VIEWPOINTS

Sports viewing and the whole fan experience has turned upside down, literally.  Illegal streaming of soccer and other sports has taken off ten fold since the start of the pandemic and since not a lot of people want to get tied into a subscription, people are willing to take the plunge to watch their favourite team illegally without going through the hassle.  With the NHL hockey season slated to start in the middle of January, the urge to watch sports will be at an all time high, compound that with the upcoming NFL playoffs, the starting of the NBA season and their will be a lot of temptation to stream your favourite sports teams near and far from your location in which you reside from.  It is my only hope that 2021 brings new perspective and new hope to ending this pandemic or at least getting things to a normalized state. We must all continue to do our part and I know it’s becoming mentally and emotionally draining but we must try and change the course of the pandemi...

  The pandemic has tested many facets of life and local/small businesses have been impacted immensely. The big box store such as Costco and Walmart will survive through the pandemic because of the vast majority of essential items that they sell. Local/small businesses need our support and undivided attention and helping them out is crucial during the winter months.  Being a small business that is not deemed essential when lockdowns happen is no easy feat and nor do I think it is very fair to them. Most of them have items that you can buy in a regular store but so many people follow the herd and go to the essential stores for those items because they are more comfortable in going that route. Unless you develop a strong online presence, most smaller businesses will not be as successful during the this unprecedented time.  What a lot of the general population does not know is that under that small business name, is a person/family that has put a lot of their own pe...

Hard work does pay off in a big way, you just have to believe in yourself. The month of December is a special month in the way that you usually reflect on the year that was and sayyid yourself “Did I Work Hard Enough” or “Did I Accomplish All that I set out to do in 2020”. These are common and okay questions to ask yourself. The past year has been a challenge for us all, we all set out to accomplish goals for 2020, but couldn’t predict what the year had in terms of challenges.  The introduction to a virus that we have never ever seen  before at the beginning of February and a lockdown happening the middle of March was also an eye opener. Wearing a mask, sanitizing your hands and social distancing seemed like unrealistic terms that we would be using, but before we knew it, we were doing all of those things. We made sure that we were well prepared by stockings up on essential products and trying to be safe in malls and stores. That being said, not being able to physically see fr...