I've been doing the play by play for The Peaks presentation of the Central Interior Hockey League this Winter and last weekend was game one of the playoffs. We travelled to Prince Rupert to cover the start of the Smithers Steelheads/Prince Rupert Rampage series.
Smithers won 5-3. Game two is this Saturday at home here in Smithers. You can listen if you want, through The Peaks website thepeak.ca.
Here's some pictures of the broadcast team and a wicked mullet. That's me looking the wrong way, JC ready to provide some colour and Mandy is our statistician pondering one million penalty minutes. Welcome to Prince Rupert.

This is my evening. Chop some wood and eat some dinner. If the Oilers win I'll be even happier.

The new year actually does bring new things. The house we live is heated with either gas or wood. Pre Christmas, we would occasionally burn wood but when the supply that was here, when we moved in ran out, we just resorted to gas. The shock of our big gas bill had us thinking about burning more wood to heat the house as the previous tenants did. Not having a car or truck forced us to buy wood instead of going out to th woods and chopping which is what people do here. You usually see trucks around Smithers advertising "wood for sale" but for some reason I couldn't find any this month. A few calls and later I was set up. This morning I found out today what a cord of wood looks like. A cord is a measure of fire wood. 8 feet by 4 feet and 4 feet high. It's alot more wood than I thought. Oh well. Start the burn.

I'd like to say that I needed a distraction form our Canadian Junior Hockey Team not being able to follow through on six gold medals in row at the IIHF Worlrd Championships but it would be a lie.
The distraction I refer to is the winter sport that an aquaintance of mine reffers to as torture sticks.
It looks as though I'll be getting reaquainted with x-country skiing. After all, I live in the great place to do it. Everyone here in Smithers raves about our Nordic Centre and it's also appealing because It's great exercise and I find it hard to get enough exercise in the Winter.
When I was in Vancouver at Christmas time Jen pushed me into a used sporting goods store and pushed me to buy a set of skis, boots & poles.
I'm glad that she did. I have done cross country skiing before. My father bought skis for the family when I was a teen. That version involved some scraping & waxing and as much as loved checking out the wax chart to match up the proper wax to the temperature I will not be getting reaquanited with scraping & waxing. I am now waxless.
Who designed these old boots? Probably a dude who needed extra work after he finished his bowling shoe catalog. The skis are pretty rad in a Warholesque way though.
Should be fun.

I first met Corb Lund when I was living in Edmonton. At that time music was everything to me. I was obsessed. It was all I thought about and it was the only thing I wanted to do. I basically quit high school to pursue a career as a musician. A decision that proved to be successful in some ways and in others not so much. At times I feel as though I over did it. One of the great things about that time of life was meeting some great people along the way. Some of those people played in an Alberta band called The Smalls. Just like my old band The Smalls are no longer around but the man who played bass for The Smalls never stopped playing music and has since become quite a sensation in the world of country music. That man is Corb Lund and he got to sing our national anthem at Rexall Place before our favorite hockey team lost to the Nashville Predators. Proof positive of what a sensation he is. Good on you Corb and I'm sure it wasn't your fault that the Oil lost.