Ho Ho Ho!!

HOme sweet HOme for the HOlidays! And I'm not talking about Santa...it is the Thanksgiving long weekend here in Canada. South of the border it is Columbus Day on Monday. Americans might not have a Columbus Day if Christopher Columbus had not been born in Italy. Out of pride for their native son, the Italian population of New York City organized the first celebration of the discovery of America on October 12, 1866. In 1905, Colorado became the first state to observe a Columbus Day. Over the next few decades other states followed. In 1937, then- President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed every October 12 as Columbus Day. Since 1971, it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October.

HOme sweet HOme for the Colorado Rockies. Thanks to HOme runs in each of the first two games against Philadelphia by possible season MVP Matt HOlliday and a super pitching performance by Canadian Jeff Francis in game one, the Rockies can roll into round two of the baseball playoffs with a win tomorrow at HOme against Ryan HOward (105 HOme runs the last 2 seasons!) and the Phillies.

HOckey sweet HOckey returns to Buffalo tonight! The new HDef video screens are in place at HSBC Arena as the New York Islanders pay a visit tonight. I will post my opening on MSG-TV soon I hope. Last Saturday I had the privilege of being the PA announcer for one of the area's junior hockey teams, the Westside Warriors. What a finish to the game against Powell River with the winning goal scored by Westside with just 5 seconds left! One of their radio announcers, Brett Mix, is a big Buffalo Sabres fan.
Have a great season boys!

HOops sweet HOops! My basketball league resumed last night.
Great exercise! Even better than the competitive tennis league I am a part of. HOpe YOU have a great season - whichever one life is throwing your way right now:) Keep your chin up!

Hockey ain't hokey!

Howdy partner!

Round 2 of the NHL playoffs starts Wednesday night as the Buffalo Sabres host the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks visit Anaheim. The Sabres got by the Islanders in round one 4 games to 1 and the Canucks survived a seven game series versus Dallas with a 4-1 win Monday night. Dallas' only goal came from Joel Lundqvist - brother of the Rangers' great goalie, Henrik Lundqvist.

Country music is popular in Dallas, Nashville and Calgary. But the pro hockey teams in those cities all got eliminated in the first round. Ouch!

The basketball team in Dallas - the Mavericks - were the top ranked NBA team this year with 67 wins, 6 more than the Phoenix Suns and former Dallas star, Steve Nash. Stevie "Wonder" and the Suns currently lead Kobe and the LA Lakers 2-0 in their opening round series while Dallas needs to bounce back against Golden State Wednesday to even their series at one apiece.

Can you believe the Dallas Mavericks Ownership Group landed its 767 luxury jet at the airport here in Kelowna last Tuesday for a major overhaul?

Here you can see the overhaul the basketball logo took after 20 years in 2001: