After hard-fought games, plenty of team bonding, and dozens of wins and losses, Hamber athletics put on quite a show this winter season. Enthusiasm from fans and players alike drove athletes in basketball, girls ice hockey, table tennis, and wrestling to success.

Hamber’s Grad Committee is in charge of planning, funding, and carrying out major grad events, like prom and the graduation ceremony. Additionally, they host events like Grad Karaoke, Valentine’s Grams, Spirit Weeks, and GQ Day.

As the Class of 2024’s high school journey comes to an end, students are starting to receive acceptances from post-secondary institutions. This year’s seniors have applied to a variety of programs in universities both within Canada and abroad.

Hamber’s Table Tennis team is back up and running this year. After a pause, players and coaches are now together and playing once again.

As the graduating class of 2024 says goodbye to Hamber, their memories of the pre-pandemic Griff are leaving with them. The Griff, Hamber’s student-run store, has been mostly inactive for the past few years. However, the students behind the store are now working on rebuilding its reputation as one of the school’s most prominent operations.

Hamber students’ skiing conditions and experiences have been affected by an unusually warm winter with little snowfall, leading to suboptimal snow and poor terrain.

Walking through the Hamber hallways, you may have heard grade 12s discussing their Capstone project. The Capstone project is part of the required Career Life Connections (CLC) course and a big part of students’ last year in high school.

It’s uncommon for students to be disappointed by a snow day. After all, who doesn’t love to frolic in the snow? But for Hamber students and staff, this year's snow days weren’t as celebrated because they shortened the school’s most anticipated sporting event, the Midtown Showdown.

Over the course of Black History Month in February and Women's History Month in March, reflecting on the people who made a significant impact on our society has been especially important. Mary Ann Shadd (1823 – 1893), was the first African-American female to publish and edit a newspaper in Canada: The Provincial Freeman.

On Jan. 26, at the District Education Centre in Surrey, BC Premier David Eby announced the restriction of mobile phones in public schools “from bell to bell” across the province, along with two other social media measures to protect Canadian children.

After nine years in power and three election wins, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been staring down many issues in Canada recently, including generation-high interest rates, the housing crisis, and his lowest approval ratings ever. Because the 2021 election was called prematurely, Canadians are not yet scheduled to go back to the polls until October 2025.

In June 2023, Bill C-18 — known as the Online News Act — was passed, requiring large companies to compensate media organizations if they wanted to continue showing news content on their platforms. In Nov. 2023, Google reached a deal with the Canadian government, agreeing to continue allowing Canadian news content on its platform and to pay $100 million per year to news publishers.

Over the past few months, anyone scrolling through Instagram or TikTok may have had the pleasure of finding an account called Faces of Vancouver. The account (known as @faces_of_vancouver on Instagram and @facesofvancouver on TikTok) is a video diary of Vancouver.

After a disappointing 2022–23 season and the removal of head coach Bruce Boudreau, the Canucks were in an unpredictable position going into the 2023–24 regular season. Last year, the Canucks had one of their worst starts, and only after new head coach Rick Tocchet replaced Bruce Boudreau did they begin to improve.

The Raptors have made major changes to their roster before the trade deadline. Several new players have been added to the roster, and the only remaining player from the 2018–19 championship team is Chris Boucher. The Raptors have made multiple trades of star players and are hoping to rebuild to the level that they were once at.

In 2023, nearly one million international students came to Canada; approximately half of them were met with fraudulent activity by various universities and faced difficulties settling in the country. In response to this, the Government of Canada is implementing a two-year cap on international students in the country.

Vancouver has been grappling with a long-standing housing crisis that has left many residents struggling to find affordable homes. As prices continue to rise, the issue has begun to catch global attention.

While COVID-19 restrictions on BC’s restaurant industry were lifted over 18 months ago, BC’s restaurants are still facing urgent financial hardships. Amid decreasing profits and bankruptcies, many restaurants are now seeking assistance from the provincial government.

At the beginning of 2024, the BC Coroners Office reported 2,511 suspected deaths due to illicit drug usage — about seven deaths a day in the province. This statistic is the highest recorded number ever and a five per cent increase from 2022.

Throughout February 2022, what started as a peaceful protest by Canadian truckers turned into nearly a month of rallying and blockades across Ottawa. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, a statute that grants the federal government additional powers in times of emergency. Canada’s federal court recently ruled that Trudeau’s invocation of the Act was unconstitutional.

On Feb. 16, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was reported to have died in a remote penal colony in Siberia. He was 47 and had been imprisoned there since February 2021.

On Jan. 10, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made a historic decision to approve the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) for 11 investment management firms. This decision is a significant step towards the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.

On Dec. 10, 2023, Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, came into office after winning 56 per cent of the vote. Milei is a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” who, while running, became a divisive candidate known for his radical economic propositions, according to The Economist.

On Feb. 5, Buckingham Palace announced in an official statement that doctors had identified a form of cancer in King Charles’ system, without revealing which type had affected him. They discovered this while treating him for an enlarged prostate that, in itself, was noncancerous.

With the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms such as OpenAI, a new world has been opened up for AI artistic exploration. OpenAI is a San Francisco-based company that has launched AI programs that can write content and produce artistic visuals.

In February 2022, just over two years ago, Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed it was a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” Ukraine, alleging that they have observed Nazi behaviors in the Ukrainian government.

On Feb. 13, South Korea’s military claimed to have detected missiles fired from North Korea into the sea in its fifth weapons test since January. These included the testing of the country’s first solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) on Jan. 14.

Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Oscars are one of the most prestigious award shows in the entertainment industry. Held annually in Los Angeles, the awards are attended by nominees, their relatives, and many highly influential people of the entertainment industry.

On Jan. 29, the Hong Kong court ordered the liquidation of Evergrande Group, China's once-dominant real estate titan. With debts totaling over $300 billion USD, Evergrande's downfall has been years in the making — fueled by a combination of unregulated borrowing and stringent regulatory crackdowns on the real estate sector by the Chinese government.