It appears as if a trend is possibly emerging in the NHL: American-born players on Canadian rosters wanting to return home to the excited states and play for an American team.

This all started when the late Johnny Gaudreau left Calgary for Columbus, for less money than what the Flames were offering. About a week later Matthew Tkachuk requested a trade in Calgary and was moved to Florida.

Then defenseman Quinn Hughes wanted out of Vancouver. He got his wish and now plays for the Minnesota Wild.

The “I want out of Canada” theory recently hit close to home when the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck made it pretty obvious he is re-evaluating his contract extension in Winnipeg given the team’s poor performance this year.

“Sentimentality is simply the heart’s way of remembering what the mind never wants to let go.” -Anonymous

Did you know that God is sentimental? In the church calendar we recently celebrated Pentecost Sunday which was a special Jewish day long before that. The original Pentecost festival was a celebration of the Torah (law of God) to Israel. “The law would shape them as a people with whom God would dwell. God’s presence with them would be evidenced in the tabernacle that traveled with them. On the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, God comes to indwell his people, the new temple, by the Holy Spirit” (Stanley W. Green). Pentecost for the Israelites is also about offering the first fruits of their barley harvest to God, which is comparable to the next Pentecost where God offers us the first fruits of the Spirit.

Surely God could have sent the Holy Spirit as soon as Jesus was resurrected and ascended, but He waited until the festival day of Pentecost. ‘Pentecost’ literally means ‘count 50 or fiftieth’. Numbers are important to God, especially the number 50, which is the special year of Jubilee in the Old Testament. Maybe God likes to build on our human understanding to make it more memorable for minds and hearts? Could it be that a sentimentality like this helps us remember the things we should never let go of? This type of holy sentimentality is not a weakness; it is the heart remembering what truly matters. In this context, to be sentimental is to honor the moments that shape us and the sacred events that fill our lives with meaning.

This Pentecost the church I work at had several people praying in their mother tongue at the same time! It gave us a sense of what it would have felt like during the Pentecost in Acts 2 when numerous Galilean believers were speaking in foreign languages after receiving the Holy Spirit. What seemed like tongues of fire appeared and rested above them as they met for prayer in Jerusalem and then in the streets Jews who had gathered from different nations for the Pentecost Festival heard them speaking in their own native language. They were amazed. The Holy Spirit made it clear that day that the Good News is for all nations! One old church tradition for Pentecost Sunday is to scatter red rose petals (which resemble tongues of fire) on the people as they enter the church that day. We should do more to commemorate Pentecost!

After several marathon sittings in the Manitoba Legislature, the NDP passed its annual budget last week. According to Premier Wab Kinew, this budget will remove the PST from grocery bills.

However, most grocery products are already PST exempt. The exceptions are soft drinks, snack foods such as potato chips, and take-out meals. These items are generally not considered essential grocery items.

But since this NDP government apparently does consider these items essential, they will now be PST exempt. Initially, this exemption only applied to large grocery chains like Sobeys and not to small mom-and-pop shops.

This didn’t square well with the NDP’s anti-big business rhetoric, so it quickly amended the budget to include smaller stores as well. One thing it did not do was apply the PST exemption to restaurants. What this means is that takeout meals are tax exempt at large grocery chains but still taxed at full price in local restaurants.