I wrote about another old buddy in Mike Barnett visiting our area to watch his son JT play with the Vancouver Giants. Mike watched a game, in which JT had some good ice time, in Edmonton and the next morning called his son with a suggestion of having breakfast together before the team headed for a game at the Saddledome. In Mike’s words: “ JT said sorry dad, I can’t. I have a meeting with my tutor at 9 a.m. and it will last until we head out. Maybe I can see you in Calgary.”
Barnett said further that Vancouver coach Don Hay, a former coach of Calgary’s Flames, calls each player each night at 9:30 p.m., first to “check at the curfew hour but then to talk about what ...
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1/17/2009
January 18, 2009
It’s not unusual to get calls from people from your past but I had the strangest of days earlier this week getting calls from three people from days gone by and bringing up many memories.
In order they came from former Calgary firefighter and hockey player Mike Orman, former owner of the Sports Page restaurant, Mike Barnett and former Calgary Stampeder president Roy Jennings. Each was a big part of my life in the long ago.
Orman, who was a rough-tough defenceman with the old Calgary Spurs of the Western Canada Senior Hockey League, is a back in Calgary this week after leaving in the early 70s for California and a most successful career of training horses. Says he “is thinking about moving back here but I’m getting conflicting reports about the future of horse racing in this area. Some says it will be back in a couple of years, other says it’s a dead issue.” He warns, though, that “you can’t stop gamblers from betting and this could see the return of the bookie.” Says that he could get into something else if the game is done but looks back on a career that has seen him train horses ...
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1/10/2009
January 11, 2009
Real gamblers might not put me into their class but this past week I got quite an introduction into their game although I will admit it was not really my cash that was put on the line.
Having decided to take a week holiday, Las Vegas seemed like the spot to go and that word got around the circles that I run in. So it was kind of a rush on Monday when I walked into the Sports Book at the Flamingo Hotel and strode up to the wicket where the man in the vest said “can I help you sir.” To be honest I think he said sir but I was concentrating on the job at hand. “I’d like $20 to win on Arizona in the Super Bowl, $20 on Philadelphia, $20 on New York’s Giants, $20 on Pittsburgh, another $20 on Philadelphia and $20 on Baltimore.” The guy didn’t even flinch. Here I was putting $120 bucks down on six different bets and he wasn’t even impressed. The six tickets flew out of the machine like I was laying two bucks down on Sickle Toes to win the third at Stampede Park 40 years ago but that’s another ...
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1/3/2009
January 4, 2009
For more than a year now rumours have been swirling about the impending sale of the Shaw-Nee Slopes golf course, its destruction and the construction of a housing development. Of course the whole thing only happens if City Council agrees to change the regulation saying the area must remain parkland. And where there’s smoke there’s fire.
We know that a city developer has made a conditional offer, but withdrew it. However, not long ago an alderman filed a motion for the city to buy it. You have to know some residents of the area are upset but at the same time others, those that have homes and property lining some fairways, would totally support such a move. Losing an 18-hole golf course would be a jolt to be sure and certainly put added pressure on other semi-private and public courses which have been maxed out for years.
What brings this up is having covered golf in this city for more years than anyone in this game I was looking back to determine if anything like this had happened before. And some might be surprised to know that two years ago more golf courses closed than opened in the United States ...
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