Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

Hey, guess what? It’s not Family Day here in Ontario. Yes, it is out there in BC, so enjoy your day off. Next Monday is Family Day for Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Next Monday is Louis Riel Day in Manitoba, and it’s Islander Day in PEI.

Here’s what I found at www.statutoryholidays.com:

Family Day 2016 in Canada

Family Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday of February except in BC where it’s the 2nd Monday of February.

In 2016 Family Day is Feb 15 (Feb 8 in BC)

Family Day is not a national statutory holiday, it is only observed in Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Saskatchewan and in British Columbia. Two other provinces have holidays in February: In PEI Islander Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday in February and in Manitoba the 3rd Monday in February is the Louis Riel Day holiday.

Since this is not a federally established holiday all federal workers work on Family day including post office employees and public servants. (It’s interesting how public servants don’t complain about this in the comments area the same way private sector workers complain about having to work on Easter Monday when public servants have the day off.)

Family Day was originally created to give people time to spend with their families but it also provides a day off between New Years Day and Good Friday as they are approximately three months apart.

As mentioned above, unfortunately, not everyone gets Family Day off, which makes it a debatable holiday in many provinces. Why can’t the whole country simple agree on 9 or 10 common statutory holidays remains a mystery and a good indicator of just how overcomplicated our laws are.

Common Family Day activities include skating, playing hockey, snowboarding/skiing and going to various winter festivals. But the best best thing about of Family Day must be beaver tails and stuffing ourselves silly with pancakes with maple syrup!

I like how the writer manages to squeeze in some opinion in his otherwise factual website entry. Anyway, if you’re out in BC and off today, it looks like the weather is going to cooperate for some family time out at the practice track, so have fun!

We’ll have Jeff’s McThoughts posted up on the site very shortly.

Amsoil Arenacross Results

Broadmoor World Arena

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Points

The series heads to Birmingham, Alabama, this weekend.

Monster Energy Arenacross UK Point Standings

Check out 11th place rider, Collin Jurin, sitting 11th in points. Collin is a regular at the Future West Canadian Arenacross Championships out in BC. Canadian Kieran Doherty is in England racing the Pro Lites class but I can’t seem to find point standings for that class.

Kieran has been podcasting regular updates on his travels in his ‘Across the Pond’ series. Check out his latest here:

The series heads to Sheffield this weekend and then wraps up in SSE Arena in Wembley, London on the 27th.

Happy Birthday to Dusty Klatt. He was running the #1 plate in 2007 when he hurt his hand at the final round at Walton Raceway. Instead of having to explain to every person he passed when he returned to the track, he drew this on his cast. ~ Bigwave photo

2010 Team Canada at the MXON

Hook your laptop up to your big flatscreen and set aside a couple hours to watch this VERY in depth video that takes you through almost every step of Team Canada MX’s journey at the 2010 Red Bull MXON in Colorado.

INSIDE THE FENCE – Team Canada MX at the 2010 MXON from Directmotocross.com on Vimeo.

OK, we’ll keep things short this week so we can get to McThoughts. Have a great week, everyone. Happy Chinese New Year.

I was looking for something else and found this 2010 Cooper Webb shot from Loretta Lynn’s. Hard to believe this little dude is on top of the 250 SX world now. ~ Bigwave photo