Mike Farwell

You know the little dial in your car, the one that controls how hot the heat blows in winter and how cool the AC blows in summer? I’m not much for winter at all. I truly detest being cold. So I consider it a good thing when I can finally turn that dial away from the heat and back to the cool side. That means it must be getting warmer outside.

I’ve turned it to cool, and back to heat, twice already this spring. Just tonight, I turned it back to heat for a third time. Since when is it so cold as we head into the Victoria Day weekend?

Forgive me for being a day late with this post, but the past 36 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind. After watching the Kitchener Rangers capture the J. Ross Robertson Cup as 2008 OHL Champions, I hosted a radio post-game show and then continued the talk Tuesday morning with Jeff Allan. There is definitely a buzz about town and people are genuinely excited. And rightly so.

But a word about this team is in order because the 2007-08 Kitchener Rangers are devoid of those big OHL names you hear so much about. You know the guys — Steven Stamkos, Stefan Legein, Drew Doughty, et al. In Kitchener, all we have is the hardest working group of young hockey players you’ll ever want to meet. Or watch. From the top to the bottom of this line-up, they may not “out-dazzle” you but they will certainly outwork you. For proof, look no further than the 53 regular season wins posted by the Rangers this year, a team record. And even if you missed all that, all you needed to see was Monday’s championship game. When the chips were down, the Rangers responded with a dominating performance.

People in my line of work are supposed to have a way with words. But after watching this team since last September, I find myself with only one way to describe what I have witnessed.

 Wow.

It’s been quite the week here at 570 News as I got asked to pinch hit for a couple of the sluggers here at the station. Jeff Allan was away Wednesday and Thursday and Gary Doyle was away today, meaning I abandoned my everyday partner Kate Stockmann on the afternoon news and waded into the world of talk. It’s an interesting trip to take.

The biggest thing, for me, is dealing with the differing styles of each host. Jeff and Gary are both very good at what they do, and both also do it very differently. It’s a fun challenge for me and a welcome diversion from delivering the news. As much as I enjoy keeping you informed every afternoon with Kate, I really appreciate the opportunity to spread my wings, speak directly with you, and even toss in an opinion or two along the way. More than anything else, I feel as though it helps me connect with the listener in a way I simply can’t while reading the afternoon news. I hope you got as much out of the experience as I did.

It’s been said that variety is the spice of life and I’d definitely call this week cajun. It’s not over yet, either. I’ll be taking the trip to Belleville tomorrow with Gary to cover Game 6 of the OHL Finals between the Bulls and Rangers. And before panic sets in, don’t worry! Don Cameron is just fine. He has a wedding to attend and he’s the emcee so he’ll be keeping the vocal chords primed (and an ear to the radio, no doubt).

I assure you that Don will be in top form (as always) in time to call the Memorial Cup next Friday. Every game, by the way, will be broadcast here on 570 News. And if you take from that remark that Don will not be called upon for a possible Game 7 in the OHL Final on Monday, well, that’s your prerogative.

And hamburgers, too.

Funny business, radio. Those of us who choose to call it our chosen career will often joke about the low pay and how we’ve learned to subsist on a diet of Mac and Cheese while creating a patchwork wardrobe from the dozens of free T-shirts we collect over the years. And then there’s the food.

Every now and again a local restaurant or store will drop off goodies. You name it, we’ve probably sampled it. It doesn’t happen every day but if you stick around this business long enough, you’ll nibble on your fair share of free food. Turns out today was one of those days.

Just after I got here at 8 AM, an enormous cooler full of hamburgers arrived. God bless the local retailer that dropped them off, and the fundraiser they’re doing this weekend in support of Crohns and Colitis. It’s not like I think the burgers are in any way bad. But at 8 in the morning? I was just starting my first cup of coffee. Burgers were the furthest thing from my mind…and my stomach.

Of course, about an hour later, the burgers were almost entirely gone. People lined up and garnished them with relish and mustard as if they were scrambled eggs and bacon at the breakfast buffet. Yup, that’s a radio person for you.

Funny business, this.

And the “she” in question is the Grand Ol’ Dame on East Avenue, also known as the Kitchener Memorial Auditorium. I drove through the parking lot on my way to work today and saw city crews busily hanging more Memorial Cup banners. Hard to believe the first championship game is a week today. Seems like only yesterday we were all gathered in the rotunda at City Hall, listening to the announcement that Kitchener would play host to the 2008 Memorial Cup. That was a year ago. But the Grand Ol’ Dame appears more than ready for her close-up next week.

The Rangers are ready, too. Don’t you worry. This Bulls team didn’t win the East by accident. There are quality hockey players throughout that Belleville line-up, beginning in goal. It was a dandy game at The Aud last night, a game very much befitting the OHL Final. A tough loss for Kitchener to be sure, but the team that posted 53 regular season wins still has two more cracks at capturing the J. Ross Robertson trophy.

And they haven’t lost four in a row all season.

Like many of you, I spend most winters longing for the days the snow has melted, the sun is shining warmer, and I don’t have to scrape the snow off my windshield before leaving for work. And then there are days like today.

I just cut the grass for the first time this season. Guess I know what I’ll be doing every Saturday morning between now and October. If you know the bright side to this (or know or have a kid that works cheap), I’m all ears.

The city of Kitchener is making a mistake by trying to re-locate a group that feeds the homeless on Saturdays from a site in front of City Hall. The group, known as Food Not Bombs, has been making use of space at the corner of King and Young for nine years. The group is there with the city’s blessing. But now, as revitalization becomes the multi-syllabic buzzword of the day in Kitchener’s core, council would rather hide the homeless and the hungry. Shame on them.

The city insists that it has no issue with its hungry citizens being fed, and I believe that. But I also believe that council’s insistence that this group re-locate — perhaps to a less visible side of City Hall — is a bid to mask what is a very real, and perhaps even growing problem in our community. Allowing Food Not Bombs the right to provide food for the underprivileged is only solving half of the problem. The other half will be solved when we acknowledge that the issue exists and we begin to address its root causes.

This is not only a community of great affluence, it is one of great intelligence. Surely to goodness there is a way of addressing the problem of poverty without trying to tuck it into a less visible corner. Perhaps we can look down the 401 to Toronto, where Mayor David Miller is being lauded for his approach to cracking down on panhandling. After a series of complaints from citizens and businesspeople, Mayor Miller adopted an approach that employed street workers to find permanent housing. Three years after launching the initiative, the “Streets to Home” program has housed 1750 people who at one time had been Toronto’s problem panhandlers. If Toronto can accomplish that in three years, it makes you wonder what Kitchener has been doing for the past nine. And still, rather than address the issue, the city simply wants to hide it.

We can make the problem go away, but we will not accomplish that by simply moving it to another locale. We need a collective effort and a multi-pronged approach that involves council, business, police, and citizens like you and I. It won’t make the problem disappear overnight but it is unfair of us to further ostracize these already marginalized members of our community in the meantime.