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SEA ~~ a a ate A AES AA ts - io 7 vi 3 a, NS Sas a "a Rie Y i i {4 7 4 oo" PEATE: SA Pr Ad Minor Hockey Week Minor Hockey Week is coming up January 24 to 31, and we simply can't miss the opportunity to take another shot at a favourite beef---Hockey violence. It would be ridiculous to charge that violence on skates has infected the rest of Canadian society. That's obviously putting the cart before the horse. But whether we like it or not, hockey violence and bad sportsmanship are certainly a reality that cannot be ignored. The general atmosphere has given us something else. A mediocre game of hockey all the way to the professional leagues. Good, clean, fast hockey is becoming about as rare as international matches. It's been said often enough that the fault lies not only.in the players, coaches, and hockey itself, but in the fans who idolize the glove-dropping and mouth- punching. If violence sells tickets, then violence it has to be. We've seen more than a handful of players deplore the violence, admitting that they are almost forced into it. Couple that with the fact that professional hockey has expanded enormously, and you can figure out what could happen (and probably has to a great extent) to make our game less than it should be. We could turn our young hockey stars into player-actors. Take that through to its logical conclusion, and we have an onimous warning for the future of Canadian hockey. What happens when the hockey star of the future comes up against his Russian counterpart... who doesn't want to follow the script. Don't point to the professionals for the blame, at least, not all of it. Go to any community arena and you're liable to see and hear things rare outside of roller derby. If the national leagues were the instigators, then the home-town hockey fan has caught on all too fast. There's very little doubt that we still have the best hockey players in the world, and we still have the desire to win and to win well. The past Soviet-NHL series proved that. } Yet our game has suffered tremendously, as any regular-season fan will testify: : Let's shore it up now, before it's too late. My sincere thanks It's still terribly difficult for me to understand how | come to deserve all the wonderful, but still somehow unbelieveable attention | received at the surprise retirement party held for me in the Town Hall, Friday night. : And a surprise it was, 'scary' at the start, but as the evening developed it became the most wonderful and happy occasion during my entire life. There are no words that can really give expression for my real feelings, but to all of you wonderful people attending and those who were unable to get there, my sincere and most humble thank you. | am sure you will allow me to make a special mention of two persons, very close and dear to me, my daughter Gerri Lynn O'Connor and son J. Peter Hvidsten for their untiring efforts in making a _father's many adjustments to retirement as easy and as comfortable as possible. Sincerely yours, Per Hvidsten Remember When..? 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 21, 1926 The annual meeting of Port Perry, Reach and Scugog Agricultural Society elected the following officers: R. M. Holtby, Hon. Pres., Lawson Honey, Pres., Grant Christie, first Vice- Pres., John Sutherland, 2nd Vice Pres., James Lee, 3rd Vice-Pres. The inauguration of coun- cil members of Reach Town- ship took place on January 11, and the following elected members will form the 1926 council: ----D.--McDonald; reeve; W. F. Thompson, deputy-reeve; George Till," Grant Christie and J. Stew- art McFarlane, councillors. Mr. James Gallagher was injured when he was knock- ed off the top of a hay load he was driving to his home on Rosa Street. A low hanging tree branch, which Mr. Gallagher didn't notice brushed him off the load and dumped him onto the street. Wm. Parr, riding with him managed to duck and avoid the branch. 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, January-18,-1951 Ontario Premier Leslie Frost officially opened Port Perry Community Memorial Centre Friday last week. In his opening remarks Mr. Frost congratulated warmly and sincerely the fine com- _.munity spirit and _ co-oper- ation by the people of Port Perry, Reach and Scugog. He also presented a cheque in the amount of $1,000.00, the last instalment of a pro- vincial grant. It required four ballots to ed Warden of Ontario County at the Inaugural meeting. Qthers seeking the position were Ernest Camick, Rama Township reeve; Isaac Catherwood, Uxbridge Township reeve; Thomas Harding, Thorah Township reeve; - and Duncan McIntyre, Whitby reeve. Joan Venning, Blackstock, the winner of Port Perry Lions Club oratorical con- test "delivered her winning speech at the regular Lions -Club meeting. 15 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 19, 1961 Scugog Township reeve Anson Gerrow was elected Warden of Ontario County on the third ballot with 23 votes against 16 for Picker- ing Township reeve, * Mr. Scott. i Sharon Cummings of Epsom was injured and taken to the community Memorial Hospital following an accident at Honey's Cor- ner. The car went out of control, ripped down about .have Ferguson Munro elect- . 100.feet of fencing and came to rest in a field. The owner of the car, Bob Otis of Toronto, escaped injury, but the car was heavily damaged. ~ Central Ontario High School Board. paid a well deserved tribute to Mr. Norman Alexander for 35 years of service to the Board, 25 of them as secre- tary-treasurer. Sheriff George A. Welsh of Ontario County was elected president of Ontario Associ- ation of Sheriffs. . 