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Camping in the Outer Hebrides

I recently spent a week and a half in the Outer Hebrides, primarily camping (although with a few B&Bs booked at strategic points to allow me to dry my socks out). Although Vicky Flip Flop’s guide was helpful, I was deciding where to camp more or less on the fly and would have appreciated some forehand knowledge, so thought I’d share my experience!

I took the train to Glasgow and then to Mallaig, and then the ferry to Lochboisdale where I picked up a rental car from Laing Motors. I like renting locally, and they were very friendly and helpful as a family-run business (and it helped save on ferry prices and improve the ferry experience, as drivers on most ferries have to stay in their cars due to COVID). I got in around 7pm and had a few hours to find somewhere, as the sun doesn’t go down until about 10:30pm in the summer, and even then there’s some light in the sky. I nipped into the Co-op and headed south, thinking I could check out a few beaches for likely spots.

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hockey, Uncategorized

Keeping My Stick On The Ice

I’ve always loved hockey, and I’ve been an active member of Hockey Twitter for several years, but recently I’ve taken steps into contributing more actively and producing some of my own content! I have a lot of fun watching games and discussing them with my friends, but felt drawn to start writing and creating more about something I already surround myself in. Sports and social media are natural partners (just a few reasons: community, conversation, shared joy and all manner of other emotions), and the sports media landscape is always shifting and filling with all kinds of new and exciting journalism, content, and chatter.

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C’est quoi un rouge (et noir)?

This summer I’ve had the awesome opportunity of working with OSEG Media as part of the Ottawa REDBLACKS Social Team for home games in their inaugural season.

ya girl c

I’m part of an awesome team who roam the grounds of TD Place and tweet, take pictures of fans and moments, and help create online conversations about the team. It’s been a fantastic experience so far, and I’m really excited to do some cool things with the rest of the home games.

I’m certainly not new to sports and social media, but I’m relatively new to football – a few years ago, most of my prior knowledge and experience of the CFL involved this segment of the Things Saskatchewanians Say video and having to explain the differences between the CFL and the NFL to various American friends. I’m a pretty quick learner, so I’ve picked up a lot in a short while. (I’ve got “12 players on at a time, field is 110 yards and it’s 3 downs instead of 4” down pat.)

I have no problem watching sports I only vaguely understand (hello, luge!), but did a lot of reading and watching games with friends who know football – friends who know football are, on the whole, very good friends – and now know my rouges from my field goals. (Well, okay. I already knew that.)

from fourthline.tumblr.com

from fourthline.tumblr.com

If you’re in Ottawa or nearby (or hey, in another CFL city), definitely make sure you come to a REDBLACKS game. The food’s good, the game’s fantastic, and when good things happen there are chainsaw noise effects*.

*That might just be up my personal alley, but I maintain that it’s fantastic.

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Team Canada at the IQA Global Games 2014

Team Canada is competing this weekend in Burnaby against 6 other nations – in quidditch. The Global Games is a biennial event (the previous one was held in Oxford, UK and featured 4 nations), and I’m super excited for this year’s team and event. 

Andrew Robillard of Stuffed Motion made us an amazing (so amazing I was making excited raptor noises upon my first viewing) promo video that I wanted to share:

The schedule and more information about the event can be found on the U.S. Quidditch website – if you’re in the Burnaby area this Saturday, make sure to check it out! It’s not often you get to watch quidditch world championships. I’ll be working my social media thumbs for the Ottawa REDBLACKS’ first home game on Friday night so I won’t be in Burnaby for the Games to cheer on Team Canada, but I’ll be covering the lead-up on Quidditch Canada’s twitter and facebook

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hockey, Uncategorized

The fantastic people at High Heels High Sticks asked me to write a guest post on the state of concussions in the NHL.

NHL players are grown men who I would like to be able to trust to make their own decisions regarding their health and ability to contribute to their team after a hard hit, but they don’t exist in a vacuum, and neither does the culture that informs those decisions or the lies their coaches tell us.

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