Random Sports Thoughts as we hit the month of May
• One of the many good things about the Nova Scotia 55+ Games, which will be held in Antigonish this summer: it’s not just balls and pucks and running shoes, it’s also card games and board games such as cribbage, 45s, scrabble and crokinole.
Those aren’t exactly great spectator sports that will keep fans on the edge of their seats, but the competitors certainly get into it, which is the most important thing.
Just because someone has reached the other side of 55 (note that I did not say “wrong side” of 55 – mainly because it goes without saying), it doesn’t mean their competitive nature goes away. They may seem cool and calm – mostly, not always – but deep down, where they live, they’re just as cutthroat and wanting to win as they ever were.
Nothing gets heated up like a good game of cribbage, especially if you can convince an opponent to make a little monetary wager on the side. You wouldn’t want the 55+ Games organizers to find out about it, because they must protect the integrity of the sport. In all seriousness, I’ve seen cribbage games start to turn nasty when there is money on the line, to the point where you’re wondering if things are getting out of hand.
Maybe that only happens in Truro, though.
• The Abercrombie Golf Club is turning 100 this year; to try to put it in perspective, the course opened the year that followed the end of the First World War, and mere months after the massive devastation borne of the Halifax Explosion. So, it’s been around awhile and isn’t going anywhere.
Golf was once thought of being a stuffy, elitist sport, and while that still can be true, it usually isn’t – especially in Pictou County, where stuffiness and elitism do not go over well. Oh, it’s here, but ‘they’ try to keep it well-hidden, because ‘they’ might get called out on it. ‘They’ know their place, is what I figure.
“Up there,” long-time Abercrombie member Grant Dunlop said of his home course, “they’re just everyday people, from all walks of life. You play with doctors, lawyers, construction workers – everybody.”
Non-Sports Thoughts of the Week:
• As an added bonus, no one will have to worry about the brown acid.
They cancelled Woodstock 50, which was to have been held in Watkins Glen, N.Y. this coming August, marking the 50th anniversary of what is one of the most historic cultural moments of the 1960s, and maybe ever. First it was the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, and then Woodstock. Those are the two biggies.
It doesn’t matter why it was cancelled (money problems), the important thing is that it won’t be taking place at all. Woodstock can only ever happen once, and trying to replicate it (1994 and 2009) always seems hollow.
• They seem like fine-enough people, but it’s perplexing how little Westville town council knows about the proposed exploration drilling that may take place in the Cowan Street area. Residents keep asking questions, pertinent ones such as, if the exploration goes ahead and it’s deemed a viable money-maker, can the town stop it from going any further?
Most of the time, the answer is “I don’t know”, closely followed by the popular “we’ll look into that and get back to you.”
They’ve had months to ‘look into that’ and while I understand being a councillor in a small town is not a full-time job, this obviously is a hot-button issue in Westville and the answers should be readily available.
It’s nice to see large crowds at the monthly meetings in Westville, though. At most council meetings in most municipalities, you can hear the birds chirping in the trees outside the council room windows, and the sound that grass makes when it grows.
Kevin Adshade is a writer with The News. His column appears each week.
