Entering the 2020 NHL season there are four teams or franchises which have never been to the Stanley Cup Finals. Can you name the four teams?

The Ottawa Senators may not have won much this year, but they have won the Battle of Ontario. The Senators jumped on a couple of Toronto misses, converted them into second-period goals, and went on to beat the Maple Leafs 4-2 on Saturday night. After holding on for a 2-1 lead in the second period and a 3-0 lead at the end of the third period, the Ottawa Senators won their second consecutive game in Toronto and won for the first time this season.

I remember, as a kid, this weird story my Grandma used to tell me. I didn't think much about it back then, but now as I face a really tough decision, it's meaning is becoming more apparent.

A minor infraction is delegated to any activity that isn't legitimate yet not meriting an outing to the punishment box. What generally happens is a faceoff in the culpable group's guarded zone. A portion of these infractions, whenever regarded purposeful or on the off chance that they occur in the cautious zone can be moved up to minor punishments, in any case.

When Britain announced its lockdown in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the hockey players at Whitley Bay ice rink feared the worst. The refrigeration unit was switched off and, for the first time since the rink opened in 1955, the ice melted. For the ‘pay-to-play’ teams that operate from the Hillheads venue, things looked bleak.

Four years ago I was privileged to visit Chile to report on the local ice hockey scene over there. Deep into Patagonia, this was what I found:

Does reaching out matter? When a sport makes an effort to include a new audience, does it make a difference? It’s easy to be cynical, especially when confronted with Akim Aliu’s stark take-down of racism in hockey or the recent Brendan Liepsics scandal, complete with hints that his comments may be sadly commonplace in pro hockey. Suddenly, all the noble talk about inclusivity can feel like so much window dressing while age-old prejudice lives on.

Growing up as an African American, many innovations created and lead by people of African descent was unbeknownst to me. Institutions typically designate a month to highlight African American history. My recollection continuously recalls being habitually indoctrinated about slavery, segregation, and about prominent figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Sojourner Truth, etc. It wasn’t until I discovered self-education, and luckily recieved the funding to obtain higher education that I became acquainted with a wealth of knowledge about African American history. I believe it is crucial to inform other brown people of their origins and culture to create a space for our greatness into the consensus knowledge and to hopefully inspire black historians, anthropologist, and etc. to discover, highlight, and preserve African history.

It all came to a head 12 months ago. March 20, 2019. Kosice, Slovakia. Great Britain’s ice hockey team was approaching the end of its first World Championship campaign since 1994. The equation was simple. Defeat France, and the Brits would remain in the Elite Pool – something the country hadn’t achieved since 1950. Lose, and it would be a swift return to the second tier.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a dull year, especially for sports fans, as major events are getting canceled or postponed. The Olympic games 2020, are delayed until 2021, is among the major events. The global sports schedule has experienced the most severe disruption, the likes that we observed during World War II. Sporting competitions have been halted or canceled globally and to various degrees.

Tying together ideas about the new technologies that are on the cusp of coming out and present day challenges are something that might not be expected in this journal entry. After the tandem of reading the Canadian Media Fund report from January 2020 entitled “Closer, Wider, Faster: Annual Trends Report in the Audiovisual Industry” and watching an interview conducted by Scott Brown with Winnipeg Jets’ forward Andrew Copp, to write about both of these presentations, which may not seem related on the surface was the only way to scribe this analysis. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of invention -- or in this case, the kick in the butt that it needs to be utilized in a way it may not have originally been envisioned. Though the chances of the ideas being set forth in this writing are slim to none, if they are imagined and shared by a lone hockey reporter who thinks outside the box much of the time, this idea is no longer a silent imagining. The idea will be presented, with the hopes it may be utilized sometime in the near future.