Posts Tagged ‘hockey’
[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Toronto Maple Leafs, 1904 fire, Sidewalk Labs, SmartTrack
- Edward Keenan is quite right to note that the very high prices of Toronto Maple Leafs tickets would be easier to deal with if the games were better. The Toronto Star has it.
- Toronto Guardian shares some archival photos of the great fire that destroyed large swathes of downtown in 1904, here.
- Torontoist notes the surprising and perhaps worrying failure of its reporters to gain access to the City of Toronto’s agreement with Sidewalk Labs.
- John Lorinc at Spacing notes how Sidewalk Labs hired fixer John Brodhead, apparently to handle problems with implementation and PR.
- The question asked last week by Steve Munro, asking how SmartTrack will actually be paid for, remains very relevant today.
[URBAN NOTE] Six Toronto links: Meadoway Park, terracotta home, Ontario Place, Jollibee, Maple Leafs
- CBC reports on the impending creation of the Meadoway Park, a substantial corridor stretching from the Don Valley northeast to the Rouge River.
- Samantha Edwards at NOW Toronto shares some more cool facts about the Meadoway Park, with 40% of its projected cost of $C 85 million already funded.
- I am quite interested in seeing this west-end Toronto home with terracotta tiles for myself. The Toronto Star reports.
- Toronto Guardian has shared some lovely vintage photographs of Ontario Place back at its height, here.
- This NOW Toronto guide to the offerings of Jollibee makes me interested, and perhaps a bit hungry.
- Edward Keenan writes movingly about how he and his deal with being a Toronto Maple Leafs Fan at playoff time. (As someone not born in Toronto, I think this city deserves better of its teams. Just saying.) The Toronto Star has it.
[URBAN NOTE] Five cities links: Humboldt, Hamilton, Kingston, Berlin, Sidangkou
- At MacLean’s, Meaghan Campbell reports on how the devastating crash of the Humboldt Broncos has hit that small Saskatchewan farm town.
- Hamilton police announces the arrest of local anarchist Peter Hopperton in connection with the actions of a crowd bent on vandalism on that city’s Locke Street. CBC has it.
- Queen’s University is participating in a summit with the city of Kingston on how students and long-term residents can be accommodated in the changing city. Global News reports.
- Attacks by right-wing groups in the Berlin district of Neukölln make many locals worried. DW reports.
- The small Chinese centre of Sidangkou, in the area of Tianjin, has become a world centre of saxophone production. The New York Times reports.
[URBAN NOTE] Five Toronto links: Daniel Rotsztain, Coffee Time, museums, King Street, Medieval Times
- Metro Toronto reports on the efforts of Daniel Rotsztain to explore Toronto through overnight Airbnb stays in different neighbourhoods.
- blogTO reports that the famous (infamous?) Coffee Time at Dupont and Lansdowne has closed down! More tomorrow, I think.
- The Museum of Contemporary Art on Sterling Road, in the Junction, is scheduled for a May 26 opening. NOW Toronto reports.
- Apparently some people are protesting the King Street transit project by playing street hockey in front of the streetcars. blogTO reports.
- Global News notes that Medieval Times, the Toronto theme restaurant, is going to have a ruling queen this year instead of a king.
[ISL] “From sand beach to frozen lake, meet the guys of the Cayman Islands pond hockey team”
The Toronto Star‘s Curtis Rush writes about the Cayman Islands’ hockey team, staffed heavily by Canadian expats.
After trading long Canadian winters for the perpetual summer of this luxurious Caribbean tax haven, Bill Messer was content to enjoy the soft sands and warm waters of island living. The only thing he really missed was hockey.
So in 2003, when he saw a television report about the nascent World Pond Hockey Championship, he began plotting a strategy to get a team from his adopted home ready to play in his native country, Canada.
The initial response to his inquiry, however, felt like a cold slap in the face.
The tournament organizer, Danny Braun, warned Messer in an email that it was frigid up in Canada and that hockey was a very fast, very rough game.
As he read the email, Messer said, he realized that he had not made it clear to Braun that he was Canadian.
[LINK] “China Wants To Be The Next Hockey Heavyweight”
Over at Vice Sports, Sheng Peng describes the heavy investments being made into China into making China a hockey superpower. Russia is playing a particularly large role, in providing training and guidance, but there are also influences from Europe.
There is no Chinese word for “puck.” In fact, the most literal translation for “bingqiu”—Chinese for hockey—is “ice ball.” The Chinese are about as familiar with hockey as Wayne Gretzky is with badminton.
Yet off the West 4th Ring of Beijing on Sept. 5, 2016, the Kunlun Red Star were taking the ice for their home debut at LeSports Center. The Red Star are the newest franchise of the Russian-based KHL, thought to be the second-best league in the world after the NHL. In other words, what were they doing here?
[. . .]
China wants to flex again, as it did during the 2008 Summer Olympics. This time, the country is training to be a hockey heavyweight. Like Russia, the United States, or Canada. Really.
China has the capital. And right now, it has the motivation: In just six short years, all eyes will once again be on Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
China, as host country, will have a chance to field squads for both the men’s and women’s ice hockey tournaments. In arguably the Games’ most prestigious event, the hunger to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the best in the world is naturally greater. Not that far behind, also, is the specter of the “sick man of Asia”, which has dogged the Middle Kingdom’s last century.
But how can China transform its IIHF 37th-ranked men’s national team, which plays literally three rungs below the elite, into a unit with even a puncher’s chance in 2022?
