The 24th Leaside Select Hockey Tournament is about to begin Thursday (February 6, 2014) with more than 1,800 players from across the district competing in 12 age groups. The kids, 6 to 18 years old, will be playing on 100 teams and as many as 6,500 family members will attend the games. It is a wonderful triumph of sports, family fun and generous support from public spirited individuals and corporations. Jeff Munn, vice president of select programs at the Leaside Hockey Association recounts the impact of Leaside’s new double pad arena this year. “Last year we could only accommodate 75 teams,” he recalled. Mr. Munn explained that the new arena permitted the expansion of the Leaside teams from 2013’s 16 to 25 for this year. Each Leaside coach was permitted to issue three invitations to make up the 100 team limit. “We get a lot of requests for invitations,” said Mr. Munn. The new arena will permit all the games involving Leaside teams to take place on local ice and overflow games will be accommodated almost entirely at the nearby CanLan Vic Park Arena on Victoria Park Ave. The logistics of looking after this army of young hockey players is greatly helped by sponsors such as Bell, Scotiabank, Pepsi, Longo’s Metro, Starbucks and, in the case of the sandwiches, Andy Elder’s Grilltime meat specialty shop on Laird Drive. People like Shannon Quesnelle and her many parent friends and volunteers, will be on deck throughout the tourney to see to the care and feeding of the kids. The games go pretty much all day long for three and a half days and the public is welcome to pop in to catch some of the action. Schedule so far
Feds introduce new election legislation
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The Conservative Government has announced a bill which would vastly change how general elections are conducted. The new legislation would be called the Fair Elections Act. Among its highlights is the creation of a new post called the Commissioner of Canada Elections. This person would be responsible for investigating all violations of the voting laws. The bill envisages prison time for those who impersonate election officials. The new law would also permit the broadcast of election results in the east before the polls are closed in the west. Canada
In Toronto, the name Union Station is forever
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| Dressed for its opening in 1924 |
That only thing that be can said about the suggestion by Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 34) to re-name Union Station to the John A. Macdonald Station is that the City Councillor doesn’t seem to know much about the history of Toronto. The place is called “Union” station because of the historic uniting of the interests of the country’s railways and the decision to build a suitable (some might say world class) terminal for Toronto. When it was built between 1914 and 1920 there had already been two other places called Union Station. It is a place that has been with us for well over a century and a handy name that has become part of the fabric of Toronto. At Tuesday’s executive committee meeting, Minnan-Wong moved a motion to change the name, asking city staff to explore the idea and report back to the executive committee in July. This will not fly. Twitter is already alive with derision for the notion. Sir John A. Macdonald is a very important figure in our history but he is already well-honoured everywhere in the country.
Brazeau, Harb charged with expenses fraud
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RCMP have charged Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb with a single count each of breach of trust and fraud in connection with their expenses at Senators. Canada
Woman, 69, hit by purse thieves at Yonge-Bloor
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TPS report — A 69-year-old woman reports that on February 2, 2014 at approximately 10 p.m. she was in the area of Yonge Street and Bloor Street East when she was approached from behind by two male suspects. One of the suspects grabbed the victim’s purse from her arm. Both suspects fled the scene eastbound towards Asquith Avenue. No injuries were sustained by the victim. Police are requesting the assistance of the public in identifying the following described persons in connection with this offence.
Power broker Ralph Lean goes to Gowlings
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Bay Street power broker and political fundraiser Ralph Lean has left the firm of Heenan Blaikie after learning it was contemplating chopping the headcount in its Toronto office by half. Mr. Lean has joined the Toronto office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP as counsel just eight months into his two-year contract with Heenan Blaikie. What happened? Apparently about 30 partners have left Heenan Blaikie in recent weeks after a drop in revenue has led to less pay. The cause of this decline wasn’t specified. The firm has announced it will embark on a “major restructuring” in the near future. Some speculation suggests a break up of its network of eight offices across the country. The 68-year-old Mr. Lean worked for 23 years with law firm Cassels Brock and Blackwell in Toronto until last year, when he reached that firm’s mandatory retirement age. Area high school rankings reveal wide range
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The Fraser Institute ranking of high schools reveals a wide range of performance among eight schools in the South Bayview area. The list is below and the full list of schools in Toronto may be obtained at the Fraser website. Digging into the information is useful as a measure of how better-off neighborhoods typically produce much higher achievement. The numbers are compiled by Fraser from figures belonging to the Ontario Education Department and, so far as most parents are concerned, they reflect the proficiency of both students and their teachers. The scale is 0 to 10.
North Toronto 8.5
Lawrence Park 8.4
Leaside 8.3
Forest Hill 8.2
Northern Secondary 8
Garneau 4.9
Jarvis 4.7
East York 4.7
Pile driver, trailer now on site at 1860 Bayview
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The construction trailer and a pile driver are now on site as work begins on the commercial development at 1860 Bayview Ave at Broadway. Ave. The site is being purchased over time by RioCan Real Estate Investment, the dynamic property company that owns Sunnybrook Plaza and the Leaside Centre at the corner of Eglinton Ave. E. and Laird Drive. This location is most notable for the impending opening of a Whole Foods market of some 50,000 square feet on the second floor of the development. In this case, the “anchor” business will be located upstairs. The property is being developed by Kingsett and Trinity Development Group and RioCan is acquiring the site on “a forward purchase basis in phases” at an approximate purchase price of $58 million. The store is expected to open sometime in 2015 There will be 193 parking spaces in a two-level underground garage. Neighbourhood improvements, including road widening along Bayview and Broadway Avenues to accommodate traffic concerns, were secured as part of the settlement with ratepayers. Business kid Derrick Fung feted by Forbes
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How Toronto business kid Derrick Fung created Tunezy and then sold it for seven figures. For this he is justly added to Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 list for music CITY News
Toronto prefers LRT over subways by 61% margin
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Leger poll asked about a Scarboro subway — and what it would cost. CITY News Leger news release
Fourth-hand smoke hides under the bed
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Just to make it clear, The South Bayview Bulldog doesn’t smoke, never has and doesn’t like the habit. But there is a limit to how much third-hand-smoke baloney we’ll consume. Now some people in Riverside, California have put mice in cages “exposed to third hand smoke” and found the poor creatures have suffered organ damage. It’s a little hard to follow but the suggestion seems to be that third hand smoke sticks to things and gets even nastier than it was, sort of like cranky old curmudgeons of the human type. Maybe, but unless homosapiens are about to start licking third-hand smoke off the furniture it seems like a lot of worry about not much. We’re waiting to hear that fourth-hand smoke hides under the bed and infects your underwear at night. You know. Could be a problem.
Low-family-income rural school scores high
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Further to the The Bulldog’s post reviewing the ranking of public schools in South Bayview, the CTV post linked below breaks out the better performing school across Toronto as a whole. It also contains comment by the Fraser Institute, which compiled the numbers about the performance of kids as a funtion of their family’s income. At Cottingham Public School on Birch Ave., which won the highest score of 10, family income is well in excess of $200,000 a year (as it is in most parts of South Bayview). But says the institute, at Langdon Public School in Fenelon Falls the pupils still achieved an 8.2 rating in a community where family average income is merely $19,000 a year. Remarkably good work. And flies in the face of a complaint from a group called People for Education which seems to say that the Fraser survey is elitist, (our word) measuring things like “university trained parents” and others metrics of affluence. CTV