Lise's Ramblings

In five-cent increments, the twitterverse buzzed with tweets that will make millions of dollars flow to support mental health.  From a social-media metrics perspective, the #BellLetsTalk (French version #BellCause) garnered impressive reach, which rivalled #SOTU for President Obama's State of the Union address. Even by adding the long form (#stateoftheunion), as of this morning there was only a five-million gap between the BellLetsTalk hashtag and the State of the Union hashtags. Impressive. How did it happen? Collective thanks to major leaguers, mobile technology, multitudes of do-gooders and an annual marketing campaign for all the activity on January 28, 2014.  Entertainers like William Shatner, Jann Arden and Ellen Degeneres encouraged their fans to retweet the #BellLetsTalk messages about mental health. Thousands upon thousands of followers responded. Millions in all. Who else helped the cause? Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. Olympian Clara Hughes. NHL fra...

Studying in Montr é al gave me the chance to visit the Forum repeatedly and to walk where hockey heroes made NHL and bleu-blanc-et-rouge history (e.g., Maurice Richard, Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy, Toe Blake, Jean B é liveau, Guy Lafleur, Jacques Plante, Yvan Cournoyer). Here on PEI , hockey players and golfers are used to seeing Sidney Crosby out and about, but this week, two hockey legends and national treasures graced our shores: Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr. I was fortunate to co-organize the event that drew the latter to PEI . Even as a longtime Habs fan, I must confess that I was awestruck by the celebrated Bruins defenceman. Bobby Orr earned so many important titles during his career, and it was refreshing to witness that he’s still a class act and inspires others to this day. Brushing shoulders with the real deal …       AWESOME! (Although admittedly, I will always associate #4 with 10-time Stanley Cup champion Jean B éliveau.) ...