Their fate was nearly ceiling-ed. When a Pennsylvania arena collapses, dozens of young hockey players -- some of them Canadian -- narrowly escape uninjured.

A home off native land. More than two dozen non-natives are more than out of sorts, when they're issued eviction notices by the Mohawk council of the Kahnawake reserve.

A penny saved was a penny Earl-ed. Investors react to the news that the man who lost millions of their pennies, Earl Jones, was sentenced to eleven years in prison.

You can step in the same "River" twice. An encore presentation of Carol's interview with John Irving, about his recent novel "Last Night in Twisted River".

You never gnaw until you've tried. Cree artist Pat Bruderer is one of only three people still practicing the vanishing art of "birch-biting".

And...they're certainly not worshipping any raven images. An Irish golf course is beset by a big black bird who snatches up expensive golf balls before people can even tee off.

As It Happens, the Monday edition. Radio that believes you should try not to putt your money where her mouth is.

Everyone is safe and sound now -- but yesterday, they skated awfully close to danger.

A Canadian hockey team of seven-year-olds, along with some of their parents, narrowly missed being severely injured -- or worse -- in a suburb of Pittsburgh, when the roof of a hockey arena collapsed just after a game.

Gary MacLean is the coach of the Ajax Knights Tyke Whites Select Team. He's in Ajax, Ontario.

If Earl Jones needs some time to contemplate how much he hurt his family and friends, he's got plenty now. Eleven years, to be precise.

A Montreal judge handed down that sentence today to the man who acted as financial advisor to people he professed to care about, before absconding with their money.

One of Mr. Jones' many victims was Dr. Dave Hayden. We reached him in Halifax.

Their pictures were worth several thousand words.

Last week, we spoke with Barbara Gregory whose husband, Dennis, knocked their camera overboard during a holiday cruise in 2008. Sixteen months later, much to their surprise, the camera was returned to them -- after being fished from the deep by a Spanish trawler.

Then Talkback found its focus.

Usually golfers welcome a birdie. But members of the Greencastle Golf Club in Inishowen, Ireland, despise birdies -- one in particular.

For the past few months, innocent tee-ers-off have been terrorized by an unruly black bird, believed to be a raven, with an unhealthy and unsportsmanlike addiction to golf balls. Points have been dropped, games ruined, and hours spent on the "nineteenth hole" excoriating the flying jerk for its interference.

Billy McCaul is the office manager of the Greencastle Golf Club. We reached him at his home in Inishowen, Ireland.

We're out of time for the first part of tonight's program. Coming up next is coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Then you'll hear the news. And then, we'll be back with more As It Happens. When we return:

Out in the cold. A Mohawk council's decision to give the boot to more than two-dozen non-native residents is not greeted warmly.

He made "My Sharona" our Sharona. Doug Fieger of The Knack turned a crush into a hit -- and then that hit crushed The Knack.

Remote possibilities. Why can't people use their fobs to unlock their cars on one British street? Seriously, why? We really don't know.

That's all still to come on the show. Stay tuned. I'm CO.

And I'm CH.

Hello again, I'm CO.

And I'm CH. This is As It Happens, Part Two.

Coming up:

Pat Bruderer wouldn't give her eye teeth to be a better artist -- because, as a practitioner of the art of birch-biting, she needs them.

And an encore airing of Carol's feature interview with the author of Last Night at Twisted River, John Irving.

Those stories are still to come on As It Happens.

It's completely legal. But critics say it's completely wrong.

The band council in the community of Kahnawake, south of Montreal, has just handed out a fresh set of eviction notices. The recipients are all non-native residents of the reserve. The council says it has to issue the notices periodically, to fight assimilation. But the process is making some people deeply uncomfortable.

Steve Bonspiel is one of those people. He is the publisher and editor of Kahnawake's community newspaper, The Eastern Door. We reached him at his office in Kahnawake.

Dateline: Windermere, England.

Something sinister (is) happening (on one) street (in this) picturesque Lake District (town.)

Just a second. What's wrong with this microphone? Testing, testing. Okay, it seems to be back to normal now. That was creepy. But, coincidentally, it illustrates what I was trying to say. Let me start over.

Something sinister is happening on one street in this picturesque Lake District town. And no one can unlock the mystery -- or his or her car.

On a particular stretch of Crescent Road in Windermere, people's remote keyless systems simply don't work. Along this stretch, dozens of times a day, you'll see a driver confidently approach his car, thumbing the "unlock" button.

