Hi everyone! Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all of you American visitors to the site. I hope you had plenty of opportunities to gather with family and friends to celebrate this very important holiday. Here in Canada, we celebrate Thanksgiving in October, but we’re definitely aware of the American version of the holiday since Amazon can’t stop reminding us of their Black Friday sales, and there are hockey games in the middle of the work day (so annoying when you’re at the TV-less office and not at home).

While our American friends were digging in to their turkey suppers and cracking open a few Thanksgiving beers, my wife and I had a nice opportunity Thursday night to attend a talk by Canadian radio legend Terry O’Reilly. The Ottawa Writers’ Festival does this kind of thing every year and many big-name Canadian authors like Rick Westhead of TSN and Alan Doyle of Newfoundland folk-rock band Great Big Sea come through for the event. For those of you who don’t know Terry O’Reilly, no, I’m not talking about the legendary Tasmanian Devil of Boston Bruins fame, but rather a marketing and advertising veteran who has hosted his own CBC shows/podcasts, The Age of Persuasion and Under the Influence, for about two decades now. They are both incredibly fascinating shows about marketing, but they go far beyond that. He tells stories about all sorts of people and companies who took risks, suffered setbacks, but ended up altering the way we look at things or stumbling upon golden inventions that made them very rich and famous. If you have any interest in marketing, history, or pop culture, I strongly recommend that you check them out. O’Reilly was in Ottawa to give a talk about his latest book, Against the Grain, which is a series of stories about people who resisted outside pressure to eventually change the world.

He loves hockey as well, and has told many stories on his podcasts about Gordie Howe, Gerry Cheevers, Maurice Richard, and Roger Neilson, among others. After his talk, he stuck around to sign copies of his latest book, and my wife snapped a shot of Terry and I. In case you’re wondering, yes, we are in a church. No reason in particular why the event was held here, except that the church is obviously very supportive of the Ottawa Writers’ Festival, but it was a pretty, comfortable setting, very literary-ey, and I can only hope to do some sort of similar event one day when one of my books comes out.

Anyway, enough about me, and on to this week’s Seals article. This week, I’d like to take everyone back to January 1969 to a game in which the Seals, who were in the middle of a fairly successful season, took on the mighty Bobby Hull and the Chicago Black Hawks, and came out on top. The Seals had been particularly successful that year against the East Division, and the Hawks were Oakland’s most regular victim (5 wins in 6 games!). On this night Gerry Ehman, 36, had the game of his life shadowing Hull into submission, while Carol Vadnais brought the offense playing one of the best games of his young burgeoning career. You can read all about the Seals’ big night right here.

Enjoy the long weekend, folks, and take some time to relax. Until next time, stay gold!