Port Moody pianist gets the Entertainment Tonight touch

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on July 26, 2020

Few people get to meet their heroes, let alone get their phone number.

But a unique connection with former Entertainment Tonight host and New Age composer John Tesh has culminated in a new album by Port Moody pianist Martin Mayer that is scheduled to be released early next year.

The album, entitled The Solo Piano Collection, is a compilation of the best pieces Mayer’s written through his 25-year career as well as half a dozen new compositions he put together while riding out the COVID-19 pandemic in his Klahanie home that also contains a recording studio.

Mayer said his career never would have happened were it not for some idle channel surfing more than 20 years ago that landed him on a PBS presentation of Tesh in concert with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

It got a boost when he was able to enlist accompaniment from Grammy-winning violinist Charlie Bisharat, who played with Tesh as well as other renowned musicians like Lady Gaga, Elton John and Yanni. Then it got a golden endorsement when he was able to perform one of his new pieces for Tesh himself, after a show in a Seattle jazz club last November.

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Port Moody pianist Martin Mayer says a connection with composer and former host of Entertainment Tonight, John Tesh, helped him chart the direction of his own musical career.

Mayer said the moment was “pivotal” and has blossomed into an ongoing professional relationship with the onetime TV personality.

“He’s just been super great about it.”

Mayer started playing piano when he was 11 years-old, but it wasn’t until he stumbled upon Tesh presenting his own new-age keyboard compositions in the dramatic outdoor venue that he realized the direction his musical inclinations should take.

“I’m not going to be a classical pianist,” said Mayer, who studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music as well as Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton.

He wrote a letter to Tesh, enquiring about the availability of his sheet music so he could learn to play the compositions that had captured his imagination. 

It was the TV announcer’s ability to forge his own path by doing things like composing the themes for sports shows while working in front of the camera that made Mayer realize he’d have to create his own opportunity.

Mayer took out a $35,000 loan to hire a 20-piece orchestra, film and audio crew, as well as a venue, so he could produce his own live concert program that premiered on his website when he was 19 years-old. 

That led to an offer to tour in China, visiting 16 cities in six weeks. It’s been a favoured destination ever since, although he’s also played venues closer to home, like the Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam.

“Piano is huge in Asia,” Mayer said, adding he was set to embark on another 20-date tour in China this fall until the global pandemic shut down much of the live entertainment industry.

Mayer hasn’t been idle in his downtime, though.

In addition to writing and recording, he had to navigate the creative and technical challenges of collaborating remotely with other musicians like Bisharat, who’s based in Los Angeles. That meant communicating his intent for the pieces, but leaving enough room for each musician to add their own creative sparkle.

“It’s a matter of having a conversation, providing good direction and then give the artist room to breathe,” Mayer said.

The result, he added, is the story of his own musical journey, including a touching tribute to his mother, who had left the TV guide open to the listing of the Tesh concert on that fateful day so many years ago.

Saving local news

The closure of the Tri-City News, Burnaby Now and New Westminster Record has left a hole in our communities.

In April, I joined forces with some colleagues who had also been displaced by the closure of our publications to form a co-operative effort to bring local news coverage back to the communities corporate ownership had just abandoned.

Over the past several months we’ve been learning about co-operative governance, sketched out a vision for community-based non-profit local news coverage and launched a campaign to help us raise funds to make it happen.

The latter has been supported by a social media campaign that asks community leaders how local news is important to them. As well as building awareness and support for our campaign, the question challenges the community to think about the implications of this sudden loss of local news, building engagement.

Here are a few:

Port Moody woman primed for Canada’s debut at butcher Olympics

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on July 17, 2022

A Port Moody woman is primed to show Canada’s butchers are a cut above the rest of the world.

Taryn Barker, of The Little Butcher in NewPort Village, is part of Butchery Canada, a team of six butchers set to represent the country at the World Butcher Challenge, Sept. 2 and 3 in Sacramento, Calif.

The competition — a kind of Olympics for some of the best butchers in the world — was supposed to happen two years ago, but it was put on ice by the COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s given Barker and her teammates more time to sharpen their skills and carve their creativity that will be required to transform sides of beef and pork, a whole lamb and five chickens into about 70 different flavourful and visually-enticing value-added cuts and products.

This is the first time Canada is sending a team to the international event, held every two years.

On the floor of the Golden One Centre, home to the Sacramento Kings of the National Basketball Association (NBA), 16 teams will have three hours and 15 minutes to carve, concoct and present elaborate drool-worthy displays that include garnishes, pastries, produce and dishes, all of which have to be acquired locally or shipped beforehand.

Among other elements, their efforts will be judged on how well they represent the unique characteristics of their country’s cuisine.

Barker will be one of two “finishers” on Canada’s team, responsible for making the handiwork of the carvers look its absolute best for the judges and spectators in the stands or watching online.

She said she’s been able to use the extra prep time to mine the internet for new ideas, experiment with ingredients and presentation and forge a stronger connection with her teammates, who come from Ontario, Alberta and one other from B.C.

The team was only able to meet virtually because of travel restrictions during the early stages of the pandemic, but as those have eased, they’ve been gathering in person every month.

They brainstorm products, practice their responsibilities and refine their efficiency as any cut of meat that’s left behind means a deduction of points.

Barker said as a newcomer to the competition, Canada will be up against countries where butchery techniques and presentation have evolved decades longer. But what they may lack in experience, they hope to make up with innovation.

“Teams that have been together for a long time will have the efficiency, but I don’t know how creative they’ll be,” said Barker, who’s previously competed at individual events in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil.

With the weeks counting down to the competition, Barker said Canada’s practices have been getting more intense.

And just like sports teams, each is followed by a thorough debrief to determine better ways members can work together so not a moment is wasted and everyone is able to operate at the top of their game.

“It’s down to the crunch,” Barker said, adding the team has even invited observers to its most recent practices to simulate the kind of scrutiny under pressure they’ll be facing in the arena.

In the days leading up to the competition, the team will ship a pallet of implements and accoutrements to Sacramento — many of them contributed by sponsors like Carmello Vadacchino of Cook Up — and, once they’re on site, they’ll be heading to local shops and farmers markets for the produce and other products that will be integrated into their final displays.

Barker said while the nerves and excitement are starting to build, she’s looking forward to waving Canada’s culinary flag and hopefully inspire young people to take up the trade.

“There’s cool things you can do as a butcher.”

Former Coquitlam Little League champion begins his journey to the Major Leagues

Tim Piasentin’s journey to Major League Baseball begins in Dunedin, Florida.

The hard-hitting Coquitlam infielder is at the minor league complex of the Toronto Blue Jays for the team’s introductory camp of prospects it selected in the MLB Draft on July 13 and 14.

Piasentin, 18, was the Jays’ fifth-round pick — 143rd overall — and on Monday, July 21, the team announced it had agreed to terms with the former Coquitlam Little League All-Star, along with several other of its recent draft acquisitions and non-drafted free agents.

According to MLB Pipeline, a website that tracks prospective Major Leaguers, Piasentin received a signing bonus of $747,500. That’s almost $250,000 more than the assigned value of $503,800 for a player picked 143rd overall.

Piasentin’s contract means he’ll forgo his prior commitment to attend the University of Miami in the fall.

Instead, he’ll likely begin his long and uncertain journey to the Major Leagues playing with Toronto’s rookie-league affiliate, the Florida Complex League Blue Jays, that is based in Dunedin.

As Piasentin continues to develop he could eventually find himself back near home with the Vancouver Canadians, the Jays’ High-A team, its third-highest minor league affiliate.

When he was 12, Piasentin helped take his Coquitlam team to the Little League World Series in Williamstown, PA. He drove in all five runs in its 5-3 win over host Little Mountain in the final of the provincial championship and he hit a home run at the Canadian national championship in Ancaster, Ont.

Piasentin progressed to the Coquitlam Reds program in the BC Premier Baseball League and last spring he graduated from the Okotoks Dawgs Academy program in Alberta that plays in the Western Canadian Baseball League, a top summer circuit for prep school players. He was also part of Canada’s national junior team.