10 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 20, 1966 The home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bonnell, Prince Albert was totally destroyed by fire Sunday at 6 p.m. Mr. and Mrs. Bonnell were away at the time and their furn- iture and belongings valued at $4,500. were lost in the fire. It took six ballots to have Wilfrid Gould, Uxbridge reevé elected Warden of Ontario County. He defeat- ed N. Smith, reeve of East Whitby, by 10 votes on the sixth ballot. Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 419, held a benefit dance in aid of the newest and smallest Legion Branch at Bay Ridges, Ont. Chick Carnegie and Ken Roberts were picked defence on the Lakeshore Intermediate All-Star team against the league leader, Cobourg. Dorothy Carnochan, Port Perry, received Provincial honours, the highest award in 4-H Homemaking Clubs on Achievement Day. Bill Smiley That was some This is the time of year when instant experts and fallible fools such as news- paper columnists make idiots of themselves ~ by prediction what the néxt 12 months will bring. oo Looking into a New Year is rather like looking into an old rubber boot. It stinks a little, you can't see anything in there, and the thing probably leaks, heel and toe. I prefer to do a little looking back and a little looking forward, make some hasty generalizations based on the arthritis in my big toe, and hope everybody will have forgotten what I said by the following week. Which they will. Let's look back -- 1975 was the year of The Big Strike. Everybody who was somebody, and a great many who were nobodies, went on strike at least once. As a direct result, Canada's credibility as a producing nation, a reliable nation, a prudent, sensible nation, took a nosedive. Foreign investors were heard saying things like: "Migawd, I'd be safer betting on the exact hour and minute of Napoleon's return from Eternal Exile than I would be putting money into that Crazy Canada'. It was also the year of the Grand Gimme and the Chronic Catch-up as everyone and his elderly aunt, clad in sackcloth and ashes, moaned piteously, beat bosoms, and scrabbled tooth and nail to get a bigger chunk of the national loot than everybody else and her elderly uncle. "misleading his people to the unpromising land, Mayor Drapeau, than a man could -_. It was the year in which the Montreal Olympics could no more have a deficit, according to that reincarnation of Moses have a baby. It was the year in which the Thanksgiving roast turkey was transformed by our Grand Guru into boiled seagull. It was the year of election upsets, political promises, union threats, dire warnings, insane headlines and callow assumptions. In short, it was a year much like the one before it and the one that is coming after it -- an amusing and horrify- ing record of man's moral and mental weaknesses. But that was the bad news. Now for the good news. It was also a great year, in some respects for you and me. Personally, I had a fine year. Just listen to this list and yours is probably better, if you think back. I discovered a bracing healthful new sport, cross-country skiing, and within a month was known as The Terror of the Trails (by two old ladies of 86 and 89). I developed into Canada's most nauseat- ingly proud grandfather, as Pokey and I cemented an already firm friendship, cul- minating in an orgy of mutual admiration this past Christmas when the little devi! got at least eleventy-seven presents. I love him because he is bright, lively, handsome, and 'me during 1975. a real hell-on-wheels kid. He loves me because he can get me to do anything, literally, that he wants me to do.._In this league I am known as The Spoiler. made it a good year. My wife and I stayed married and together, a rather unusual combination after a quarter-century. We even like each other, which is almost incredible, after what each of us has put up with. My daughter, apparently celebrating women's Lib year, or something, got her- While we're all inthe family; other-things-- self pregnant again and I am expecting my - first granddaughter (daughter underlined) any day now. Notice I said I am expecting. It used to be the mother who was expecting, but things are all cock-eyed these days. Still in the family, I met a whole gaggle of cousins from the West I'd never seen before, cousins from the East I hadn't seen for 25 years, and sisters and brothers I hadn't seen for a couple. A great reunion, enough family stuff to do a fellow for the next decade. There were many other high moments for Did some Auld Lang Syne-ing with newspaper friends. Caught a big pike and roade in a tiny Aeronca over the brooding, empty wilderness of northern Saskatchewan. Caught a big cold and rode in a taxi through the brooding, teeming wilderness of Toronto. Beat my wife two-out-of-five in golf. _ print. | Ignored the postal strike by writing 52 columns, even though some will never see Teetered through another three terms of teaching. Discovered that in another few years I would be eligible for a category-F pension. F stands for Five cans of pork and beans a week, which such' a pension will provide. Allin all, a jolly good year, one for which I wouldn't trade anything, except a chance to do it over again. Now for a brief look into the dim distances of 1976. Last year we were bored silly by Women's International Year. 1 predict that this year we will be bored right out of our skulls by two mountains of ennui -- the American Bicentennial and the Canadian Olympic Games. Not much else can be glimpsed there, in the murk and muddle. Unions will go on threatening, politicians will go on promis- ing, the rich will get richer and the poor will get babies. But, gloriously, people will go on being people: despicable and noble; anguished and triumphant; hating and loving; being born and dying. It's a great life, and the only one we have. You go on doing your thing, and I'll go on doing mine. At the end of 1976 we'll make out our lists, and compare notes. I predict right here and now that we'll have just as many ups as downs, and will remember the upd and forget the downs. &