Then you will see his confidence replaced by frustration, as the thumbing gets more vigorous. And finally, that frustration is replaced by panic, even terror, and he will appear to be thumb-wrestling with his remote. The car does not unlock. The fob does nothing. And all is lost. Until he, you know, uses his actual key.

Some are claiming the problems started two years ago, when new traffic lights were installed. The traffic-light contingent says that, if you push the "unlock" button on your remote when the light is flashing amber, your car doors will unlock -- but when the light is red or green, no dice. But the man in charge of the traffic lights in Windermere has consulted experts who've told him the technologies are completely different. If they weren't, these experts point out, no one in England, or any city anywhere, would be able to unlock a car keylessly.

Of course, there's one theory so shocking that only As It Happens would be bold enough to voice it. And that is that (a team of) aliens, (most) likely from (the vicinity of) Alpha Centauri, (have) teamed up with (the) ghost of Jack The Ripper (to) terrorize Windermere, (using) cold fusion (and) poltergeists. Wait -- now what's wrong with the microphone? Never mind: I've already said too much.

Pat Bruderer is an artist. But she doesn't use her hands to create her works. She uses her teeth.

You might call what she does a kind of oral history -- or you might call it by its name: birch biting. At one time, it was practised widely in North American by Algonquin tribes. Now Ms. Bruderer -- also known by her Cree name Half Moon Woman -- is only one of three people left who bite birch.

We reached Half Moon Woman in Vancouver.

In the summer of 1979, there was one girl on everyone's mind: seventeen-year-old, Sharona Alperin.

That's because, a year earlier, Ms. Alperin had been on the mind of Doug Fieger, lead singer for The Knack. After meeting her in a clothing store, he was instantly smitten -- and together with bandmate Berton Averre, he penned the unforgettable "My Sharona." The song became a hit, topped the charts for six weeks, and in two months, the band's debut album, Get the Knack, sold more than a million copies.

Doug Fieger grew up in Detroit and started his first band -- the Royal Jammers -- at the age of eleven. Even then, he was known for his charisma.

As one friend recalled, "He was a trendsetter, even in high school. I think it was in 1964 that he showed up at school with the first bell bottoms anyone had ever seen, and a pair of boots -- I think they were pink." In 1970, Fieger took those pink boots and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his music career.

In 1978, he and Averre formed The Knack, putting the rest of the band together through a wanted ad in the newspaper. They became a hot commodity on the L.A. music circuit after playing a series of shows at the legendary Troubadour club --- where, on separate occasions, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty joined the band onstage to jam. Thirteen record companies competed in a fierce bidding war to sign The Knack. Capitol Records emerged triumphant and over eleven days, at a cost of a mere $17,000, "Get the Knack" was recorded.

Though subsequent albums sold respectably, they were disappointing in the light of the band's prior success. 1980's ...But the Little Girls Understand reached Number Fifteen, but failed to produce any big hits. And 1981's Round Trip barely cracked the Billboard Top 100.

But they would always have "My Sharona". It was re-surrected in 1994 and found a new generation of fans when it appeared on the soundtrack of the film "Reality Bites." Weird Al Yankovic paid tribute to the song with his song "My Bologna," and Run DMC sampled it in 1997's "It's Tricky." Doug Fieger called it the band's "golden albatross": a song that managed to generate a whole lot of money while dangling around his neck and preventing further success.

After splitting up several times, The Knack regrouped in 1997. Mr. Fieger toured with the group until 2003, when he was diagnosed with lung cancer -- and, later, brain cancer. In 2006, doctors removed two tumours from his brain.

Yesterday, at the age of fifty-seven, Doug Fieger died at his home in Los Angelos.

In tribute to him, we give you his golden albatross. As Jeanne Garofalo's character says in the famous scene in Reality Bites, turn it up -- "You won't be sorry."

Last October, John Irving published his twelfth novel, Last Night in Twisted River. It's about a man named Ketchum -- a defiant contrarian, and a devoted guardian. It's about "Lady Sky", a woman who literally falls from the heavens, practically into the protagonist's lap. It's about a father and son who become fugitives after an accidental murder at a logging camp. And it's about that son -- whose name is Daniel Baciagalupo -- becoming a writer and, eventually, moving to Canada.

Daniel writes his books from end to beginning, on an IBM Selectric. One of those is a controversial novel about an abortionist, that became an Academy-Award-winning film.

So is John Irving's new book also about John Irving? Yes and no. Because while it is filled with details that allude to Mr. Irving's own stellar career, it's also about loss, love, death, and politics. And about Canada.

Last October, during the International Festival of Authors, John Irving joined Carol in our Toronto studio. Here's an encore presentation of their conversation.