No more Sault This Week
Well, that’s all we wrote for the good, old weekly. First established in 1967 as Shopper News, the Sault This Week will cease publication following its June 25 edition.
To be sure, this is the end of an era. Fifty nine years after its first issue, the Sault This Week — nee Shopper News — will soon be one for the history books.
I started at the weekly in February of 1982 and in all of the weeks and years since, I have written a column in every single issue. So, as someone who has worked longer than anyone else at the Sault This Week — 44 plus years — I guess it is me who gets to write about the paper’s swan song.
When I first started at the paper back in 1982, the operation was located at 2 Towers St., next to Precious Blood Cathedral in the Sault’s downtown. It was a full complement of staff from the publisher to the writers to the photographers to the advertising department to the composing room to the press room to the circulation department to the receptionists to the accounting department. The paper was also locally owned then.
The local owners eventually sold to a national group. Ownership would change hands a few times over the years up to its present day owners, Postmedia. (Postmedia operates multiple publications across the country, include many in Ontario, among them the Toronto Sun, London Free Press, Windsor Star, Sault Star et al.)
A few words about Postmedia. As far as I was treated as a long time independent contractor, I had no issues with Postmedia. None. They paid weekly and the only interaction I had with anyone associated with the company was locally through the Sault This Week, mainly with its editor of the past 17 years, Richard Plaunt, and our photographer friend Bob Davies.
As for the way that Postmedia handled the looming closing of the Sault This Week, it was obviously a business decision. And the way I look at it, Postmedia as the owner has the right to do what it thinks is right. Right?
Personally, I am going to miss writing sports — mostly hockey — for the Sault This Week. I am also going to miss running into good, old folks around town telling me how much they looked forward to reading the good, old Sault This Week every week.
It has been said that nothing is forever. Well, the Sault This Week had a damn good run of close to 60 years. Which is not forever — but a pretty good run, don’t you think?
So, it is adios to the Sault This Week. A weekly paper among the bigger daily paper and various other local media outlets, the Sault This Week was able to stick with it and persevere through one challenging time after another.
Until Father Time caught up.
I think of a song by the legendary George Harrison called All Things Must Pass. “All Things Must Pass” is a philosophical concept and famous song by Harrison. It basically means that all conditions, emotions and physical states in life are temporary. It conveys the comforting realization that both hardships and joys eventually fade, encouraging us to gracefully accept change and the passage of time.
At any rate, the Sault This Week may be shutting it down but I plan on continuing to carry on as a regular — as in several times a week — writer for two websites, namely Hockey News North and Hockey News Windsor.
And maybe, just maybe, when the dust settles, Postmedia will find a way to give me some work as a junior hockey columnist. If not, so be it.
I am quite sure that, God willing, I will have plenty of hockey to write about for Hockey News North and Hockey News Windsor as we look ahead.
But from a Sault This Week stand point, it has been, all in all, a good gig. As in the past tense.
Very very sad for people of our generation Randy who grew up reading newspapers to get our information in world news, local news and sports etc.. Modern technology though very thorough, just isn’t the same as sitting down and reading a paper. I will miss the paper and your weekly columns that seemed personal for the people of Sault Ste Marie. As the modern era moves on, I feel we have lost something actually important in our lives. I want to thank Sault This Week, the reporters, you and all the great pics Bob. It will be missed.