It’s that time of year again. Your group chat’s buzzing. You’ve been eyeing your gear since August. You’ve treated the off-season worse than the old NHLers used to with a steady program of beer curls and burger raises.

Recreational-hockey season is back, and if you’re over 40 like me, that first skate is a reality check. The lungs burn. The legs give out faster than you remember. And your hands… well, they feel like they haven’t touched a puck since the Jets came back.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. As a fitness coach, I want to help you make this your best season yet.

Whether your goal is to drop a few pounds, get your wind back or just avoid pulling a groin in warm-up, this column’s for you.

One-hundred years ago, the very first class of Providence University College and Seminary — then known as the Winnipeg Bible Training School — had 26 students and three faculty members who met for classes in a church basement.

In the 2024-25 academic year, the school had 1,693 full and part-time students at its rural campus in Otterburne and in downtown Winnipeg.

“We’ve come a long way,” said president Kenton Anderson of the school, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this weekend.

Founded in 1925 in Winnipeg, the school’s goal was to provide training for “Christian workers for service in voluntary or official positions in the Church, Sunday school, or the mission field at home or abroad.”

When I started my career over 40 years ago, I used a typewriter to write all my stories. It worked fine; I had no complaints back then.

But now I have a computer with a sophisticated word processing program. I could still use a typewriter, if I wanted — it still would work. But for me, like for most people, typewriters are obsolete. There’s no going back.

Is something similar happening in the world of traditional religion? For Christian Smith, one of the premier scholars about religion in the U.S., the answer is yes. Like the typewriter of old, the way religion is still organized and practised today is obsolete for many, especially young people.

That’s the argument he makes in his new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America (Oxford University Press).

A Canadian charitable foundation headquartered in Winnipeg informed donors Wednesday it has taken action after financial misconduct committed by a senior staff member resulted in the loss of nearly $8 million in donations.

“Abundance Canada has spent the last 18 months living through a tragedy, which we have resolutely addressed, bolstered by our faith, the resolve of our board and staff, and the grace of our affected community stakeholders,” board chair Jennifer Thompson wrote in a note to the organization’s 1,300 fundholders Wednesday.

Abundance Canada — formerly known as the Mennonite Foundation of Canada — learned about the misconduct after the suicide death of Winnipegger Rick Braun-Janzen on Jan. 8, 2024.

Braun-Janzen, 62, was a member of the organization’s leadership team and director of gift planning. He had been with Abundance, a registered public foundation that offers charitable gift planning services, for 27 years.