While a large percentage of Thompsonites and Manitobans and even probably many, if not most, Canadians would have liked to have seen the Winnipeg Jets defeat the upstart Las Vegas Golden Knights in the Manitoba franchise’s first-ever appearance in the NHL’s Western Conference playoff series, a dream that was dashed by the plucky expansion team that is exceeding all reasonable and unreasonable expectations for it, with a 2-1 victory in Winnipeg May 20, the truth is, the Jets’ exit from the playoffs could hardly have come at a better time for hockey fans in the Nickel City.
Let’s face it, hockey has been going on for about nine months around these parts, dating back to hockey schools and the midget AAA Norman Northstars tryouts in August and, as great as hockey can be, there is so much more to experience in and around Thompson during the precious few months of the year when the ground is not covered in snow and daylight stretches nearly from morning until the next day. And with Mother Nature possibly feeling a little guilty after delivering a very long and very snowy winter to Northern Manitoba this year, she seems to be trying to make amends by providing summery weather on the first long weekend since Easter, warm enough that some of us have tossed away socks for the next few months and taken the bold step of putting on shorts and exposing pale flesh unused to light to the warming rays of the sun.
Unlike every third year or so, there was no snow on the May long weekend, at least not as of noon Victoria Day, and while there was ice on the lakes until the second weekend of this month, it graciously went away over the course of the next few days, just in time for the arrival of boating season and the resumption of fishing season.
So now that the Jets’ playoff run has fizzled out, make like suddenly directionless NHL players when summer comes along and dust off those golf clubs, fire up your barbecues, pump up your bike tires and get out there to experience all that the great outdoors of Northern Manitoba has to offer.
And if you wouldn’t mind, take a garbage bag with you and make sure your trash ends up where it belongs – in garbage cans – rather than tossed on the ground. As wonderful as it is every spring to see the snow melt to reveal the dormant grass beneath, it is also disheartening to realize just how much litter people in Thompson generate over the course of six months, and apparently how little at least some of us care about the city we call home and, in a larger sense, the environment. Simply putting trash in garbage cans is not necessarily better than tossing it on the ground from an environmental perspective, but the message littering sends – that the Earth is less important than human beings’ convenience – is a symptom of a larger problem.
There’s so much to explore around us. Let’s do so while the weather is good and – weather gods willing – the sky is through dropping snow on us until, hopefully, October.
