Cheers & Jeers

CHEERS: CHAMPIONS AGAIN

Huge congrats to the South West Storm junior C hockey team, which has once again captured the NSRJHL league championship.

The team achieved the three-peat by winning the Nova Scotia league championship title three years in a row – this time in a Game 7 against the East Hants Penguins in a hard-fought series by both teams.

Hard-fought is a good adjective to describe the Storm's play. The team advanced to the championship final series after posting three consecutive wins in their semi-final best-of-five series.

The Storm is also the junior C defending Maritime champions, having won the 2023 title. The team will look to repeat in Miramichi April 24-28 when they join other provincial champions and the host team for the 2024 Maritime Junior C Championship.

Congrats and good luck.

JEERS: INVESTMENT FRAUD

According to the Nova Scotia RCMP, the ongoing threat of investment fraud is costing Nova Scotians millions of dollars. In 2023, Nova Scotians lost over $4.9 million to investment fraud.

Victims are enticed with financial security through an investment opportunity with guaranteed, better-than-average returns, the RCMP says. Fraudsters pretend their early investors are turning a high profit by paying them with money from new investors. But eventually, the scheme collapses, and victims lose most, if not all, of their investment.

With the introduction of cryptocurrencies, these scams have become easier to commit and harder to track, warns the RCMP.

“Victims might think they are investing in a new digital currency or trading on a secure exchange, when in reality, they are putting money directly into an account controlled by the fraudster,” a media release states.

The RCMP emphasizes the importance of due diligence when considering investment opportunities, advising people to exercise caution, do research, and seek advice.

In other words, be careful.

CHEERS: ACADIAN SPIRIT

There's been another announcement about festivities that will be taking place in southwestern Nova Scotia this August as part of the Congrès mondial acadien 2024 (CMA 2024) Aug. 10-18.

This time it's the lineup for the Aug. 15 National Acadian Day concert that will be happening at the Yarmouth airport as part of the upcoming World Acadian Congress.

Once again, it's another stellar lineup of Acadian talent and culture.

The more the announcements about the congress come, the more excited we get about what promises to be an amazing event filled with a multitude of events celebrating all things Acadian.