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' Job well done In these days of inflation, cost overruns and blown budgets, it is a rare event indeed when a cost estimate is actually met. Couple that with the fact that this particular estimate is about a year and a half old, and the accomplishment becomes that much more impressive. Perhaps the main reason behind the good dollar value accomplished is the cost of the new arena for Scugog Township" is the dedicated, whole-hearted efforts of the members of the new arena committee who have worked almost two years on the arena project. It has been overstated, perhaps, that public money is too easily spent. To follow the work of the committee is to realize that at least with this project, every penny has been squeezed out of every possible corner, and not simply added to the local tax bill. If you're inclined to be skeptical and suspicious like most of us and are attempting to find a hidden motive in the kind of community effort that went into this project, we doubt that any will be found. We may just have to accept the fact that some people actually do get involved in the community... with no thought of reward. We believe that the community owes such respons- ible and enthusiastic citizens a note of appreciation, and above all, encouragement. Time for For Gun Control Despite two near misses on the life of President Ford, despite an alarming increase in crimes involving firearms, despite a wide clamor for more stringent gun control legislation, statistics just released indicate that the sale of rifles and shotguns in Canada increased almost 40 per cent in 1975 over the previous year.* The powerful lobbies of the outdoor groups and arms manufacturers seem still to be in a position of keeping our politicians from coming to grips with a trend to ownership of arms that is reaching epidemic proportions. i It may be simplistic to state that without gun ownership, shootings would be drastically reduced but to the practical mind the removal of the cause of a problem goes a long way towards its solution. ~ There is simply no need for people to own firearms without strict registration and then only the type of weapon that hunters feel they must have. Ownership of handguns, automatic or semi-automatic weapons or a multiplicity of weapons should be banned in Canada except for the armed forces and legitimate police forces and even these should be tightened up. Perhaps some people would still get such weapons on the black market but the legitimate sources of supply would be dried up. Some manufacture of arms that is required should be done under the strictest of supervision and the penalties for firearm infractions should be of the utmost severity. There is simply no justification for the average Canadian to own any form of weapon and most of us would not miss this alleged infringement on our rights, as the gun lobby asserts. The government, be it provincial or federal, that has the guts to ban ownership and control manufact- ure would, we suggest, have the support of the majority of Canadians. "OH WELL, WE STILL HAVE OUR TUESDAY NIGHT BINGOS Remember When..? a 50 YEARS AGO Thursday. January 14, 1926 Feature film presentation at the Town Hall is Zane Grey's Thundering Herd. Miss Louise Carnegie and Miss Frances Mellow are delegates from the United Church, Port Perry, to the conference winter school for Young People's societies in Cobourg January 11 to 18. The loss was nearly $2,000 when an early Wednesday morning fire was rung in by Chris Stephenson who dis- covered a fire in the Port Perry Planning Mill. Most of the damage was done to belts and pulleys. Brock Bros. Co. advertises Men's heavy shirts 98c; boys' pullover sweaters 98c, and Ladies' white shaker night gowns 85¢c. Mr. E. Heayn, Brooklin has purchased a number of high class lambs from Grant Christie, Manchester and placed them on his farm on Scugog Island, which he recently purchased. 25 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 11, 1951 Milton Butson was elected president of Port Perry Rod and Gun Club for 1951. 0. O. Hamilton, vice-president; Ott Hamilton, secretary- treasurer; Committee chair- men: Shooting - Arthur Brock; Casting - Harry DeShane. On Monday, January 8, representatives for the bad- minton clubs from the dis- trict met in Brooklin.Town- ship Hall to form a league. Two members from clubs in Port Perry, Brooklin, Whitby, Ajax and Uxbridge attended. January 2, 1951, marked the 25th anniversary of Harold R. Archer, Port Perry, as a General Motors dealer. On January 2, 1926, Mr. Archer became the fourth dealer to sign a con- tract with General Motors of Canada for the sale of Pon- tiac cars and parts. In years of service, Mr. Archer - is the oldest Pontiac dealer in the Dominion of Canada. 15 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 12, 1961 Vinc's Barber Shop owned by Earl Jackson has been sold to Mr. Karl Shulz, Kitchener, Ontario. The members of Cart- wright Township Council, Bruce Ashton, reeve Albert Gibson, deputy reeve, and councillors Merrill Van Camp, Lawrence Malcolm and John Hamilton were properly inaugurated. Inaugural meeting was also held in Scugog Township and all members of council were present. 'Anson Gerrow, reeve, Clarence Carter, Victor Aldred and Cecil Fralick, councillors. Mr. Wm. Lukas' home near Honey's Beach was totally destroyed by fire. Very little insurance was kept on the property and hardly anything was saved. The Lions Club will spearhead a drive for funds to assist the family in their tragic loss. The official opening of the new High School addition will take place on Friday, January 20. 