With so many other things wrong in Prince George, it just seems wrong to blame the weather on the mayor and city council, too.
Yet it seems for many local residents that when it snows, and then snows some more, and then freezes and thaws and freezes again, making many local streets into frozen washboards, Mayor Shari Green and her eight colleagues are somehow at fault.
There are enough local roads within city limits to build a single-lane connection from Prince George to Vancouver but the unreasonable expectation remains that local streets should be cleared within a matter of hours, instead of days, after it snows.
The complaints that come into the newspaper by letter, phone and e-mail about snow removal are variations on a theme. Usually it's the mismanagement of politicians in the wrong, which makes no sense. Blaming mayor and council for snow clearing that doesn't happen fast enough is as ridiculous as blaming Francesco Aquilini when the team he owns, the Vancouver Canucks, don't win the Stanley Cup.
Aquilini doesn't take faceoffs and Green doesn't drive a grader.
Aquilini doesn't decide who plays with the Sedins and Green doesn't decide who drives the graders.
Aquilini doesn't decide whether Luongo or Schneider gets traded and Green doesn't decide when and where the graders are dispatched.
Aquilini controls the budgets and leaves decisions about players and faceoffs to managers and coaches, while Green, with her council colleagues, also controls the budget and employs managers and supervisors to decide where the graders go and who drives them.
In other words, Aquilini can be blamed for not letting his manager go out and pick up some high-priced help at the trade deadline but he can't be blamed for Luongo letting in a slapshot from the blue line. In the same way, mayor and council can be blamed for not putting enough money in the snow removal budget but it's not their fault when drivers get stuck after a snowstorm.
Some residents understand that and blame city management and staff for doing a poor job at snow clearing. They are a more likely culprit but it's not fair to lay the exclusive blame on local public servants, either. They are using the manpower and resources made available to them in the best way they can to do the best job they can, much the same way the coaching staff of the Canucks uses the players and talent available to them as best they can to win as many hockey games as they can.
But no team wins every game and no city can be perfect at snow removal.
For many seasons now, the Canucks have won more often than they've lost and most of the winter, snow removal in Prince George runs well. Yet there are times when the weather wins and too much snow falls in too short of a time period and then some of it thaws and then freezes, making a big mess of local streets.
Whether it's in hockey or in snow removal, a loss is an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and figure out how to do it better next time. Instead of Kassian, maybe Hansen should play with the Sedins. Instead of side streets downtown, maybe the graders should do major connectors like Massey Drive first.
In both cases, it's easy to sit at home and come up with all the answers, but there are likely good reasons why what makes sense in a living room doesn't work at centre ice in Rogers Arena or on an icy street in Prince George.
Decisions made or not made by Prince George city council are fair game for compliments or criticism. But for residents looking to blame someone for bad weather overwhelming local crews so that it takes them an extra day or two to clear city streets, their best recourse is to leave more time to get to their destination, drive more slowly and carefully than usual, and shake a fist at the sky.