In 2024, Piasentin won the Rawlings home run derby that was part of the Canadian Futures Showcase at the Rogers Centre in Toronto for the country’s top young baseball players.

Scouting assessments praise the bat speed and power of the 6’3”, 200-pound hitter but question whether his defensive capabilities might be better suited to playing first base or right field rather than third base.

Piasentin is the seventh Coquitlam Little Leaguer to crack an MLB organization. The first was catcher Don Gurniak, who was signed by the Montreal Expos in 1970 but never ascended beyond the team’s A-League affiliate before he was released in 1972.

More recently, pitcher Curtis Taylor continues to work his way toward an MLB roster spot. He’s currently playing for the Memphis Redbirds, the AAA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals, which signed him to a minor league contract last spring.

Taylor was drafted by the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2016 and has since toiled in the minor league systems of five other MLB teams, including the Jays, Tampa Bay Rays, Washington Nationals, Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins. He also played two seasons in the Mexican League.

Giant First Nations canoe completes a special healing journey

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on May 24, 2024

A giant Haida canoe departed Coquitlam’s Maquabeak Park early Friday afternoon, May 24, to complete the final leg of its years-long journey down the Fraser River from Spences Bridge to Sapperton Landing in New Westminster.

Aboard the Grandmothers Healing Journey were three generations of paddlers representing First Nations communities from across British Columbia.

Their mission: to deliver a special community elements chest filled with artwork, stories and poems contributed 17 artists that will be on display at the New Westminster Museum and Archives in the Anvil Centre (777 Columbia St.) until Dec. 15.

The canoe’s journey replicates the migration of salmon with stops at various First Nations along the way to collect more letters, tokens, messages and reminiscences of healing and reconnection with ancestral lands.

In four years, it will head back up the river, just as the fish return to their birthplace to spawn.

One of the project’s artists, Rita Wong, said it was an honour to have her poems included in the wooden chest that is carried in a place of honour at the centre of the canoe.

She said the project bolsters the connection between First Nations communities and their ancestors, much of which has undermined by centuries of colonialism.

“There’s been an incredible cultural resurgence,” Wong said. “There’s so many stories.”

‘Like a hug from a mother’: Port Moody museum exhibit swaddles visitors with sounds of First Nations’ languages

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on May 30, 2022

British Columbia’s 203 First Nations speak 34 distinct languages.

Several exist only orally and as elders who know them pass away, they’re at risk of disappearing entirely.

A few already have.

The effort to ensure Indigenous languages survive and even flourish is the subject of a travelling exhibit from the Royal BC Museum that’s being featured at Port Moody Station Museum from June 1 to Sept. 10.

The exhibit, entitled Our Living Languages First Peoples’ Voices in BC, is comprised of information panels and interactive stations that tell the history of those languages, the threats to their continued existence and the work that’s being done to document them so they can be passed on to future generations.

Language is a vital component of First Nations’ culture, said Kate Kerr, coordinator of the travelling exhibit.

“Language is unifying,” she said. “It gives you a sense of history and a sense of place.”

But colonial pressures like assimilation, residential schools and even diseases such as smallpox and measles that were introduced to Indigenous communities by white settlers have diminished many First Nations’ languages, undermining their culture.

Bringing those languages back to life has been a bit of a hodgepodge effort over the years, championed by dedicated researchers making audio and video recordings of conversations with elders. Digitizing the tapes has been an ongoing project at Royal BC, Kerr said.

The work is also important to reconciliation, she added.

Language can help build bridges to empathy and awareness, Kerr said. Witness recent initiatives to resurrect Indigenous names for places like Belcarra Regional Park, now təmtəmíxʷtən in the language of the Tsleil-Waututh, or səmiq̓wəʔelə, the Kwikwetlem title for the Riverview lands in Coquitlam.

Brianne Egeto, the manager/curator at Station Museum, said she reached out to learn about the language program that the Tsleil-Waututh community is doing.

“The Port Moody Heritage Society is committed to taking steps towards reconciliation,” she said. “We hope this exhibit will get people wanting to learn more about all the other initiatives taking place within the communities.”

