They fall like dominoes.One by one, all 12 players on the Breton Education Centre boys basketball team hit a wet patch in the corner of the gymnasium and slide to the floor, piling onto one another in a jumble of flailing limbs, before scrambling back to their feet to continue their pre-game lap of the court. That’s the slapstick moment that Grade 9 student Aaron McMullin caught on video during this February’s New Waterford Coal Bowl Classic in Nova Scotia. The moment, beginning at 17 seconds into the video, became a highlight of the tournament, and one that few in the gym that day will soon forget — especially since it will soon be widely broadcast on television.  “I think it was just the fact that nobody really expected it, but when the first three people went down, everybody knew something was up,” said McMullin. Grade 10 student and BEC Bears shooting guard Aaron MacLean was the second-last player to hit the court. It was his first Coal Bowl and he was excited to do the traditional run around the gym. “I ran out high-fiving all the kids, then I saw 10 guys fall right before me, so I started kind of laughing,” he said. “So I tried to kind of run around them, and it was worse than ice. As soon as I touched it, I was one of the last ones, and I went flying.” MacLean was among the last to fall.

One could be forgiven for describing the mint’s newest coin as rather otherworldly.The Royal Canadian Mint’s newest offering features Manitoba’s most famous UFO encounter, which happened in 1967 when Stefan Michalak went looking for precious metals near Falcon Lake. “I was very surprised, frankly. They called me out of the blue and said ‘I have this idea,'” said Stefan’s son, Stan Michalak.  “It’s not every day the mint calls and says, ‘Hey, we’re going to do a coin.'” Stefan, whom his son says was a “rock nut,” was searching for gold, silver and other precious metals and gems in Whiteshell Provincial Park one May long weekend in 1967. At about noon, two craft appeared in the sky, he said, and one landed about 50 metres away from Stefan on a flat rocky area. The other craft left, but the first stayed, said Stefan. He observed it from the bush for about half an hour before approaching it. “In his mind, he reasoned, ‘This must be some sort of a military experimental craft. They’ve landed here by mistake or maybe out of need. Maybe they’re in trouble,'” said Stan. “‘I’ll offer to help them out.'” When Stefan approached the craft, which he later described as saucer-shaped and made of a stainless steel material, he touched it and the heat melted the fingertips of his heavy gloves. There was an opening he put his head through, said Stan, but he didn’t enter. The craft then expelled a cloud of gas and lifted off, knocking Stefan off his feet, setting his shirt aflame and leaving a distinct pattern of burns on his chest. There will be only 4,000 of the collectors coins minted.

Jason Janes really loves to barbecue.He can be found behind one of the three outside grills at his home in the Humber Valley on Newfoundland’s west coast a few times a week, and he keeps things sizzling all year long. “I love things that are low and slow,” he said, describing his favourite dish — pulled pork with smoked macaroni and cheese. Janes says grooves will naturally form over time to match people’s barbecue grates.

Calgarians might be surprised to learn that five city councillors do not use their real names.It’s a curious thing, given that in politics your name often becomes part of your brand.  Are these elected officials not being true to themselves? Or are they just going with what’s practical, comfortable or familiar? It’s not your everyday question but I recently asked them:  Councillor, what’s your real name? Without further ado, let’s meet these councillors.  Councillor Harnirjodh Chahal ​ Coun. George Chahal chose his first name as a child.

When Antje Springman and Dennis Minty spotted something huddled under the honeysuckle shrub outside their home along a river bank in Conception Bay North, they thought it was one of their chickens in distress.Springman went out to investigate and discovered a very different type of bird — a Great Cormorant, a black seabird about the size of a goose, commonly called a shag in Newfoundland and Labrador. “It has a very long neck and about a three-foot wingspan and a very long five-inch bill with a pretty sharp hook on the end, so I called out to Dennis to go and get me some welder’s gloves,” said Springman. Antje Springman and Dennis Minty share a love of animals. They care for a dog, cat, chickens and sheep on their property and often help animals in need.

