Rhino's Rambings - Scottie's Week Reike Good For Moose Jaw's Soul

By Robert Thomas - Opinion/Commentary

It was a big week on the calendars of sports fans in the City of Moose Jaw as the 2020 Scotties Festival of Hearts Canadian Female Curling Championships rolled into town.

The 10 day extravaganza saw the top 16 teams in the country vie for the Canadian championship on Mosaic Place ice. The second time the facility has seen the Scotties played in it.

As someone asked me why wasn’t MJ Independent down at the Scotties and reporting? Did they lock you guys out and finally get rid of you? The answers to both questions are simple.

For the first question it really does not fit our mandate to cover The Scotties. Certainly it is major sporting news and it happened right here in Moose Jaw but at the same time MJ Independent tries to gear its coverage to stories that either need more coverage, a bit of a different angle or events that nobody else has bothered covering.

It is one thing I hear quite often and that is I am welcome to show up because they know if I come the bigger news sources usually follow and that in many ways is my philosophy about it. It is nice to see the other guys come in and help to get the word out on other things.

The Scotties are big and they already get national as well as local coverage from many different places. To put it to you quite bluntly I was alone this past week as the flu ravaged the people who write here, other than myself, and there are other events and news out there.

As far as the rumours that we were shut out from the Scotties put that one to rest as well - we were offered accreditation just like every other news outlet out there but we declined. The only Moose Jaw news outlet in the home town where the event was held to do so.

Other things to do and a couple, OK four, bigger investigative stories to work on. I needed the research week.

After basically getting off of a nine hour flight in the thing we call life 10 days before jet lag can be a real killer as they say.

It is something I tell Olya eventually I have to stay abroad and will not be coming back it is my destiny - if such a thing exists - to be buried and forgotten there and go -30 - half a world away. We all have our places to be.

Moose Jaw’s nice weather and The Scotties gave the city a much needed boost unlike Dortmund where rains dampened local spirits at a local winter festival - MJ Independent Photo

With that said I did do a bit of snooping around town and The Scotties did seem to give a bit of a boost to what have been some very rough times for the city as a whole to go through.

Now am I personally going to sit back and tell you that everyone got rich and the economic woes in the Friendly City are now Notoriously over? No I am not. Because let us face the facts The Scotties cannot solve the woes that are out there.

With that said what The Scotties did do is it helped to bring about some optimism in an otherwise dull month of February. The mood in the city itself changed for at least the week The Scotties were here.

When I spoke to Rob Clark from the Moose Jaw and District Chamber of Commerce - who I worked with long ago at the paper - he was quite honest and said to quantify the actual dollar amount generated by The Scotties was hard to pin down. It would likely cost $10,000 to do a study to truthfully quantify the exact economic input including the various spinoffs. Money that I am sure Rob agrees with me is better spent elsewhere. We all seem studied to death as they say.

But the one thing The Scotties did bring was the one word seemingly missing for so long in the city and that word is optimisim.

Optimism in a Downtown which is for all intensive purposes been suffering for the past few years as the region found itself in the throes of a major economic downturn. It is something Rob zeroed in on and might I say most appropriately.

It is like when I spoke to local psychic medium and spiritual advisor Amanda Moser during The Scotties week there is more than treating the physical body but there also needs to be some sort of care for what we call the soul. What the city may need is some Tender Loving Care for its mind, body and soul.

It is the same with the city it is not just about the things we can see but it is also about the feelings we have and the optimism The Scotties has brung to many in the community is in many ways just what is needed in what should be a very cold and slow February.

Perhaps The Scotties is just what is needed to balance some of the energy out there and is the Reiki treatment to make us all feel better.