I just want to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!
2015 just seemed to fly by in now time, but with a lot of activity!
A lot of different things occurred in 2015, and recap some of the things I discussed:
Sir John A. MacDonald (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On January 11th, Canada celebrated the 200th anniversary of Sir John A. MacDonald.
February saw the passing of Leonard Nimoy, the actor was was famous for playing Mr. Spock on Start Trek.
In April, for the first time in 11 years five Canadian based teams made it to the NHL postseason with the Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Winnipeg Jets, and Vancouver Canucks all qualifying. Unfortunately, for the 22nd straight year, a Canadian team would fail to win the Stanley Cup, as the Chicago Blackhawks would beat out the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.
On May 28th, Toronto’s Harbourfront was changed forever as the Jadran, the ship that had served as the home of Captain John’s Seafood since 1975, was towed away to the wreckers. While many people, especially those living in the area, were happy to see this occur, others (including myself) were sad to see the ship leave town. I, for one, could see the potential as a museum for Toronto.
Toronto would finally catch up with many other cities around the world with a rail connection from the airport to downtown when the Union-Pearson Express entered service on June 6th.
Legendary Canadian heldentenor Jon Vickers passed away on July 12th. Mr. Vickers sang many of the most difficult tenor roles all over the world.
2015 Pan Am Emblem
Toronto hosted the 2015 Pan Am Games from July 10th to 26th, for which Canada’s 720 athletes won 217 medals, including 78 Gold Medals.
On August 3rd, after a trade just before the July 31st deadline, David Price started his first game for the Toronto Blue Jays. The Blue Jays would go on to make their first post-season appearance in 22 years later in the year, after winning the American League East Title for the first time since 1993.
Queen Elizabeth’s Statute on Parliament Hill
On September 9th, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II surpassed her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the longest reigning Monarch in the history of the British Commonwealth.
October 19th saw Justin Trudeau become the first descendant of a former Prime Minister to become Prime Minister in his own right when the Liberal Party won the 42nd Federal Election, beating out the incumbent Conservatives led by Stephan Harper and the NDP led by Tom Mulcair. Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was Prime Minister of Canada from the late 1960’s until early 1980’s (with the exception of several months in 1979.)
The Edmonton Eskimos would win the 103rd Grey Cup on November 29th when they beat the Ottawa RedBlacks 26-20. This game marked the first appearance of the RedBlacks in the Grey Cup game, after joining the league in 2014. This game also marked the first time since 1981 that teams representing Edmonton and Ottawa met in the Grey Cup game.
Nicholas Smith, the actor who starred as Mr. Rumbold in the comedy series Are You Being Served? passed away at the age of 81 on December 7th.
And for those who are interested, let’s look at some stats for my blog over the past year:
- My blog was viewed over 2,100 times in 2015. According the WordPress: “A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. … If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.“
- The single day with the most visitors was October 31st when 70 people visited my blog.
- I published 45 new posts, increasing the total number of posts on this blog to 206.
- The top five posts that were read in 2015 were the following posts:
- My blog was read in 45 different countries!
- In 2015, my blog was most popular in the following countries:
- Canada with 1,172 views
- United States with 546 views
- France with 136 views
- United Kingdom with 49 views
- Germany with 26 views
Thank you for reading my Blog, and all the best in 2016!
Happy New Year!!!!
Edward Brain's Blog 