What’s better than a FREE hockey game? One that also gives back to fans to thank them for attending! The Langley Rivermen are hosting their annual RIVMAS celebration for three home games: December 18-20, 2015.
December 18, 2015 vs. Powell River: Free admission plus $5 merchandise voucher. Each fan that attends the game will receive one $5 voucher valid towards the purchase of a merchandise item at that game.
December 19, 2015 vs. Coquitlam Express: Free admission plus $5 food voucher. Each fan that attends the game will receive one $5 voucher valid towards the purchase of a food or non-alcoholic beverage purchase item at that game.
December 20, 2015 vs. Prince George: Free admission plus $5 merchandise or food voucher. Each fan that attends the game will receive their choice of either one $5 voucher valid towards the purchase of a food or non-alcoholic beverage OR merchandise item at that game.
For great local hockey and family fun, you can’t beat that deal! The Langley Rivermen play at the Langley Events Centre and you can follow them on Twitter and Facebook for more team, game, and event information.
The Langley Rivermen play in the BCHL and enjoyed their bet season to date in 2013-2014 when they won the Ron Boileau Memorial Trophy, awarded to the team who finishes the BCHL regular season with the best record. The team hopes to build on achievements such as that, and is proud to continue the great tradition and heritage of junior hockey in Langley.
Britannia Mine Museum, just under 1 hour from Vancouver up the scenic Sea to Sky Highway, is hosting a Victorian-themed Dickens Christmas. This national historic site will feature a whimsical miniature village display for the holidays, visits with Santa, and more!
Dickens Christmas at Britannia Mine Museum
The Victorian-themed Dickens Christmas’ miniature ceramic village window displays from Canada’s Department 56 will be on display throughout the historic Machine Shop. Inspired by the nostalgic “A Christmas Carol”, the miniature village displays are reminiscent of Victorian England during Charles Dickens’ time.
Inside the Machine Shop, visitors can explore the beautiful Christmas village centerpiece, and Santa’s North Pole Toy Shop window displays decked out with Victorian-themed décor, Christmas trees, wreaths, filled with the cheerful sounds of miniature church bells, horses, and carolers.
Every Saturday and Sunday from December 5-20, visitors can sit with Santa and take their own photos for a memorable keepsake, and create some cheerful crafts at the holiday activity tables to take home.
Special event pricing for adults and seniors is $15, children (ages 5-18) is $10 and children under 4 years of age get free admission. Event pricing does not include underground tour. Tours are available during the day for regular admission price.
The Britannia Mine Museum provides unique and memorable experiences that engage visitors of all ages. Visitors can enjoy fun exhibits and crowd favourites like the underground mine train, the historic 20-storey concentrator mill and gold panning, and learn about Britannia’s history as one of the largest copper mines in the British Commonwealth in the 1930s.
The museum will be open on Christmas Eve (10:00am to 3:00pm) and Boxing Day (regular hours, 9:00am to 5:00pm), but will be closed on Christmas Day. Call 1-800-896-4044 for more information and follow the museum on Twitter and Facebook.
The Vancouver Giants are known for their hockey with heart and nothing can make any Grinch’s heart grow 3 sizes like the Teddy Bear Toss. This holiday tradition (presented by TELUS) will take place on Friday, December 18, 2015 when the Giants take on the Everett Silvertips.
Vancouver Giants Teddy Bear Toss
Fans are encouraged to bring a new stuffed toy to the game, or you can buy one on the concourse with proceeds benefitting The Province Empty Stocking Fund and the CKNW Orphans’ Fund.
Then, when the Giants score, throw your donations onto the ice. The team will collect all of the bears and the good folks at the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau with make sure they find a warm, loving home in time for the holidays.
For tickets to this game and others, purchase online or call 604-4-GIANTS (604-444-2687). Can you guess how many teddy bears will fly through the air to be donated this year? Tell the Giants, on Twitter or Facebook, for a chance to win tickets to an upcoming game.
This includes 4 tickets to the game (gold section), 2 White Spot Legendary Platters, 2 White Spot Pirate Paks, 1 game night parking voucher, and a $10 gas coupon for Chevron!
Here’s how you can enter to win:
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RT to enter to win a @WHLGiants #TeddyBearToss night prize pack from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/VMUSI
I will draw one winner from all entries at 9:00am on Wednesday, December 16, 2015.
This post has been contributed by Samuel Cousins, Stewardship Coordinator Stanley Park Ecology Society (“SPES”). I have been following SPES since I moved into the West End a decade ago and I have been a member for three years. I wanted to offer the team an opportunity to share their news, events, and work so I have created “SPES Saturday” where they contribute and share stories with my audience once a month.
Sweeping Away the Broom
By Samuel Cousins, SPES Stewardship Coordinator
Last week, the Vancouver Park Board and the Stanley Park Ecology Society celebrated a milestone of sorts: the last patch of Scotch broom in Stanley Park, located on the inaccessible west facing cliffs above the sea wall, was removed. Tom McIllfaterick, SPES board member and long time volunteer on SPES’ Special Invasives Removal Team, had said, “…to get that down we would need a cherry picker, harnesses and rope. Each year it gets bigger and bigger, like it’s taunting us from its place of safety.”
A worker removes Scotch broom from the cliffs above the Stanley Park seawall
Scotch broom piles up on the seawall during eradication efforts last week
However, in partnership with the Vancouver Park Board’s annual scaling operations on the cliffs, the work team was able to use a cherry picker crane to successfully remove the last of this tenacious invasive plant. The area, though, will still have to be monitored for many years to come. Scotch broom is one of the most hardy and invasive of any invasive plants to hit our shores… and we can thank one person for that.
