**not hugely sports-related, but I did ensure I could include it in the NHL, Football and NASCAR sections....apologies if you're hoping to find a sports story but I had to share this with everyone since I find this disgraceful**

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For three days in July (25, 26 and 27), the small town of Pemberton in British Columbia, Canada, will host an outdoor concert including such names as Tom Petty, Coldplay, The Flaming Lips and My Morning Jacket...a rather impressive feat for a town that has less than 2000 people living in it.

In fact, the only times Pemberton tends to get busy is when the Vancouver Canucks or the BC Lions are playing at home in the NHL or CFL respectively. I am yet to find out if they get any overflow from the Canadian Tire Series when they race in Vernon but I would imagine not.

Now, the organisers were nice enough to give the locals some $90 off ticket prices ($200 verses $290 for the rest) but had a limited number of 300 for them. A nice gesture right?

Wrong.

For reasons only known to the organisers, they elected to sell off the tickets to people who live in nearby Whistler...seems like Canada has a different perspective of the term 'local resident' to the rest of the world. The only excuse I can think of is that maybe they thought Pemberton wouldn't buy the 300 tickets which is extremely poor reasoning and shows a remarkable lack of faith in the host town. I understand that Whistler is less than 50 miles away, but to not give Pemberton first choice on the cheaper tickets is absolutely disgraceful and an outrage since I know the town has been buzzing with the news since finding out about the concert a few weeks ago.

But it could go deeper than that for Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. I wonder if they'll do the same for that; set aside a limited number of tickets purely for BC residents then fobb them off to the rest of the country before bothering to tell the 'locals'.

Not impressed, guys (John, you really should throw these morons under the bus next week, mate)...a very ####-poor way to treat a wonderful country town and I hope you get nowhere near the 40 000 people you expect to turn up over the three days.