A Saskatchewan woman’s helping hand — or window scraper — has gone viral this week, with a video showing her assist a beleaguered porcupine garnering more than 1.2 million views on Facebook. Raelene Prieb lives between Yorkton and Melville. She was on her way home on Monday when she spotted a porcupine in a turtle-like state, on its back and unable to get up.  Prieb told CBC Radio’s The Morning Edition she knew right away she needed to give the clumsy creature a hand. “I’m going to have to help him, clearly. He’s having a really bad Monday,” she said. Rather than pick the prickly rodent up with her hands, she instead grabbed her window scraper. The porcupine grabbed on and managed to roll over. When the porcupine was upright, it looked at the snowbank, which had presumably felled it. It attempted to scale it. “I didn’t know if I should kinda push him up [the snowbank],” Prieb said. “I didn’t really want to touch him.” The critter’s attempt did not go well and it tumbled back onto its backside. Prieb once again helped it up, then used the same scraper to clear a path through the snowbank, allowing the animal to finally get on its merry way. When Prieb got home, she uploaded the video to her Facebook profile unedited, unaware that the settings for the video were set to public. The video blew up. At one point, she excitedly told her daughter that it had more than 5,000 views. It has since eclipsed 1.2 million. As for why she thinks the video is so popular, she said people are drawn to a feel-good story. “People need to see compassion and mercy and grace out there,” Prieb said. 

A Romeo and Juliet display depicting Mickey and Minnie Mouse created out of thousands of balloons earned the Canadian balloon twisting team five technical difficulty awards at the World Balloon Convention in California. This photo shows the full display created by the Canadian team.

Like any dedicated mail carrier who slogs through inclement weather to deliver your Amazon order, Tammie McGrath will stop at nothing to get a parcel to its rightful owner.But when a package came in addressed to “Kay and Philip” located “on a farm situated up a long drive with cows, opposite Cust pub or thereabouts,” the Cust, New Zealand, mail carrier was a bit stumped.  “The usual protocol would be to return it,” McGrath who runs the Cust Service Centre, told As it Happens host Carol Off. “I thought, ‘I’ll just hang on to it for a couple of days and see if I can track down the owner.'” Tammie McGrath was determined to find the package’s rightful owner.

At 95 years old, Gus is slow-moving. But that’s in his nature, seeing as he’s a gopher tortoise.And although he’s often sitting idle in his enclosure, Gus has been captivating visitors to the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History for more than seven decades. “As time has gone on, he’s become more and more of a fixture here at the museum,” said Jeff Gray, curator of visitor experiences and exhibits. “His life and his legend grows with the years.” Having lived there for more than 75 years, Gus has become a mascot of sorts for the popular museum in central Halifax. He emerged from a golf-ball-sized egg in the southern United States in the 1920s. Some 20 years later, former museum director Don Crowdis purchased the sand-coloured tortoise for $5 from a roadside reptile vendor in Florida and brought him back to Nova Scotia. Gus, a 95-year-old gopher tortoise, his mouth stained from eating berries, is seen at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax on Friday.

It turns out a small black box with a dangling red wire and little blue light investigated by Windsor’s bomb squad Tuesday isn’t actually dangerous — at least to the living. The Windsor Police Explosives Disposal Unit were called to Mackenzie Hall around 7:15 p.m. to investigate a suspicious package. Police determined the package was “safe” and that there was no evidence of explosive material. Const. Andy Drouillard would not confirm whether a suspicious package in question was actually a ghost-hunting device that had been left behind. But the spokesperson for the Listowel Paranormal Society said that little black box belonged to them. I got some pretty weird feelings and chills, cold spots and goose bumps of course.-  Listowel  Paranormal Society spokesperson He said he didn’t even realize the EMF detector — short for electromagnetic field sensor — was missing after the society completed a sweep for spirits at the hall last Friday. Then the police showed up at his door. Electromagnetic Field Sensor used to detect energy.