Kerr said the display has the potential to open the ears and hearts of visitors, especially when they take a seat in the specially-constructed “cradleboard theatre” that envelopes listeners in recordings of conversations in Indigenous languages, many of them with children.

The effect is intentional, she said, as a cradleboard is a portable carrier woven or built of wood that is used by many First Nations to transport infants in their first few months of life.

“It swaddles the listener,” Kerr said. “We want it to feel like a hug from a mother.”

‘It’s clear that a new, larger facility is needed’: Port Moody pondering Kyle Centre replacement

The days of Port Moody’s aging Kyle Centre may be numbered.

Tuesday, July 15, council’s strategic priorities committee will consider whether it should spend $515,000 to begin conceptual design work on a new community centre. The money would come from the city’s community amenity contribution reserve fund.

According to a staff report authored by project manager Sandy Tolentino, the new 30,000 sq. ft. facility would be almost triple the size of the existing Kyle Centre, that was constructed in 1977 and has fallen into disrepair.

In 2023, council shelved a $3-million plan to repair the 11,000 sq. ft. building that had previously been approved a year earlier. Mayor Meghan Lahti said the reconsideration was sparked by anticipated growth in the surrounding Moody Centre neighbourhood.

“There will be significant needs down there,” she said.

Coun. Kyla Knowles said fixing up the old building, which had been identified as in danger of “functional obsolescence” as far back as 2013, amounted to “throwing lipstick on a pig.”

In her report, Tolentino said Kyle Centre is “nearing its end of life,” and as the neighbourhood grows, “it’s clear that a new, larger facility is needed.”

Tolentino estimated a new community centre will cost $30-$40 million. Half the money would come from city reserve funds while the other half would be financed through the Municipal Finance Authority, necessitating a property tax increase of 1.47 – 1.97 per cent.

Construction would take about 24 months with a preliminary completion date anticipated in late 2028.

Tolentino said the new structure would be in the same location as the existing Kyle Centre, while leaving room for a potential future affordable housing project just to the west. The current surface parking lot that also services PoMoArts would become an underground parkade shared by the neighbouring facilities with a potential connection to the housing structure.

Kyle Park would also be expanded and upgraded east of Kyle Street where Port Moody acquired two residential properties for $5.9 million in 2024.

Tolentino said the city will review options to connect the new Kyle Centre with the expanded park, including closing roads and the construction of a community plaza.

She said consideration of council’s strategic priorities as well as feedback from residents “has led to the understanding that now is the time to take steps to move forward and develop a plan for a replacement of Kyle Centre.”

If council approves the conceptual design project, next steps would include public engagement later this year to determine programming needs followed by a final estimate of capital costs and financing options by the end of 2025, in advance of a report to council and subsequent public review early next year.

Coquitlam slugger plucked by the Toronto Blue Jays

A Coquitlam infielder whose bat helped his team of 12-year-old All-Stars reach the Little League World Series, could someday help the Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series.

Tim Piasentin was selected in the fifth round, 143rd overall, by the Toronto Blue Jays in the second day of the Major League Baseball draft on Monday.

The left-hand-hitting third baseman was part of the Coquitlam All-Stars team that went to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA, after it won the 2019 provincial and Canadian championships.

Piasentin is a graduate of the Okotoks Dawgs Academy program in Alberta that plays in the Western Canadian Baseball League, a top summer circuit for prep school players. He was also part of Canada’s junior national team.

Piasentin is committed to join the University of Miami Hurricanes in the fall.

Heading into the draft, Piasentin was ranked 160th of the top 250 MLB prospects and he was considered to be Canada’s top high school prospect.

Scouting reports praise the bat speed and power of the 6’3”, 200-pound, 18-year-old but question whether his defensive capabilities might be better suited to playing first base or maybe right field.

Just Baseball’s Tyler Fleming said Piasentin’s “violent swing” is “tailor-made to do damage in the air, especially against heaters.”

“His standout tool is his raw power,” said MLB.com’s assessment of Piasentin.

