570News Blog: Glenn Pelletier

Where have we seen this before? In the summer of 1979, the Toronto Maple Leafs reached back for a saviour to turn things around after the club that featured Mcdonald, Thompson, Salming and Sittler had under-achieved in the playoffs. Imlach, the former coach and general manager, who stood behind-the-bench for four Stanley Cup titles in the 1960s, declared upon his re-hiring that the team had only five or six good players. Let the dismantling begin.

The Leafs went on to have not a SINGLE winning season during the entire decade of the 1980s.

And now, the Maple Leafs have fired John Ferguson Junior, replacing him on an interim basis with former Leafs’ G.M. Cliff Fletcher, who did an amazing job turning the Leafs’ fortunes around in the 1990s. The key to this move is the fact that Fletcher has been hired only as an interim general manager, brought in to offer stability to the organization and find the right man to take over on a permanent basis. This is a good decision. Expecting Fletcher to repeat his success of the nineties is unrealistic.

As for John Ferguson Junior, just watch him move on to bigger and better things.

I always receive a few books as gifts over the holidays. (I am the easiest person to buy for) Just give me a book and I am completely satisfied. What are you reading? I’d love to hear your recommendations for a good book! Please drop me a line at glenn.pelletier@570news.rogers.com

The very best to you and yours in the New Year!

You just never fully know how a particular day is going to unfold. Take for example, today.

I had just finished reading the 9:30 a.m. news, when I decide that while I’ve got a few minutes to spare, I’ll clean out my backpack. So I’m in the process of doing just that…..rummaging through assorted papers, pens and junk….when what do I see stuck to the bottom of the backpack but one of my favourite bass lures…..embedded via its three treble hooks.

You may ask at this point why there was a fishing lure in my backpack. Well, I had meant to take it out, but kept putting it off. Know what I mean?

Since fishing season, the thing had been in a little box in the bottom of my backpack, but somehow had managed to become separated from its container….and ended up firmly attached to the nylon lining. Should have grabbed a pair of pliers and carefully removed the thing…but I had to get working on the ten a.m. news and was short on time.

So I reach down and start pulling on it. And wouldn’t you know it…..in typical “America’s Funniest Videos” fashion…doesn’t the darn thing sink one if its razor-sharp barbed treble hooks deep into the flesh of my right palm. I mean deep. Such that the barb prevented it from being removed.

How do I explain this one to my colleagues in the newsroom, none of whom have handled a fishing lure at all, let alone got one embedded in their hand……at work…..in the middle of December?

“Hey Lisa!”, I extort, “I gotta go to emerg. I’ve got a fishing lure stuck deep in my palm. Can you cover for me?”

Off to the Urgent Care Clinic with my designated driver Theresa Chiavaroli, where a doctor familiar with this kind of thing (having worked at a hospital in the Kawartha Lakes area of the province) applies a local anasthetic….pokes the barbed hook through the surface of my palm, snaps off the barb with a pair of wire cutters….and yanks out the remainder of the hook.

Somedays, it’s better to stay under the covers!

I feel like calling Jeff Allan’s “Hour of Rage.”

So I’m standing in a very long line at the supermarket the other day, with my 16 items, queuing up in the “18 items or less” line, eagerly awaiting my departure from the madding crowd, when I says to myself “Self, why is it taking so darn long to get to the checkout?”

So I glance up ahead of me, and darn it if the couple at the cashier has decided to unload 32 items! And while it is never a precise science to engage in stereotyping, they call it stereotyping for a reason. So allow me to proceeed. These are the same type of folks who park in the disabled spot, talk during movies, throw stuff out the car window, smoke with kids in the car, yada yada yada. The kind of people who don’t realize that they are sharing the planet and that the world does not exist for them.

On the other hand, maybe they simply didn’t see the “18 items or less” sign.

I would prefer to believe that, lest I become a lesser person myself.

I was all set to bemoan the fact that an American had been chosen to provide the half-time entertainment at the Grey Cup game, when, just as I prepared to put thoughts out on this blog, on came Lenny Kravitz - the aforementioned American.

The guy and his band were phenomenal. And don’t tell anybody, but they were the highlight of the game for me! So, eventhough I bemoan the apparent declining relevance of the Grey Cup to most Canadians, and eventhough this most Canadian of institutions should probably have had a Canadian performer hired to do the half-time show, Kravitz rocked!

I’ll forgive him for being an American.

By the way, anybody remember when the Grey Cup game was a bigger deal in this country than the Super Bowl? I do. And those days are gone. Sad.

I saw an excellent movie last night. Much appreciated after literally sleeping through The Bee Movie on Saturday. And wouldn’t you know it, it was showing at the Princess Twin Cinema. If that movie house ever leaves town, we are in deep trouble.

