Shea Weber blasted the tie-breaker past exhausted Latvian goalie Kristers Gudlevski to win Team Canada entry to the gold medal semifinals. Gudlevski was bombarded with shots on goal and played a heroic game. Final score was Canada 2, Latvia 1. Canada plays the U.S. Friday. The story so far is a curious drama of an illustrious Canadian squad which barely manages to win — but does win. Can Team Canada sustain this scary method? The USA looks stronger with each day. While Canada struggled against Latvia  the Americans bested the Czechs 5-2.   

Incidents on the Yonge subway are recorded by Toronto police. On Saturday, February 15, 2014 an 18-year-old youth was swarmed by seven others. It happened about 10.40 p.m. as the train passed St. Clair Ave.  The suspects slapped and punched the youth and made a demand for his knapsack. He refused and the suspects fled. On Monday, February 17, 2014, a woman, 27, was in the Yonge subway near Bloor Street when she was approached by a man. He grabbed her cell phone and fled.  The incident occurred about 7.27 p.m. Lastly, a 23 year old man was on the Yonge train near Bloor about 9.20 p.m. on February 17, 2014 when another man grabbed his cell phone from his hands and fled as the train stopped. 

Finland has defeated Russia 3-1 in men’s hockey at Sochi, eliminating the Russians from gold medal competition. It will be a bitter defeat for the Russians and for Vladimir Putin.  It may also recall for Finns how their tiny country bloodied the nose of the Soviet Union in 1939 when Stalin decided to invade his neighbor.

High Noon? Only on the clock we think  Team Canada hits the ice at twelve Eastern (Wednesday, February 19, 2014) to face Latvia in a whistle stop game on its way to a gold medal showdown with the USA.  But as many are saying in the hockey ether, let’s not get cocky. It seems unlikely in the extreme that Canada (goal differential +9 to Latvia’s -5) could possibly mess this up. Eleventh-seeded Latvia beat sixth-seeded Switzerland 3-1 for its first victory of the tournament. One wag, Brandon writing on Twitter, feared the worst: “If Canada loses to Latvia tomorrow the hockey world will end. Seriously. There will be no more hockey after that upset. Big bang in reverse.” Others were feeling more optimistic. CBC Olympics mocked up a red and white graphic called The Price is Right — a nod to the Canadian goalie Carey Price, the 27-year-old net-minder for the Montreal Canadiens.  A great irony for some is that Team Latvia will be coached by a Canadian and former NHLer Ted Nolan. Much conversation at Twitter. 

It doesn’t lie

Toronto police will soon implement a sensible pilot project to test lapel (or vest) cameras on officers working with the public. This move follows a recent recommendation that police adopt the so-called “body-worn” video cams. It’s not known how many officers or in what divisions the cameras will be tested. Many departments in the U.S. use the cameras and the results have been almost uniformly good.  In addition to providing raw evidence of what happened in a criminal matter, the cameras appear to have a modifying effect on the behaviour of both police and the public. In some Americans cities the use of force by police has declined and complaints against the police have dropped by as much as 90 per cent. Deputy Chief Peter Sloly told the Toronto Star, “There are a lot of different variables that are part of this. It’s not just clipping a camera onto an officer’s lapel. There’s policy issues, there’s IT issues, there’s budget issues.” The cameras come in varying levels of quality. Some departments have cameras costing as little as $100, but the quality and stability is marginal. Others can cost between $500 and $1,000.   

What’s funny?  Slapstick comics knew they were sure to get a laugh by falling down.  Depending on your sense of humour, it can be fun to watch teenagers fall on a slick little patch of ice as they leave school. A video, since pulled down from YouTube, recorded a father, waiting for his daughter, records some six minutes of kids falling, sliding, standing around while other kids fall, going back to the ice, falling again and somehow finally walking away. Through it all, the man with the video absolutely relishes each bounce. He chuckles and guffaws and adds sound effects. When his daughter joins him in the car his play by play becomes even more elaborate. “Okay…watch this kid, I guarantee ya he’s gonna drill it….Ohhhh!.  Altogether it is a faceted study in human nature. The sheer enjoyment of the father, teenagers oblivious to what’s beneath their feet, others (mostly girls) who can figure out the potential for falling, the lure of the ice (mostly boys) that makes them return to the patch.   

There’s a very warm glow around the Leaside Memorial Community Gardens on Millwood Road these days following the flawless success of the Leaside Select Invitational Tournament last week. As Jeff Munn, vice president of the select program at the Leaside Hockey Association was saying, “It was four days of hockey and family fun and it went off without a hitch.” That’s a good verdict on an event that saw 1,800 kids suit up and 6,500 family members converge on Leaside’s new two-pad arena, and on the two rinks Leaside rents at the Canlan complex on Victoria Park Ave.  The size and speed with which the events fly by make it tough to assess all the positive results. Mr. Munn is especially pleased with six new teams that were created by Leaside alone because of the extra ice availability this year. The Grade 9 Boys Bantam team in this group were notable achievers as the inset picture suggests. There is a spirit and commitment among the 420 families who participate in the Leaside select program which no doubt other association around town would like to bottle and take home. Now the planning will begin again because no matter what anyone thinks, 2015 isn’t that far off. The 15 member committee that plans the tournament will meet again before too long. Those who form the 40 member shock troop corp of getting things done are all on call. For the moment, however, everyone may take a breather and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.    

Most of us will enjoy well enough this sixth Family Day. At the South Bayview Bulldog, we will be cleaning out drawers and be cheerful for the chance.  News organizations, sensing the challenge of the weather, have been busy asking people what they will do. Young bloods out on the skating rinks promise solemnly to spend time with mom and dad. This is really not fair. No one, not even Premier Dad (now exiled to Ottawa) expected this to be much more than another day off.  Mr. McGuinty was a near caricature of himself when he announced this holiday in 2008 and then waxed on about how he had always wished that he had spent more time with his father. The idea of a mid-winter long weekend was not new when the Liberals cooked up Family Day. Having run out of warm weather long weekends with which to gift voters, governments had long pondered a mid-winter break. Then they thought about the weather and perhaps the lost productivity  and decided to forget it.