Well, here comes winter

Just got off the horn with the Canadian consulate in Buffalo and everything's still socked in. No schools for a week but the Sabres played at home the other night. Go figure....

 

That reminds me of a great practical joke that happened in our newsroom many years ago, probably one of the greatest scams ever, because it was played out over an entire winter.

Our old sports editor was a renowned prankster who decided one year to create a fictional broomball league. If you don't know what broomball is, it's basically a form of hockey, played on ice by guys in basketball shoes rather than skates, swinging corn brooms rather than hockey sticks and using a ball rather than a puck. It's quite a popular sport where I come from.

I should mention that this was back when the radio station next door was owned by the same company that owned the newspaper, and they shared copy back and forth. Things intended for the station were left in a tray and someone would walk over and pick them up. The sports editor (I'll call him Ed) started leaving fake game scores in the tray, and the scores were soon regularly being heard over the local airwaves.

The radio guys were completely clueless to the fact that this broomball league had teams where there were no arenas. Hell, in some cases there were teams in places that were completely uninhabited and unaccessible, like remote islands out in Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. Naturally, snowstorms would often close every road in the district, but the broomball teams somehow always made it through to play their games, sometimes making round trips of 150 and 200 miles. Nobody at the radio station ever questioned these oddities, and the scores, game details and league standings continued to be reported.

The jig was finally up after one of the newspaper editors heard Ed and a bunch of other guys chuckling over the glowing preview the station had just given to what would be the championship playoff game that night. The editor didn't actually blow the whistle on Ed, he just pulled him aside and told him it would be in his best interests to just let the whole thing die out. That's what happened

But the Grey-Bruce Broomball League lives on in memory 40 years later. To the best of my knowledge, no one at the radio station ever knew they had been played for an entire season.

 

We've been hit, D.J. Not near as bad as you guys, though. Coupla skiffs here and there and people have lost their friggin' minds ... 16-car pileup on the Deerfoot yesterday.

 

Who ended up winning the championship? I had Singhampton -2 over Chatsworth on a Pro-Line.

 

I can't remember the final combatants but I do know the game was to be played at a neutral venue on White Cloud Island. Seriously.

 

I think it was Ripley versus Dornoch.

 

Me and the farmer!

That is my last attempt at a Housemartins threadjack. Sucks for the rest of you.

 

Welp, all of the snow is pretty much gone in Buffalo/Williamsville/Cheektovegas, etc... Where I live, I didn't get hit with an inch of snow until Saturday. But it was just a light dusting even though it seemed like a blizzard for the majority of the day.

Martin, I hope everything is well up there for you.

 

Cheektovegas?

 

It's all about image and perception.

"Land of stinking water," which, I believe, is the rough translation, just doesn't have the same appeal.

 

This is pretty bad. Buffalo's still cleaning up after a week.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1161252117096&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

There's still about 100,000 folks without power. And this is pretty depressing:

The aftermath of 60 centimetres of snow falling in October has left much of the "City of Trees" looking like a beaver dam. Peter Cutler, spokesperson for the City of Buffalo, said at least 90 per cent of the trees have been damaged or have been "absolutely massacred."

 

This winter's brutal already.
We're getting a high of 78 today.
And it's expected to drop to a low of 57 overnight.