MARIO BARTEL PHOTO When he was 12 years-old, Tim Piasentin helped lead the Coquitlam All-Stars to the 2019 Little League World Series in Williamstown, PA.

His ability at the plate was already apparent as a 12-year-old with the All-Stars when he drove home all the runs in the team’s 5-3 win over host Little Mountain in the championship final at the 2019 provincials and another five runs in its semi-final win over Hastings.

Piasentin also hit a home run at the Canadian national championship in Ancaster, Ont.

In 2024, he won the Rawlings home run derby that was part of the Canadian Futures Showcase for the country’s top young baseball prospects hosted by the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre.

When they were kings. Coquitlam hoopsters reunite to celebrate 50th anniversary of championship

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on March 20, 2022

The Centennial Centaurs’ eighth place finish at the recent BC High School AAAA boys basketball championships may not have lived up to the team’s second-place ranking heading into the tournament.

But several kilometres away from the Langley Events Centre, a group of lifelong supporters celebrated anyway.

Players from the 1972 Centaurs’ team that was the school’s only boys side to ever win the provincial senior basketball title gathered last Friday (March 11) at the Vancouver Golf Club to renew acquaintances and catch up.

It was 50 years to the night this group of now senior citizens tasted the sweetest victory of their young lives, defeating the defending champions, North Delta Huskies, 60-40, in front of almost 10,000 screaming fans, friends and family at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

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The Centennial Centaurs that won the 1972 senior boys provincial high school basketball championship gather at the Vancouver Golf Club for a reunion 50 years later.

“It was like a chill ran down your back,” said Greg Hoskins, Centennial’s 6’4” power forward, of the atmosphere that long-ago night. “It was amazing.”

As much as the game was for provincial basketball bragging rights, it was also an opportunity for the Centaurs to avenge an earlier setback by one point to the Huskies at the Fraser Valley playoffs.

North Delta was a basketball powerhouse, having rolled through teams like Abbotsford, MEI and North Surrey that were stacked with big men to win the 1971 championship. Heading into the ’72 final, they’d only lost twice all season.

Huskies coach, the late Stan Stewardson who went on to guide the Simon Fraser University men’s team for several years, had said many of Centennial’s players weren’t good enough to make his squad.

Future NBAer

And the one who was, towering centre Lars Hansen, had been stymied in the Fraser Valleys by North Delta’s strategy to double-team him with a defender in front and behind.

Hansen, who starred at the University of Washington and then played professionally in Europe as well as one season with the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics, said Stewardson’s assessment stung the Centaurs.

“I don’t think there were any doubters on that team,” he said. “We had a confidence. Our physicality was better than North Delta’s.”

Hansen, who’d yet to commit to a post-secondary program, said he’d already been battle-hardened by playing in basketball camps in the United States where he had to overcome the coverage of some of that country’s best high school players.

“That set me up to come back bigger and stronger and a clear idea of what basketball was all about.”

John Buis, who played for North Delta and then went on to a long career with the RCMP that included a stretch in Coquitlam, said the Huskies knew to repeat as champions they had to stop Hansen.

“He was a pretty big guy,” said Buis of the 6’10” star. “He was the key guy.”

As the Centaurs and Huskies careened through the AA tournament’s preliminary rounds on a collision course with each other, anticipation for the showdown grew.

Hoskins said Centennial’s crowded halls were abuzz with excitement that spread throughout Coquitlam as everyone got behind the team from the city’s only high school at the time.

A big deal

Buis said the high school basketball championship was a focal point of the Lower Mainland’s winter sporting scene, commanding pages of attention in all three of Vancouver’s daily newspapers — the Province, Sun and Columbian.

“That was the event to go to,” he said, adding the Huskies’ status as defending champions brought with it its own pressure.

Centennial jumped out to a 12–9 lead at the end of the first quarter, but the teams were tied at 24 when they retreated to their dressing rooms at half time.

Hansen accounted for 21 of the Centaurs’ points.

“With a guy like Lars, you just had to get him the ball and he would take over,” said Hoskins.

