​It’s the start of hockey playoffs and our local team did not advance. That means my seventh season as the online play-by-play webcaster for the KIJHL Princeton Posse has come to an end. It actually ended a week ago with the final regular season home game for the team. I was “on the fence” as to whether or not I wanted to see the team go into the post season.
 
While part of me would have been excited about being able to do some more home games, another part of me would have been less excited about the same thing. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy this past season. In fact, this was easily one of my most favourite hockey seasons of being the internet voice of the Posse. It also went by rather quickly.
 
I can explain both, actually. The part of me that was sort of glad to see the season end is the one that gets a bit itchy when the end of February arrives. The first round of playoffs would have extended the season into early March. We are already seeing spring-like weather in mid-February so by early March I’m thinking of something other than hockey.
 
As for why the season zipped by so quickly…well, time flies when you are having fun. Plus, the regular season was only 47 games as opposed to the previous five seasons that had 52 regular games. I know, that may only be a difference of two or three homes games, but the shorter season did seem to virtually vaporize before my eyes.
 
It will very likely take me a couple more weeks to notice the loss of webcasts in my weekly routine. I say that because the home game schedule this past season had a few two week gaps that broke up the season for me and prevented it from becoming a weekly occurrence. I actually think that kept me focused as I was a little off balance as a result.
 
I think if I had weekly games to attend for the play-by-play I may have settled into a routine and by January it could have made me complacent. Having a ‘sporadic’ and ‘irregular’ schedule kept me on my toes. Or at least that’s how I looked at it. I think the new-to-me webcast booth also helped keep me feeling ‘special’ each game upon my arrival.
 
I think it was last season that the former ticket booth from outside the arena was converted into a broadcast booth inside the building. My last season was actually the 2013/14 one and at that time the games were being sent out through the internet from a booth that was above the announcer’s booth. It was cold and cramped is all I remember about it. The new one isn’t.
 
Aside from having a great time this past season, there is one really big bonus for me when I do the webcasts. It helps me get through winter. I have issues with snow and frightfully cold weather and for some reason, being in a box overlooking a large layer of ice on a concrete floor gets me through it. There is no doubt in my mind that I enjoyed every minute of it.
 
I give full credit to Geoff and Lance for getting me back in the box and Kendall for ensuring I kept coming back. Also I give kudos to Mark for supporting the program and the entire Posse organization for recognizing the importance of webcasts. But, as is usually the case, the most important people involved were the parents and family members who tuned in. It was really for them I was doing it for and from the sound of some of the feedback that was received, they liked it. That’s all I can ask for. Thanks for a great season in the webcast booth!

​I’ve been very happy with how things have been falling into place for me so far in 2017. Since New Year’s Day I’ve picked up three new freelance clients with two of them resulting from referrals. What I like about that kind of business is that these clients have an idea of what to expect from me so I think it speeds up building a relationship with them. Or that’s how I see it.
 
My eBooks have been getting a lot of attention so far this year. While my most popular one titled “The Foodie Guide To Farming Insects For Protein” continues to sell, my most recent one started to take off as well. Titled “Surviving Midlife Career Changes” there were no bites in the first two months after publishing but now it has found a foothold and continues to sell copies weekly.
 
Then the month of February arrived.
 
I was prepared for one personal landmark but not another – with both oddly enough landing on the same date. February 1st marked my 200th webcast. The webcasting I’ve been doing has been for the local Junior ‘B’ Hockey team, the Princeton Posse. My job is to set up the streaming video/audio feeds that allow the team to ‘broadcast’ their home games live via the internet.
 
My involvement revolves around me providing the actual play-by-play which is available through a pay-per-view subscription service. The service provider has a massive webcast network throughout North America so our local hockey games are part of a much larger schedule of sporting events. The local hockey webcasts started in September 2008.
 
I was the pioneering webcaster for our local team and never missed a home game for a total of six seasons. Some seasons included pre-season games while others didn’t. Some included playoff games, but only when the team made the post-season – which was not every season. I took a two season break as my workload just did not allow me to continue with the webcasts.
 
Just prior to the 2016/17 season starting, I was approached to see if I was interested in resuming the play-by-play duties. It took most of the season, but Webcast #200 caught up to me and happened to be on February 1st. I talked it up on social media and mentioned it only twice during the actual webcast and left it at that. It was a personal milestone, really.
 
The other personal milestone that fell on the same day was an anniversary. It would have been my 13th Anniversary of owning the Similkameen News Leader, a weekly community newspaper I bought in 2004 after being employed by the company for three and a half years before that. My wife, Brenda had to remind me of that as I was focused more on the #200 than I was on the #13.
 
Either way, it is a little funny to me now to look back to earlier this week when those things fell on the same day. I’m not sure I would say I didn’t want to recognize them, but I see each of them as very different, yet significant markers. One hints at the past and the other hints at the future. In a way, I can use them to measure how far I’ve gone since both timelines started.