It’s called Into the Wild - based on the true story of an exceedingly bright and deep-thinking twentysomething American who upon graduation from university, renounces a life of privilege, suffocating conformity and superficial materialism to pursue a search for truth and meaning. He rejects his dysfunctional parents and perhaps because of them and his upbringing, runs far and wide in search of himself. And this young man is serious about his particular calling; he donates his entire life savings - a cheque for 24-thousand dollars - to Oxfam, with handwritten instructions for them to feed somebody with it. He burns all of the cash in his possession.
He rejects his father’s offer of a new car - not because he couldn’t have used it, but because he doesn’t want “stuff” from his dad, he wants love.

And so young Christopher McCandless sets out across America with the burning desire to head deep into the woods of Alaska alone, and just exist. Along the way, he meets up with assorted unique and interesting characters whom he learns from and whom he teaches something to along the way. The journey is about our connectedness as fellow travellers.

His extreme rejection of superficiality and attempt at liberation from the conventional trappings of modern society is at times ludicrously naive, but also so inspiring that darn it if I didn’t think to myself “That’s it. I’m heading to Haliburton County to live in the highlands with a bunch of books and a good woman.” Everyone who comes into close contact with him, is irresistably drawn to him. And for good reason. He is just so real, so authentic. Just one of many lessons contained in this lengthy, quality film.

He finally gets to Alaska. Hitches a ride to big river country, surrounded by mountains, and disembarks into the cold and dreary wilderness, alone and determined, blissfully pursuing his appointment with destiny. Armed with a .22 calibre rifle, some very basic camping gear, a book on edible berries in the area and next-to-no food, he simply walks into the woods……..and……..

There are some scenes that deal with how he actually survived in the deep woods of Alaska, but that is not what this story is about. It is so much more than that. It is about the insatiable desire inside this young man to find meaning and truth and peace, about how some of us share that most elusive of dreams and about how others of us never give it a second thought.

Directed by the ever-thoughtful and brilliant Sean Penn, this is a cinema-lover’s film. It is a stimulating, inspiring and visually stunning refuge for two-and-a-half hours.

I had very humble beginnings. Raised by a single mother back in the 1960’s. Don’t know how mum did it sometimes……now that I know the reality of what she was up against, but somehow Santa always showed up at our place. And for her sacrifice and committment, I am forever grateful. But, turns out, one year…..she had a little help from some very caring elves. And because of them, my little six-year old heart skipped a beat when I looked under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, 1966.

I cannot fathom the thought of a little child waking up Christmas morning without a little something to unwrap. But it happens with astounding regularity in this very community.

A lot of very dedicated and caring people are devoting their energies this Christmas to ensure that the magic of the season is felt by every precious child in our community. And you can help. Support the Santas Anonymous program. Simply drop off a new, unwrapped toy at the donation box at your local Rogers Video store, or come on up to 570 News and drop one off at the donation box in our lobby. And if you’re there between nine and noon…..I’d love to come downstairs from the newsroom to say THANK YOU.

Merry Christmas!

I haven’t seen it yet but why do I just know I am going to sleep through this thing?

Feeling down? Try the following: Get a copy of the “Rubber Soul” album by the Beatles. (1965) Play loudly. Also, “Harvest” by Neil Young - which is the perfect accompaniment to a reflective drive along a country road. Also recommended: Springsteen, Dylan, The Band, Johnny Cash, Blue Rodeo. Do not mix with pop fluff. You should feel better in half an hour.

Tim Horton had absolutely no idea that lending his name to a donut shop in Hamilton in 1964 would amount to anything, let alone a multi-million dollar empire that would go on to dominate the market in a virtual monopoly.

He was a modestly paid defenceman with the Toronto Maple Leafs who came from borderline poverty in Cochrane, Ontario, born at the beginning of the Great Depression, who fought hard on and off the ice to try to better himself. Hard to imagine now, but an NHL contract in Horton’s day was not a ticket to riches. Far from it. Horton actually worked various summer jobs during his career to make ends meet!

With a new wife, and a growing family, Horton sought any and all business opportunities to try to provide a cushion for his brood, but all to no avail, until he hooked up with a guy named Ron Joyce, an energetic and enterprising man with a dream of riches who was not afraid of 18-hour workdays to fulfill that dream. Joyce aligned himself with Horton, who had just hoisted the Stanley Cup for the third straight season in 1964, and an empire slowly began. Only Tim never lived to see it. Never lived to see Tim Horton’s profit jump 30% in the third quarter this year. Never lived to see the company announce a $200-million stock buyback over the coming year. Never lived to see the company bearing his name dominate the Canadian market and during the third quarter this year alone, open 40 new restaurants in the United States.

Ten years after opening the first Tim Horton’s in Hamilton, Horton died in a car crash coming home to Buffalo after playing for the Sabres at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Horton grew up poor in the dirty thirties in one of the most inhospitable places in Ontario, his married life was rocky, and he never found the peace and contentment he had been looking for, but that he figured a successful business could have aided. If anyone deserves to reap in the reward of the success of Tim Horton’s it is Horton himself.

The next time you grab a coffee at Timmie’s, raise a cup to number 7.