Cold ,what cold

Remember the fun skating & playing hockey on an outdoor rink,cleaning the ice after a snowfall, warming up in the shack, and basically spending all day outside regardless of the weather.........  here's a story that reminded me of way back when in Montreal/Verdun

 

 

 

 

 

MONTREAL - Outdoor skating rinks, including hockey rinks with boards and nets, have opened well before Christmas holidays this year, thanks to some colder-than-average temperatures in recent days.

In downtown Ville-Marie borough and the Plateau Mont Royal borough in particular, outdoor rinks were open and very busy on Sunday afternoon. Elsewhere in the city of Montreal and suburbs on and off the island of Montreal, other municipal outdoor skating rinks were opening up this weekend for the season.

“Very good for so early in the season,” André Marchand, 45, said of the quality of the ice at Lafontaine Park around noon on Sunday, as he took a break from playing a game of shinny.

The park has two outdoor hockey rinks. Adults, including Marchand, were playing on one them, while children were playing on the other.

For more information about outdoor rinks in Montreal – which rinks are open, and what the quality of their ice is – visit the city of Montreal web page that contains this information. Note, however, that some boroughs provide more frequent updates than others.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

 

                      .Outdoor skating , what a blast .............................HF&RV

      

To All Verdun Connection Members -Christmas Wish List for Santa

A little closer walk with thee.....(insert lightning bolt)

Brother Andre has had a miracle attributed to him,so perhaps sometime in the next millenium or so (known as the RC fast track) ......old Brother Andre may become a Saint...............the first Quebec man to attain the title,  MONTREAL – Brother André moved closer to canonization on Saturday as Pope Benedict XVI attributed a miracle to the founder of St. Joseph’s Oratory.

Brother André, who was born in 1845 in St. Hyacinthe and died in Montreal in 1937, was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1982.

The pope on Saturday “acknowledged as scientifically inexplicable a healing due to the intercession of Brother André,” according to a news release.

“Brother André takes pride of place among the builders of our diocesan church,” said Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, archbishop of Montreal.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Montreal Gazette Terry Mosher Aislin

Christmas at the Notre Dame Basilica

"Do You Believe" .......(stolen from the Olympic Slogan) hahahaha

Santa Claus

 

Santa Claus, also known as Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or simply “Santa”, is the legendary and mythical figure who, in many Western cultures, brings gifts to the homes of the good children during the late evening and overnight hours of Christmas Eve, December 24 or on his Feast Day, December 6 (Saint Nicholas Day). The legend may have part of its basis in hagiographical tales concerning the historical figure of gift giver Saint Nicholas.
While Saint Nicholas was originally portrayed wearing bishop’s robes, in modern times, Santa Claus is generally depicted as a plump, jolly, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots. This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast. This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, and films. In the United Kingdom and Europe, his depiction is often identical to the American Santa, but he is commonly called Father Christmas. One legend associated with Santa says that he lives in the far north, in a land of perpetual snow. The American version of Santa Claus says that he lives at his house in the North Pole, while Father Christmas is often said to reside in the mountains of Korvatunturi in Lapland Province, Finland. Santa	Santa Claus on sleigh with reindeers
Claus lives with his wife Mrs. Claus, a countless number of magical elves, and eight or nine flying reindeer. Another legend of Santa says that he makes a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior (“naughty” or “nice”) and that he delivers presents, including toys, candy, and other gifts to all of the good boys and girls in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. He accomplishes this feat with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the reindeer who pull his sleigh. There has long been opposition to teaching children to believe in Santa Claus. Some Christians say the Santa tradition detracts from the religious origins and purpose of Christmas. Other critics feel that Santa Claus is an elaborate lie, and that it is unethical for parents to teach their children to believe in his existence. Still others oppose Santa Claus as a symbol of the commercialization of the Christmas holiday, or as an intrusion upon their own national traditions.

