Opening soon!
The sale of the Southview Mall this week brings back some nostalgia, and especially considering the fact that original tenants London Drugs, Winners, Michael’s, the Brick and Jysk are all celebrating their 15th anniversary in town.
Those entries in to the local market were seen as a step towards the big-time after the K-Mart mall shut down.
Similarly, it’s been about 10 years since Costco opened.
A jaunt through the News archives finds a story from that time by resident ear-to-theground Angus Henderson who ran through a spate of rumours to fill the bays at the then-proposed Southlands Crossing on Strachan Road.
They included a Chapters bookstore, an Old Navy clothing store, a Swiss Chalet, a Keg Restaurant, a Tony Roma’s and a Red Lobster.
It’s weird how things happen, or don’t, as the case may be.
News boots it
Ken Sauer has done a lot of things around town, but announcing oldtimers baseball games isn’t one of them.
The issue arose this week after the News incorrectly stated that as fact while running through Sauer’s resume ahead of his investiture on the Medicine Hat Sports Wall of Fame.
While he’s certainly been active, he tells the News that he doesn’t know where the assumption comes from.
Neither do we. So score that as an error.
Speaking of ... Sauer’s accomplishments in hosting bids is well-known; his work to improve city sporting facilities as an alderman is somewhat fading into the background in 17 years away from city government.
Sauer told the News that one of his proudest accomplishments was working with former alderman and fellow wall of fame colleague Graham Kelly on enclosing the Moose Recreation Centres and Hockey Hounds arenas in the late 1970s.
“When I taught (school) in Saskatoon, I was president of the minor hockey association and we sent people here (to Medicine Hat) to look at artificial outdoor rinks,” said Sauer.
“They had a roof but were open between the boards and ceilings. They were beautiful rinks but when the sun shone the ice melted, and the wind blew and the dust and snow came in.
“Graham and I in council pushed and they were closed in. Since 1977 they’ve been able to be used every day. I’m very proud of that.”
Ice time
By the way, the current city budget calls for some new investment for rinks that had been log-jammed after administrators reviewed ice inventory over the last three or so years.
A tender of the slab replacement at the Hockey Hounds arena is being evaluated. About $750,000 worth of work this year at the Kinplex has already been awarded.
Name dropping
TV journalist Breanna Karsten Smith who flew the local coop for a spot with CTV Edmonton in 2012, is heading up the chain to that network’s Vancouver affiliate this month.
Local journalists will take part in a discussion of media matters at the Medicine Hat Public Library today. The topic is “Fake News”... so it may (or perhaps may not) be happening at 1 p.m.
A look ahead
Council sits Monday evening to hear the 2016 year-end report from the city’s tourism service provider and will award a contract for electrical substation construction. If such things interest you, the federal budget is set for release Wednesday.
100 years ago
The United States was put in a state of “Armed Neutrality,” the
News reported March 14, 1917, after President Woodrow Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. That came after an American steamer was boarded and destroyed by German submariners in the English channel.
In London, Parliament was presented with the “extraordinary figure of 396 million pounds as the initial cost of creating a pension for 673,000 dependents of deceased or disabled British armed forces members.
Locally, a Schular man accused of poisoning his wife was committed to trial.
The J-Dot ranch, comprising 50,000 acres nestled beside the Cypress Hills, had been sold to the Meeks Bros., of Raymond.
An editorial lamented that the relatively new practice of concluding plays, moving pictures and other events with the playing of the national anthem was too often being taking as a signal to make a hasty exit.