The Canadian women’s hockey team celebrated their gold medal last night by returning to the ice after the television cameras went elsewhere to guzzle Molson Canadian beer, smoke cigars and compete in would-be drunk Zamboni driving contests.

I miss hockey.

The International Olympic Committee will be investigating, but the bonding displayed by the Canadian women is exactly what I imagine was going on last Friday as the aging Guelph professors’ hockey team finally broke the 5-year Powell curse and again won the annual faculty tournament, this time without me in net.

It’s been a week of nostalgia and new opportunities. Sold my house in Guelph (closes Tuesday) along with all the leftover crap and bad memories (after my friend Steve retrieves the good stuff this afternoon). Meanwhile, Chapman gave a talk in Dubai (see below) while I was giving a talk in New Zealand (by video) with students scattered around the globe and Amy about to embark on a year-long sabbatical. I like the global village stuff, with a solid base in Manhattan (Kansas).

Still miss hockey, especially the coaching.

Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said the COC had not provided the alcohol nor initiated the party, adding,

"In terms of the actual celebration, it’s not exactly something uncommon in Canada.”

After Jon Montgomery won a gold medal for Canada in skeleton, he walked through the streets of Whistler guzzling from a pitcher of beer that he gripped with two hands.

Beyond Food Inspections- What Motivates Food Businesses to Ensure Food Safety
22.feb.10
Dubai International Food Safety Conference
Ben Chapman
Inspection has historically been the most prevalent performance measurement used by the food service industry. It is assumed by many that achieving positive inspection results provide motivation to business operators to implement foodborne illness risk-reduction practices. In reality, there are other factors driving risk reduction including risk of being linked to an outbreak; poor reputation; and, the threat of litigation. Weekly food safety infosheets (www.foodsafetyinfosheets.com), focusing on motivating factors are used as a practice-changing tool by many firms in the retail and foodservice industry. Food safety infosheets have been designed to impact the actions of food handlers by utilizing four attributes culled from education, behavioural science and communication literature: surprising messages in communication; putting actions and their consequence in context; generating discussion within the target audiences’ environments and using verbal narrative, or storytelling, as a message delivery device. While many training packages exist, seldom are evaluated for behavior change impacts. Of those that are evaluated, the majority of evaluations are based on self-reported data which are wrought with problems of reliability and literature shows that while food handlers may report the intent to perform safe food handling practices, actions are not always realized. Given the discrepancies between inspection results, individuals’ recall and actual behaviours, a focus on the results of observational studies will be provided. This workshop will provide you with tools to help identify and manage food safety risks in food service and support a culture of food safety in your business.