Hugh Townsend, Author at The Pictou Advocate

Better to think about the past we know

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020Hugh Townsend

I’m never surprised when someone asks how I continually come up with subjects to write about. I guess that’s to be expected since I’ve written thousands of sports columns through the years. Seldom, though, do things unfold the way they did last Thursday morning. It was my day to write and, as I enjoyed the...

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Oh what some sports fantasizing can do

June 17, 2020June 17, 2020Hugh Townsend

Tell me something — honestly. After three months of no live hockey, no live basketball, no live baseball on that big screen in your living room or den, how have you been spending your evening hours? I’ve posed that question more than once to Dave Scott, my dear friend and retired school teacher in New...

Through the 1950s, the best ball ever

June 11, 2020June 11, 2020Hugh Townsend

I still haven’t forgotten how it began 70 years ago this month. I had just turned 12 and was in my last weeks of grade six at Acadia Street School in New Glasgow. The annual move to the family cottage at Rustico Beach wasn’t far away. It was in early June that I changed my...

A popular old Albion passes away in U.S.

June 3, 2020June 3, 2020Hugh Townsend

Those of us ancient enough to remember the Stellarton Albions and their nine seasons in the Halifax and District Baseball League during the 1950s have been given another reason to mourn. Joe Fulghum, one of the finest talents ever to play baseball for a Pictou County team, passed away last week at his home in...

Schooners again in turbulent waters

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020Hugh Townsend

Right now, I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickle — or a roll of extinct pennies — that Halifax will get its Canadian Football League franchise onto the field. To be frank, I doubt the Schooners will ever sail. A failed launch occurred before — almost four decades ago. And, under the circumstances, there’s no reason...

Mackie family had large shoes to fill

May 20, 2020May 20, 2020Hugh Townsend

My interest in the Mackie family — the one whose patriarch was the history-making hockey defenceman Irvine (Tiger) Mackie — began a very, very long time ago. Actually, it was before I was old enough to attend school. It had its beginning in the 1943-44 season. I was five years of age and my dad...

The pilot who came ‘of a good stock’

May 13, 2020May 13, 2020Hugh Townsend

My parents’ generation used to have a saying that was quite common in conversations back in the post-war years. A specific person, they would suggest, “comes of a good stock.” It was a way of describing someone from a family of distinct character. It was meant as a meaningful compliment. I thought of it recently....

Sponagle overcame many tough times

May 6, 2020May 5, 2020Hugh Townsend

Evidently I haven’t been alone among newspaper columnists. My former colleague John DeMont at The Chronicle Herald was explaining last week how the COVID-19 virus, followed by the mass murders in northern Nova Scotia, delayed other subjects he planned to write about. I had similar issues. After 66 years of never missng a week without...

That familiar smile is gone forever

May 5, 2020May 5, 2020Hugh Townsend

I never met Heidi Stevenson, the RCMP officer who was one of the victims of the devastating murder rampage that shocked all of us two Sunday mornings ago. Members of my family and her family know each other, however. Our daughter Charlotte and Heidi’s husband Dean were among a group of friends who attended school...

Amidst COVID-19, goodbye to a rink

April 22, 2020April 22, 2020Hugh Townsend

So how am I doing six weeks into staying the blazes home? I’d say, under the circumstances, as good as can be expected. But thanks for asking. I do wonder, though, is there anything normal these days? It’s late April, usually the best time of the year to be alive. The weather warms and the...

Author: Hugh Townsend