“We just couldn’t stop Lars,” recalled Buis. “He had one of those nights.”

By the final whistle, Hansen had scored 39 points, the most that had ever been scored in the championship to that point.

He was named the tournament’s most valuable player, reprising the honour he’d also earned the year before when the Centaurs made it to the semifinals.

Hansen said despite appearances on the score sheet, he didn’t win the provincial title alone.

“I couldn’t be more proud of the way the guys played,” he said, pointing out while his teammates crashed the boards and fought for rebounds. “They just left the scoring to me.”

Bond endures

Hoskins said the bond between the players transcended their roles on the basketball court.

“There was a lot of friendships amongst the team,” he said.

Hansen added, “I thoroughly enjoyed the way everyone accepted their roles. There was no animosity.”

Fifty years later, the bond remains strong.

In addition to the players and coach Gordon Betcher, who’s still alive and spry at 87 years old, several of the school’s cheerleading squad also attended the reunion.

“People don’t really change that much,” said Hoskins. “We just get old.”

For Buis, the experience of two consecutive appearances in the provincial championship launched a lifelong passion to pass that opportunity on to subsequent generations as the tournament’s director for many years.

“The experience was one I’ll never forget,” he said. “It took me into the next phase of my life.”

The 1972 Centennial Centaurs

  • Rob Davidson, guard
  • Terry Uotuk, guard
  • Mitchell Dudoward, guard
  • Art Abram, guard
  • Gary Holte, guard
  • George Musseau, forward
  • Dave Bedwell, guard
  • Greg Hoskins, forward
  • Al Godin, guard
  • Brian Fulton, forward
  • rnold Anderson, centre
  • Lars Hansen, centre
  • Gordon Betcher, coach
  • Scott McNab, manager

Coquitlam player signs with the Pittsburgh Penguins

A Coquitlam hockey player with a soccer pedigree is now a Pittsburgh Penguin.

Ben Kindel signed a three-year entry-level contract with the NHL team on Tuesday, July 8, after the Penguins selected the 18-year-old forward 11th overall in June’s 2025 Entry Draft.

Kindel’s dad, Steve, is a former Canadian national soccer team player who also played eight seasons with the Vancouver Whitecaps and two seasons with the old Vancouver 86ers of the A-League.

Kindel’s mother is Sara Maglio, who played for the women’s Whitecaps from 2001-05 and made four appearances with Canada’s national women’s team, including at the 1999 FIFA women’s World Cup.

His younger sister, Lacey, is an accomplished soccer player with the Vancouver Rise FC’s academy program. She also represented Canada at a qualifying tournament for the FIFA U-17 World Cup that will be played in Morocco Oct. 17-Nov. 8.

Ben Kindel, a right winger, spent the past two seasons with the Calgary Hitmen in the Western Hockey League where he amassed 159 points in 133 games, including a franchise-record 23-game point streak that spanned more than two months from Nov.8 to Jan. 12.

Not to be outdone on the international stage by the rest of his family, Kindel also played five games for Canada’s gold medal-winning team at the 2025 IIHF U-18 World Championship in Texas in the spring. He scored a goal and added six assists.

“You see the hockey sense, you see the playmaking ability,” said Pittsburgh’s director of player development, Tom Kotsopoulos, of Kindel’s performance at the team’s recent development camp. “I think he’s a kid who’s willing to put in the work, and he knows what he has to do.”

Kindel said he’s excited to be part of a team that’s built around veteran superstar Sydney Crosby.

“Obviously, they have a player such as Sidney Crosby and a lot of other great players that have been here for a long time,” he said of the Penguins’ longtime captain. “But I think like looking up to a guy like Sid for his passion for the game, his loyalty to the Penguins, and his hockey sense and the way he plays the game the right way.”

Kindel told Penguins’ team reporter Michelle Crechiolo while he grew up in a soccer household, his dad was a big hockey fan and he fell in love with the game as soon as he started playing.

Still, Kindel added, he gleaned valuable lessons from his parents’ soccer passion.

“Do everything 100 per cent, no matter what you’re doing, Then, play with passion every time you step out on the field or the rink.”