There’s an old saying that first impressions are lasting impressions, particularly in situations like meeting someone for the first time. I wasn’t very old — probably early in elementary school — the first time my mother gave that valuable advice about living in this world. Whatever the timing, I’ve carried her useful lesson with me […]

One day last week, Facebook alerted me that it was Bill MacCulloch’s birthday. Oh yes, he had another one. Actually, the message said it was William MacCulloch’s big day. But to anybody in New Glasgow — better make that Pictou County — he’s simply Bill. If you don’t know who I mean, you haven’t been […]

For an understandable reason, I doubt there’s anyone in Pictou County who remembers the day Harry Trainor arrived in New Glasgow with razors and clippers in his luggage. It was 100 years ago. He had lived in the town previously, coming from Charlottetown with his family at the age of five. After attending St. John’s […]

I’m never surprised when someone asks how I continually come up with subjects to write about. I guess that’s to be expected since I’ve written thousands of sports columns through the years. Seldom, though, do things unfold the way they did last Thursday morning. It was my day to write and, as I enjoyed the […]

Tell me something — honestly. After three months of no live hockey, no live basketball, no live baseball on that big screen in your living room or den, how have you been spending your evening hours? I’ve posed that question more than once to Dave Scott, my dear friend and retired school teacher in New […]

I still haven’t forgotten how it began 70 years ago this month. I had just turned 12 and was in my last weeks of grade six at Acadia Street School in New Glasgow. The annual move to the family cottage at Rustico Beach wasn’t far away. It was in early June that I changed my […]

Those of us ancient enough to remember the Stellarton Albions and their nine seasons in the Halifax and District Baseball League during the 1950s have been given another reason to mourn. Joe Fulghum, one of the finest talents ever to play baseball for a Pictou County team, passed away last week at his home in […]

Right now, I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickle — or a roll of extinct pennies — that Halifax will get its Canadian Football League franchise onto the field. To be frank, I doubt the Schooners will ever sail. A failed launch occurred before — almost four decades ago. And, under the circumstances, there’s no reason […]

My interest in the Mackie family — the one whose patriarch was the history-making hockey defenceman Irvine (Tiger) Mackie — began a very, very long time ago. Actually, it was before I was old enough to attend school. It had its beginning in the 1943-44 season. I was five years of age and my dad […]

My parents’ generation used to have a saying that was quite common in conversations back in the post-war years. A specific person, they would suggest, “comes of a good stock.” It was a way of describing someone from a family of distinct character. It was meant as a meaningful compliment. I thought of it recently. […]

Evidently I haven’t been alone among newspaper columnists. My former colleague John DeMont at The Chronicle Herald was explaining last week how the COVID-19 virus, followed by the mass murders in northern Nova Scotia, delayed other subjects he planned to write about. I had similar issues. After 66 years of never missng a week without […]

I never met Heidi Stevenson, the RCMP officer who was one of the victims of the devastating murder rampage that shocked all of us two Sunday mornings ago. Members of my family and her family know each other, however. Our daughter Charlotte and Heidi’s husband Dean were among a group of friends who attended school […]

So how am I doing six weeks into staying the blazes home? I’d say, under the circumstances, as good as can be expected. But thanks for asking. I do wonder, though, is there anything normal these days? It’s late April, usually the best time of the year to be alive. The weather warms and the […]

Editor’s Note: April 1 marked the first week Hugh Townsend hadn’t written anything for a newspaper in 66 years — 3,431 weeks to be exact. He has been writing for The Advocate for 16 years, having written more than 832 columns. While our regular columnists are on temporary hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hugh offers […]

Through good times and not so good times, I’ve been around sports for an awfully long period. They were a big part of my life growing up, they became an even larger thing through my decades in the newspaper business, and they haven’t slowed down a bit well beyond a normal retirement age. I’ve seen […]

Minor hockey excitement doesn’t get much more intense than it was this past weekend at the Pictou County Wellness Centre. For good reason. The 2020 Hockey Nova Scotia female provincial championships were being decided in the side-by-side Sobeys and Bell Aliant arenas. With both granddaughters participating in the three-day event, I knew what the atmosphere […]

When you spend your lifetime in sports journalism, you encounter a huge number of people — watching them, interviewing them, writing about them. I know it well. Quite a number of years ago, I determined that I had met literally thousands of athletes, coaches, officials and others involved in the sports world in various ways. […]