Classic "Coca-Cola style" Santa Claus

Pre-modern representations of the gift-giver from church history and folklore merged with the British character Father Christmas to create the character known to Britons and Americans as Santa Claus. Father Christmas dates back at least as far as the 17th century in Britain, and pictures of him survive from that era, portraying him as a well-nourished bearded man dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe. He typified the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, and was reflected in the “Ghost of Christmas Present” in Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, a great genial man in a green coat lined with fur, who takes Scrooge through the bustling streets of London on the current Christmas morning, sprinkling the essence of Christmas onto the happy populace. The American version of the Santa Claus figure received its inspiration and its name from the Dutch legend of Sinterklaas (a Dutch variant of the name Saint Nicholas).

Dutch colonists took this tradition with them to New Amsterdam (now New York City) in the American colonies in the 17th century. As early as 1773 the name appeared in the American press as “St. A Claus,” but it was the popular author Washington Irving who gave Americans their first detailed information about the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas. In his History of New York, published in 1809 under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, Irving described the arrival of the saint on horseback each Eve of Saint Nicholas. This Dutch-American Saint Nick achieved his fully Americanized form in 1823 in the poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas” by writer Clement Clarke Moore. Moore included such details as the names of the reindeer; Santa Claus’s laughs, winks, and nods; and the method by which Saint Nicholas, referred to as an elf, returns up the chimney. (Moore’s phrase “lays his finger aside of his nose” was drawn directly from Irving’s 1809 description.) The American image of Santa Claus was further elaborated by illustrator Thomas Nast, who depicted a rotund Santa for Christmas issues of Harper’s magazine from the 1860s to the 1880s. Nast added such details as Santa’s workshop at the North Pole and Santa’s list of the good and bad children of the world. In the first Nast illustration, Santa was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the Civil War. The cartoon, entitled “Santa Claus in Camp” appeared in Harper’s Weekly on January 3, 1863. A human-sized version of Santa Claus, rather than the elf of Moore’s poem, was depicted in a series of illustrations created by Haddom Sundblom for Coca-Cola advertisements introduced in 1931. In modern versions of the Santa Claus legend, only his toyshop workers are elves. An advertising writer named Robert May, invented Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, with a red and shiny nose, while working on a catalog for the Montgomery Ward Company in 1939. In North American poetry and illustrations, Santa Claus, in his white beard, red jacket and pompom-topped cap, would sally forth on the night before Christmas in his sleigh, pulled by eight reindeer, and climb down chimneys to leave his gifts in stockings children set out on the fireplace’s mantelpiece. Children naturally wanted to know where Santa Claus actually came from. Where did he live when he wasn’t delivering presents? Those questions gave rise to the legend that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole, where his Christmas-gift workshop was also located.

Montreal 'weather' you like him or not (lol)

Remember the only thing high tech about  the weather was that big piece of Chalk

    ....the old Percy Saltzman :

                                                 

                 .Remember old Percy ...........................................................HF&RV

Wintertime on Mount Royal

Some skating or toboganning ,some would ski,(but the tow rope up the slight grade took too long. You would take it on occassion just to save the walk,or the skating around Beaver Lake then a 'hot chocolate' in the Chalet,generally a trip up to Beaver LAke also came with  a walk (excursion) up to the Real Chalet the Lookout,& then a day at the Mountain was complete:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     ...Also remember the Mounted Police ,& the old Caleche's ................HF&RV

Crawford Park School 1949

Super Mario did it again. Look at this beautiful old 1949 photo of the Crawford Park School that he turned up wich is from the All Saints Anglican Church archives. The photo was by David Bier whom I seem to remember was a well known Montreal photographer from the 40s, 50s and the 60s.  Hopefully some members will have some anecdotes about this school  to share with us.

Guy

Drinking & Driving (Montreal 1950's)

This anti-drink & drive campaign is from the late 50's in Montreal,Interesting how it was not really dealt with in those days, but it certainly looks like a forerunner to todays madd campaign :

 

 

 

 

 

 

       ..an interesting attempt make the public aware,of the consequences of drinking & driving,...........................................................................................hf&rv