10 YEARS AGO Thursday, January 13, 1966 About 100 Port Perry businessmen and their sales staffs assembled in the Port Rerry Legion for a sales clinic and dinner sponsored by the Star. Principal speaker and conducting the sales clinic was professor Norvin Allen of London, Ontario. The Ontario Junior Farmers Choir under the direction of Mrs. Grace Hastings placed third in competition with eight choirs at the Provincial Junior Farmers Conference held at King Edward Sher- aton Hotel. Bruce Mec- Millan, Blackwater, Ralph Honey, Seagrave, Ron King and Ken Skerratt, Port Perry, placed first in com- petition for male quartettes. Ontario County will study the feasibility of regional type government. Mr. A. C. Richardson, Ux- bridge, was elected chair- man of Ontario County District High School Board, and Reg Foster, Greenbank, was elected vice-chairman. Hockey madness We are well into another season of what passes these days for that once-thrilling Canadian sport of hockey. Far more interesting than being a specta- tor at games will be watching fram the sidelines some renewed and determined attempts to decrease the potential mayhem in the former sport. As any intelligent eight-year-old knows, hockey is no longer a sport, it is an entertainment, superior to professional wrestling in this department only because it is faster, bloodier, and most of the partici- pants, though not all, are not fat and middle-aged. Some are fat and young. Some are also middleaged. Some are old enough to be grandfathers. And 80 percent of the so-called athletes in this new form of Grand Guignol vaudeville are grossly over- aid. . p A few discerning sports writers, and a good many former fans of the game, are sick at heart over what has happened to what was once the fastest and most thrilling game on earth, The great majority of the so-called fans, however, along with most sports writers and nearly all of management, deride any attempt to restore the skills and thrills of what used to be the most skillful and thrillful sport of them all - professional hockey. Perhaps that is because the current crop of fans consists of yahoos looking for blood, the sports writers are sycophants looking for an angle, and the owners are stupid, as they have always been, looking only for a buck. At any rate, Ontario has a new Attorney- General, Roy McMurtry, a former athlete of some ability, and he is determined to stamp out the viciousness that has turned pro hockey into a Roman circus. He had the appalling audacity to declare publicly that assault and battery on the ice would be treated the same as it is on the streets, with a criminal charge. He took the unparalleled step of putting cops in the arenas and laying charges against the goons who try to decapitate an opponent with a stick, or emerge from a spearing duel with the enemy's guts wrap- ped around the point of their sticks. McMurtry is making political hay out of it, but I, and a host of others, don't care, and say: "Go to it, boy." As expected, his edicts have been greeted with hoots of scorn by the yahoos, the sycophants and the manipulators. Or as Variety, the showbiz magazine, might put it in one of its succinct headlines: "HOCK JOCKS MOCK SOCKS." Translated that would mean that hockey people make fun of any attempt to stop the fighting and violence in the game. Solidly behind McMurtry, however, is a majority of the people remotely interested in the game: the better sports writers, who have seen it go steadily downhill; kids who want to play hockey for fun, without being terrorized; parents of kids who play hockey; real fans of the game, who have seen their favorite sport turned into a carnage of clowns. Surely even the robber barons of hockey, the owners, with their 19th centurey mental- ity, can see the handwriting on the wall, large and clear. The game is going down the drain, Let me give some frinstances. When I was a youth, our town had a Junior A team. They ~--played it fast and tough and clean. The referees jumped on slashing, spearing, boarding, kneeing. Fights were infrequent. In a town of 4,000, there were 1,500 at every game. A hundred cars would accompany the fans to play-off games 50 miles away. Today, f live in a town of 11,000 which boasts a pretty fair Junior B team. The crowds at games run around two or three hundred. Hockey Night In Canada used to bind this whole nation together, from radio days well into television. Its ratings have dropped disastrously. What's happened? A lot of things. First, the quality has gone down and the price has gone up. That's a no-no in any business. Sixty percent of the pros today couldn't have made a fair-to-middling senior amateur team 25 years ago. Arena owners, egged on by greedy players and those parasites, tHeir agents, have hoisted the cost of tickets to the point where ticket scalpers are committing suicide. But most important of all, the sheer viciousness of today's game, with its Nazi storm-trooper techniques, its open support of "intimidation," its appalling message for young players that violence beats skill and speed, has made a great segment of real fans turn their backs on it in disgust. When the players are all millionaires, and the arenas are half empty, maybe the morons who control the sport will get the message. The Argyle Syndicate Ltd. TTr------------