Well, the expected has happened.

While watching junior hockey phenom Connor Bedard’s brilliance at the recent world junior hockey championships in Halifax, I was reminded of an old, frequently used idiom.

Well, that was one hell of a party in downtown Halifax.

As I write my journey through the early months of my 69th year in newspapers, the question comes up more and more frequently: Why keep working so long?

Lest we forget.

As most die-hard hockey followers have known since birth, there are good times and bad times on the sports calendar. There are high points and low points wherever games are played.

At first mention, the idea may sound rather ridiculous, if not completely preposterous, even contrary to common sense.

I’ve often been told I was born with a love of sports in my veins.

An intriguing comment was fired at me by an acquaintance sipping a double-double at Tims one morning a few weeks ago.

Bob Ross wasn’t smiling.

Sometimes statistics mean everything.

Did the good folks at the Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame make their best decision by committing its future to its old location in downtown Halifax?

John Soosaar and I have crossed paths many times during the last 65 years – from our school days in New Glasgow, through our decades in the journalism world, to the publication of his riveting book about his family’s escape from war-torn Europe.

They played on a championship hockey club and, many years later, they were still telling me it was the finest team they were ever on.

I feel safe in saying that I’m no different than most Canadians when it comes to having a life-long love affair with hockey.

One hundred years ago – in October 1922 – a group of sports-minded individuals from Antigonish, Pictou and Colchester counties put their heads together and created a regional hockey league.

I’ve often thought about July 21, 1961.

The phone rang rather early the other morning.

I loved the comment.

An unexpected surprise was waiting for me when I arrived at the Hotel Meridien in downtown Montreal on a hot July afternoon in 1976.

Spryfield, a suburban community within Halifax, can rightly claim Troy Ryan as one of its own. His birth certificate testifies to that.

I discovered in time that you never forget where a life’s journey began.

During the last two weeks, I was devastated and heartbroken, passing through the whole gamut of human emotion while one of my dearest friends was losing a brief battle against a dreaded medical foe in a hospital on the other side of the ocean.

Leave it to hockey.

It’s hard to believe, but it was 50 years ago – in 1972 – that Art Hafey took his boxing dream to California.

It was one of those hot, humid afternoons we’ve been having this summer – obviously a forerunner to what climate change is going to be like.

Bring ‘em back.

My having written thousands of sports columns in my career, you might assume there is no subject too difficult to address.

With a scheduled Canadian Football League game at Acadia University this weekend – the Toronto Argonauts hosting the Saskatchewan Roughriders – I’ve been thinking about one man.

Driving into Cole Harbour from downtown Dartmouth, it’s hard not to notice the welcome sign at the corner of Cole Harbour Road and Caldwell Road.

Perhaps I was just lucky.

The late Red Fisher, the highly-acclaimed Montreal sports columnist for more than 50 years, was a huge favourite of mine.

First came Pictou County.

It’s time to call Blayre Turnbull what she is, what she affectionately became as a member of Canada’s gold medal women’s hockey team at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Every springtime, for almost half a century, my thoughts focused back on my native Pictou County – and it has nothing to do with my personal memories of warm weather and walking barefoot on the sands of Lighthouse Beach in Pictou Landing.

There’s a tantalizing question I’ve had on my mind for most of my life. Why do certain memories remain far longer than others?

It was last Thursday morning in downtown Halifax.

Generations of Pictonians – whether they’ve noticed it or not – have been blessed by a sizeable number of dedicated authors.

Don Archibald, my Grade 12 math teacher at New Glasgow High, called me aside after class one day towards the end of that academic year.

It’s not easy growing old, is it?

I’ve been following and enjoying the activities of the Bowness family for a very long time.

I wasn’t very old when I learned Pictou County was more than five towns and an extensive rural region.

I can remember it was a bright sunny spring day in 1999 when I drove into the parking lot at the Heather Motel in the north end of Stellarton.

I was having lunch recently with a group of old hockey fanatics when one of them asked a question that got me laughing to myself. I didn’t want to laugh in his face.

How ya doing?