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Without Mike McCardell, Vancouver Is Awesome might not exist

A couple of weeks ago Global News' human interest anchor - I use the word "anchor" because he's been there for 40 years, not that he's a typical news anchor - quietly retired from the station.

A couple of weeks ago Global News' human interest anchor - I use the word "anchor" because he's been there for 40 years, not that he's a typical news anchor - quietly retired from the station. Mike McCardell has been a vitally important staple in BC's news forever. Personally, he's been with me when I've watched the news as far back as I can remember, starting in the 80's when my family would sit down for dinner and watch the happenings of the day. He was always the light at the end of each and every broadcast, finding beauty to offset all of the typically bad news that made up the majority of the program preceding his sign-off piece about ducks being helped across the street, or the mystery of a lone shoe that his co-worker Chris Gailus recently WROTE all about his experience with Mike, as well as his departure from the station.

Mike's pieces always offered hope amongst doom and gloom, reminding us that even though things may be in a sad state the reality is that it's the small - dare I say, awesome - things that we should spend time focusing on. When we started this web site 6 years ago the idea was to share only the most awesome things that get us excited about this city that we all love, despite the bad. Unlike Global, we don't do any hard hitting "real" news; we're all about the Mike McCardell angle, full time. Something that we've always said is that once you've caught up on all of the real news of the day, V.I.A. is the place where you can come to simply be reminded of what keeps you living in this city. Just the good stuff.

Over the years, the right hand side of our website has always held the mantra that "We’re like the human interest piece on the news... only different.", but what that statement has said (to me, since I first wrote it, is "We're like the Mike McCardell of the internet in Vancouver". In this ode to Mike, I'm happy to finally be able to share his inspiration of us with you, and to let you know that without the seed that Mike planted in my school-kid brain back in the 80's, the idea for this site may never have come to light. When I founded this web site it was because the internet in Vancouver was just full of the bad news, and there didn't seem to do a voice like Mike McCardell's reminding us of why, even though terrible things happen here, we still love our city and choose to continue living here.

Thank you, Mike, for all that you've done to spread positive stories with your work, and for inspiring us to do the same. You are an absolutely crucial piece of the news reporting in this province and we're really looking forward to finding out where you'll end up in the next chapter of your career.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vmBqtm-CDQ