[CQ-Contest] A public thanks to CQP (and others who've tossed the MAR mult away)

[Mike VE9AA ve9aa@nbnet.nb.ca]

Some of this is a little tongue-in-cheek or my weak attempt at humour 
(it'll hopefully be obvious which parts) so try not to take everything 
I've written below as too serious.  
For those of you that are humour impaired, please look away....look away 
now !
 
A little unrelated to contesting, but did any of you ever watch the 
Canadian Comedy TV show "Corner Gas" whereby when a neighbouring town 
name was mentioned(normally Wullerton), all the residents of Dog River 
present would spit (or fake spit) on the ground?
When I hear the acronym "MAR", that's me.  SOME of us guys out East (at 
least me in particular) almost "hates" MAR (but hate is way too 
strong......) Very much dislikes the "MAR" designation only as it 
relates to contesting because I don't live in MAR<spit>, I live in New 
Brunswick. (or Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island) etc. and MOST contests 
have always permitted us to send the correct Provincial designation. In 
the past I didn't always get to play for the home team! (Only SS, ARRL 
160, some Sprints and CQP are the ones that come to mind)
A few years ago the (various) Sprint folks were very kind to us VE9, VE1 
and VY2 types and may have been among the first (of the last!) of 
contests to let us send NB, NS and PE---so another thank you to those 
movers and shakers !
Not long after (actually, Jan 1, 2023), RAC (It's kinda/sorta like the 
VE version of the ARRL for those readers abroad) finally got rid of the 
MAR designation (which has absolutely NOTHING to do with contests, I 
should be careful to mention) and so the last few contests that I am 
aware of have all adopted the NB, NS and PE designations for mults 
(partially?) based on the RAC and ARRL finally no longer using 
it....again MAR as it relates to RAC and ARRL has zero to do with 
contesting !
(there is still some housekeeping work to be done @ ARRL fixing up 
scores and records, but that's minor)
I believe (but stand to be corrected) that the CQP  
<https://www.cqp.org/Rules.html> CQP Rules  
which most of us love, was the very last holdout on the World stage to 
get rid of it. (they called it MR) <spits on ground> :-)
Thank you to Chris/N6WM and all those folks in California who have 
finally permitted us to send NB, NS and PE in your truly great QSO 
party.
So anyways......I am rambling a little bit. I guess I don't have 
anything left to complain about contesting wise--Geez-what 
now?......maybe cut #'s in serial # contests? High K indices?
Perpetually losing the Poison d'Avril test?  or maybe everyone being 
zero beat in a big EU pileup on 80m? (1rst World problems from here in 
the Northeast?)
I wish to extend my thanks to all of you to have put up with my minor 
moaning and groaning over the decades while I worked  (in tandem with 
others to be sure) to help supply information and reasoning  to those 
last small handful of contests to move us away from using "MAR" <spit> 
as a mult.  In the end the situation mostly remedied itself and sponsors 
like Sprint and CQP agreed to modify their rules on mults. based on what 
RAC and the ARRL and a few others have done.
Now I really AM rambling.
Appreciation all around ! ! ! 
Mike VE9AA, current president Maritime Contest Club (MCC) (Is it Ironic 
our contest club name has that word in it?) haha