Riveting and Ribbiting

Saturday 25

Nature devotees of all ages get their creepy-cool critter fix with Stark Mountain Foundation’s Turtles to Toads event at Mad River Glen in Waitsfield. Knowledgeable staff from the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum lead the engrossing educational program, packed with touchable artifacts and toad-ally unique reptiles and amphibians — up close and in the scaly flesh.

Dynamic Doves

Saturday 25

Capital City Concerts continues its lauded 25th season with vocal ensemble Culomba at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier. The group, whose name is Corsican for “dove,” performs a vibrant program titled “Color and Joy for a Winter Afternoon,” featuring a diverse repertoire that spans from Balkan traditions to original compositions — the perfect remedy for those postholiday blues.

Viral Vermonter

Saturday 25

Retired teacher Jen Ellis signs copies of her recent memoir, Bernie’s Mitten Maker — chronicling her experience with overnight fame — at Vermont Teddy Bear in Shelburne. Ellis rocketed into the cultural zeitgeist in 2021 when U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders famously donned her cozy creations on Inauguration Day. You can be like Bernie and purchase a pair of meme-worthy mitts for yourself!

Don’t Dream It, Be It

Saturday 25

Creature Feature Club — an intrepid troupe of performers based in White River Junction — reprises its shadow cast roles for a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at New Hampshire’s Lebanon Opera House. Iconic cult characters Brad, Janet and Dr. Frank-N-Furter come to life — on the big screen and onstage — for double the bawdy, gender-blending bliss.

Playing With Fire

Saturday 25

Snowlights: Shadow Play at Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro immerses guests in larger-than-life light displays. The illuminated indoor-outdoor event includes an interactive black light “ocean,” professional fire juggling, live music, and warm drinks and treats. Grab the kiddos and shake off January’s humdrum vibe where art, ingenuity and snow collide.

All Falls Down

Opens Wednesday 29

Vermont Stage raises the curtain on The Play That Goes Wrong at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington. Set in the 1920s, this Olivier Award-winning murder mystery seamlessly blends the satire of Monty Python with the wit of Sherlock Holmes, offering audience members a clever, cunning, laugh-out-loud whodunit theater experience.

Old Haunts

Ongoing

Susan Mikula‘s “Island” exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center showcases haunting, atmospheric photographs created through the artist’s use of expired instant film and old Polaroid cameras. These dreamy, surrealist vistas highlight an unforgiving 30-acre shelf of bedrock in Bellows Falls — known as “the Island” — where human activity has long defined the landscape.

BOSTON — Tom McVie, who coached the Winnipeg Jets to the 1979 World Hockey Association championship over Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers in the final year before the franchises were absorbed into the NHL, has died. He was 89.

McVie was also the Jets’ first coach in the NHL and the New Jersey Devils’ second after they moved from Colorado in 1982. He also coached the Washington Capitals, compiling an overall NHL record of 126-263 with 73 ties in parts of eight seasons from 1975-92.

The Trail, British Columbia, native joined the Bruins as an assistant coach in 1992 and got his name on the Stanley Cup as a team ambassador when it won the 2011 championship.

“Tom was a huge part of our Bruins family, having served as coach, scout and ambassador for more than 30 years,” said Boston president Cam Neely, whose playing career overlapped with McVie’s coaching tenure. “His hockey mind, colorful personality, gruff voice, and unmatched sense of humor livened up every room he entered, and he will be dearly missed.”

McVie made his NHL head coaching debut when he succeeded Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt in Washington on New Year’s Eve in 1975, but he never finished higher than fourth before heading to the WHA. He took over the Jets, whose roster included a 40-year-old Bobby Hull, and won the 1979 Avco World Trophy.

“Coach McVie was an historical figure in Winnipeg’s pro hockey history as the coach of the last team to ever win the Avco Cup in the World Hockey Association, as well as the first coach in the team’s National Hockey League history back in 1979,” the Jets posted on X on Monday.

“Tom’s personality, voice, and knowledge of the game transcended his title and time in our city as the team made the transition from the WHA to the NHL. His ability to tell a story only added to the legend of the hockey club’s arrival on the big stage. We’d like to extend our deepest condolences to the many friends and loved ones of Coach McVie.”

McVie told The Boston Globe after joining the Bruins organization in 1992 that he was proud to be a hockey lifer.

“If I wasn’t coaching hockey,” he said, “then I’d probably be driving the Zamboni.”

McVie also coached in the AHL for New Jersey, working for the then-Utica Devils. They have since been renamed the Utica Comets, who honored him in a Monday social media post, calling McVie “a legend of the sport and our community,” and adding that “Tom was an outstanding leader, and an incredible human being.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.