Head Tale

Went to the Regina Pats’ final home game of the regular season last night:

Thanks to @TaigaBP for donating their Concourse level tickets to a silent auction fundraiser for @CarmichaelOR.

Very excited to see @connorbedard97’s final regular season game for @WHLPats!#yqr#RhymesWithNumberOne(Overall) pic.twitter.com/2hm3PndNAk

— Jason Hammond (@headtale) March 26, 2023

Connor Bedard gets the bulk of the attention and accolades of course.  But his skill boils down to his (admittedly unworldly) ability to put a frozen rubber disc into a 6×4 piece of netting.

There are tons of lesser known stars behind the scenes at an event like this who don’t always get acknowledged or recognized…

No, Shea wasn’t being rowdy and about to be arrested by security!  The person who sold us our house (she’s awesome so if you’re looking to buy or sell, tell her Jason & Shea sent ya!) moonlights as a security guard at Pats games so we had a great visit with her.

Another friend who lives around the corner from us and has the best backyard fire pits has the *very* important job of making sure the coolers are stocked and the kegs are replenished!

I’m not in the habit of taking selfies in washrooms. But when I bumped into a library patron I helped with his resume many years ago and got to know a little bit, I had to stop and catch up.

He cracked me up when he said “I’m getting older and can’t work as hard as I used to.  I asked my doctor if he had anything to make me young again and the doc said, no but if you find something, let me know – I’m getting older too!”

He had a powerful, inspiring story of his journey to Canada and I think of him often, even years after I’d last seen him, as he stands out to me as a strong reminder of what a privilege it is to work in the public library, the connections we can make to bridge worlds, and the tangible difference we can make in people’s lives!

He got the night off to dog sit but our son has been slinging popcorn at a number of Pats games since early December to raise money for a school trip to Costa Rica in April.

(We had Concourse Premium Seats which promised unlimited popcorn as a perk but only got one extra bag the entire game.  So gotta say, in a post celebrating hard working people – and I’d include our server in that list – the priority to sell overpriced booze instead of supplying the inexpensive free popcorn to customers was clear!) 🙁

From a customer service POV, would be nice to have a laminated card or something so clients who want more popcorn could go to the popcorn stand and flash it to get their own if the servers are otherwise occupied.