Things are starting to happen in a very organized way as Zellers clean out their stores and get ready for the new tenant, Target Canada:

• Zellers Penticton closed this week: the liquidation sales saw everything go, and was a huge success. Final prices were 90% off. The store will now be redesigned to bring The Real Canadian Superstore to Penticton. More competition in the grocery line.
• The Salmon Arm Zellers is set to close in July, and will become a Canadian Tire store in the future with an addition.
• Kelowna Zellers will be into a liquidation sale mode in July and will be closed by October. The restaurant, which has always been a popular spot, will close July 7.
• There is a lot of work to do in the remake of this store at Orchard Plaza and construction is set to begin in October, with the opening sometime in July of next year.
• Nothing is known about the fate of the West Kelowna Zellers at the moment.
• Once these stores are in liquidation mode, there will no longer be promotions but the prices will be to your liking. That means the end of seniors specials - Monday, July 3.
• Ledcor Construction will be rebuilding thirteen of the eighteen stores on the list at the present time.
• The new Target stores in Vernon and Kamloops will, according to my sources, be open for business in May of 2013.
• Each of these stores will cost approximately $11.5 in renovation costs.
• The current employees of Zellers will all be guaranteed a job interview for the new stores. That doesn’t mean they will get a position with the new company.  Senior management has been on the west coast looking for executives to manage these stores.
• Canadians shoppers now hold 30,000 Target credit cards.

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I have always been a fan of the horses and have spent a lot of good Saturdays at Woodbine and Ft. Erie.

We’re getting ready for the big one: The Belmont Stakes on Saturday from New York. Jockey Mario Gutierrez was in Vancouver last week visiting with friends and he told the media conference that he was going to apply for Canadian citizenship. Before his rise to fame he spent six years working Hastings Park. He has won a few bucks and Saturday could make it even better. He wants to start a new life for himself with a home base in Vancouver.

Hastings Park will be busy on Saturday with an expected full house and the giant TV screens will be up for the Belmont Stakes. Betting will be strong at the track, as well as at Chances - where you can bet in their horse racing room upstairs…

Maybe some of you know this person from his days playing hockey in WHL: Larry “Thumper” Jones.

His last team was the Kamloops Blazers. He stepped away from hockey when he got the chance to work with the horses and has become one of top equine chiropractors in the racing world. The owners of I’ll Have Another called him down to look at their horses in California in January and now he is at Belmont to work with the champ.

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I was sitting watching TV the other day and on came an ad for The Brick - not surprising. Loud like always. I thought back to the days when Bill Comrie came home from the hockey wars to take over his Dad’s furniture store in Edmonton. One store with good prices, but after a few years Bill decided to change things. By the way he did all the TV commercials in those days.

He decided to move the store and expand in a newer building closer to downtown. It was all brick so that became the name  “The Brick”. From there Comrie built an empire and in the end sold the company back to the employees.

When he started the company they didn’t have sales like they promote today but the store had events.

The TV commercials were always loud.

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Randy Goodman of Pinnacle Physiotherapy and Centric Health has recently been awarded as one of the first two Clinical Specialist in Sports Physiotherapy Certifications in Canada.  This is the Canadian Physiotherapy Association’s highest certification available in sports physiotherapy and will be awarded at their national conference.

Formal recognition as a clinical specialist in physiotherapy is accomplished through meeting the requirements of the CPA Clinical Specialty Program.  These requirements include clinical experience in the specialty practice area, continuing professional development, leadership activities and involvement in research.

“It is truly an honour and in fact, quite humbling,” says Goodman ,who practices in the CNC clinic and has been an international sports physiotherapist for 18 years.  “I’ve always had a passion to learn, teach and research sports injuries and recovery, and to have my peers acknowledge me for my experience and leadership is very rewarding.”

Goodman’s sports training and recovery centre here has become one of the most recognized and respected facilities of its kind in the country. The Pinnacle CNC Physiotherapy Clinic and Pinnacle Elite Athlete Performance Training Centre provide ongoing consultation, treatment and training for a host of NHL, NFL, and other professional athletes and national sports teams.  Goodman himself was the Supervisor of Therapy Services for the Athlete Village at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic games in Vancouver, BC and recently authored a chapter in a book to be published by the IOC on Sports Therapy.

“This just energizes me to do more,” says Goodman. “We continue to add key individuals to our team in various specialty areas, working towards our goal of having the leading Sport Medicine, Therapy, and Training Centre in the country…. right here in Kelowna”.

While Goodman looks forward to leading the ongoing development of Pinnacle’s facility, he will also continue in his roles as an examiner for Sport Physiotherapy Canada and Assistant Clinical Professor at UBC School of Rehabilitation and the UBCO Medical School.

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I was reading the Globe & Mail the other morning about the New York mayor wanting to establish some kind of law that limits the size of drink cup you could order for soda pop in the city. He has already done that with trans fat in food.

I got to thinking about soda pop that we drank when I was a kid. There was the big bottle of Kick Kola, which I believe we paid 5 cents for. Then there was the popular Stubby drink lemon lime in the pair shaped bottle - I always liked that one. The best was Orange Crush in a brown bottle that was designed differently than all the bottles.

Who can forget Radar on MASH and his preference for Grape Nehi? The company also produced Nehi orange and root beer.

(Ed. note: And I always thought it was a Grape Knee High. You learn something new every day.)

I would go with my dad to the corner café and get a real Hires root beer out of a big barrel on the counter; little did I know that was a fake covering the soda tap!