In 1850 a Scottish captain by the name of Walter Grant landed on the shores of Vancouver Island in the area now known as Sooke. Upon landing, Grant proceeded to shoot and kill a “buffalo”, only for it to be a dairy cow. He also introduced the sport of cricket, though it didn’t really catch on. Nevertheless, in the three short years Grant lived on the Island he managed to leave behind a legacy that can be seen across Canada and the US, though not in sport or bovine identification.
Scotch broom along a highway (Photo by USGS via Wikimedia Commons)
Captain Grant’s infamous legacy is the introduction of the invasive species Scotch broom and its impacts on the environment we see today. Grant planted Scotch broom to remind him of his Scottish homeland. The weed was then also used as a highway stabilization plant, which only helped it spread further. Well-intended acts like these are the groundwork upon which an invasive species is able to quickly spread, and then with its competitive advantages, outcompete native species.
Scotch broom is a woody weed that has a number of competitive advantages. A mature broom plant can produce around 20,000 seeds a year, which remain viable in the soil for 30 years. It has a large taproot, small leaf area and waxy stems that photosynthesize, making it a very drought tolerant species. Its greatest advantage is that it increases the acidity of its surrounding soil deterring other native species from settling in.
The problem with all invasive species is that that they reduce bio-diversity and create mono-cultures as they out-compete the native species. They also impact agricultural production, increase fire hazards and pose a risk to infrastructure. The only good thing about Scotch broom is its bright yellow, snapdragon-like flowers.
Here in Stanley Park, the Stanley Park Ecology Society is actively involved in the management of invasive species through community stewardship. At the last count, there were 109 invasive species identified, the main ones being English ivy and Himalayan blackberry. SPES’ volunteer-driven Special Invasives Response Team (“SIRT”) has been monitoring and removing invasive species for a number of years, and the task can often become daunting with the amount of work to be done.
With millions of people going through the park each year, seeds from other areas will be carried into the park unintentionally. There will always be the potential for different invasive species to be introduced and threaten the biodiversity of Stanley Park. Even though here at SPES we are proud to say that Scotch broom has been completely removed from the Park, we want to be proven wrong.
SPES’ Special Invasives Removal Team in action (Photo by SPES)
If you see Scotch broom, please report it to the SPES stewardship coordinator ([email protected]) and a team will be dispatched to investigate. You can also do your part and join one of the SIRT volunteer events by registering with the stewardship coordinator. Together we can work to remove invasive species from the Park.
In the meantime let us raise a glass of scotch, not to Captain Grant, but to the efforts of the invasive species removal teams, societies and organizations that are still dealing with the management of invasive species in their regions. Sometimes the small victories are worth celebrating.
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by Rebecca BollwittDisclosure: Sponsored Post — This post is sponsored by UNICEF Canada. Please review the Policy & Disclosure section for further information.
What I have learned over the years, through covering events like We Day in Vancouver, is that it’s equally important to give and act locally as well as globally. This Christmas, you can select a gift that will be much more than a box wrapped with a bow under the tree. You can help children in need of humanitarian assistance, from Syria, to the Central African Republic, Yemen and South Sudan, and beyond.
UNICEF Survival Gifts for Christmas
Canadians generously purchased 39,217 life-saving gifts, totalling more than $1.7 million in 2014
To inspire and motivate Canadian donors in their generous support of children through the organization’s Survival Gifts program, UNICEF recently launched an immersive storytelling series called UNICEF 360°.
A Canadian first in the non-profit realm, UNICEF 360° is a film series that aims to transport donors into the lives of some of the most vulnerable children across the globe – using the power of virtual reality. It gives Canadian donors a chance to see their life-saving and life-changing Survival Gifts at work in the field.
Made accessible and affordable through a simple cardboard virtual reality viewer, the viewer’s own smartphone and the virtual reality film content available at www.unicef360.com, this advanced storytelling experience provides a unique, deeply immersive perspective on the daily challenges faced by some of the world’s most vulnerable children and their families.
The UNIECF 360°virtual-reality viewer.
For a limited time, when donors purchase a featured Survival Gift, they will receive a free UNICEF 360°virtual-reality viewer.
This holiday season, UNICEF is calling on Canadians to continue their generous support of the Survival Gifts program to help reach even more children in Syria, and in other locations around the world. Survival Gifts can be bought online at survivalgifts.ca or by phone at 1-888-777-0380.
Survival Gifts most needed in Syria
Emergency Gifts: Five Emergency Blankets to help protect children and families against cold temperatures ($46)
Clean Water: 3,741 Water Purification Tablets provides ten families with enough clean drinking water for one year ($29)
Education: School Essentials Bundle, provides 60 pencils and 30 exercise books and gives children a chance to learn ($19)
Image courtesy of UNICEF
Most popular Survival Gifts with Canadians
Plumpy’Nut: These peanut-based, therapeutic food packs boost a malnourished child’s chance of survival. Canadians purchased more than 153,000 packets of Plumpy’Nut in 2014. Each gift is $12 and includes 21 packages of Plumpy’Nut, enough to help save the lives of seven children.
Bed Nets: Canadians provided 8,952 bed nets in 2014 keeping children safe from malaria. For only $10, this gift provides two bed nets that help to protect four children from mosquito bites that cause malaria, one of the leading killers of children under age five.
Vaccine Pack: Canadians provided 398,520 vaccines in 2014. Each gift is $44 and includes 58 tetanus vaccines, 58 measles vaccines and 58 polio vaccines that will guard against these life-threatening illnesses.
This season you can give the gift of nutrition, education, and even clean water to someone in need.
UNICEF is supported entirely by voluntary donations and helps children regardless of race, religion or politics. As part of the UN, they are active in over 190 countries – more than any other organization. Follow UNICEF Canada on Facebook and Twitter for more information.
This post has been contributed by Samuel Cousins, Stewardship Coordinator 
