Wildcat girls seem impressed with Mark Osborne at William Lea Room
Former Leaf winger Mark Osborne was receiving young fans in the William Lea room of the Leaside Arena Saturday afternoon. It was a nice added treat for the hundred of kids who were in and out of the arena today during the Toronto Leaside Wildcats March Madness. The competition ends Sunday about 5 p.m.
This BBC video shows breathtaking shots from the back of an eagle fitted with a camera. The bird, Darshan, soars above the Dubai sky, capturing stunning views of the world beneath his wings. This Imperial Eagle has broken a world record by flying from the top of the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. It was set up by conservation group Freedom Conservation, in order to raise awareness of the plight of the endangered bird of prey. Eagle-cam footage courtesy of Freedom Conservation.
Jennifer Smith, president, jumps in to score a game (inset) then hands out medals
When you have 2,200 girls on 140 teams playing hard-fought competitive hockey in a dozen Toronto arenas, it can get a bit hectic. You need a woman at the top who can do any job on a moment’s notice. So Saturday saw Toronto Leaside Wildcats president Jennifer Smith presiding over March Madness, the world largest girls hockey competition, by jumping in as scorekeeper at a bronze game and then hand out the medals at Leaside arena’s Bert F. Grant pad. “We give out medals for all categories of play. It’s pretty busy,” Smith says with a grin. It is her first year as director of the venerable March Madness competition, although she has been Wildcats president for four years. Her daughter plays and also referees in the weekend-long scene that has turned the Leaside Memorial Gardens Arena into a madhouse all its own. “Never have so many girls lugged so many enormous bags and enjoyed it so much,” one wag observed. Toronto Leaside Wildcats Association is a sanctioned hockey league under the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association. The Wildcats have been screaming down the ice for more than 40 years in Toronto. It germinated in Leaside with the first game ever being played at Leaside arena. March Madness marks its 36th year this weekend. From those earliest days it was clear there was real appeal for girls in this physically demanding and highly-social sport. Mothers and fathers took note. Toronto Leaside began to multiply teams, extending to other arenas and signing up kids from all over. There are players from East York, Beaches, North Toronto,. Lawrence Park, Forest Hill and many other neighborhoods. In total there are 1,400 girls from toddler-age to 17. March Madness is a signature event but not everyone plays competitively. The league has adult female teams that play for recreation only. Other kids play in the less competitive house league. About 375 play competitively and they are all on the ice at March Madness. The rules are similar to professional hockey although there is no body checking. If, for example, there is a tie in a playoff at March Madness the teams go to a “4 on 4” overtime. The best shooters battle it out for five minutes. Jennifer Smith told of such a tilt Saturday in which the Whitby Atom As and their Aurora counterparts had to settle it with a shootout. Three Annie Oakleys with a hockey stick from each side faced off. Both sides scored, but one scored twice. Thus the game ended Aurora 2, Whitby 1. Tough game to lose.
The Ontario government will auction licences to sell beer and wine in approximately 300 supermarkets with no single grocer allowed to buy more than a quarter of them (120) according to the Toronto Star. The LCBO will continue to control the sale of such products and will run the delivery of them to the supermarkets. Convenience stores are apparently still cut out of the beer and wine action. Other known specifics of the program raise a question or two about just who can get in on this.. If the three largest supermarkets — Loblaws, Metro and Sobeys buy a maximum it would leave 120 for others. But other ground rules may apply. The story suggests the government wants the food store outlets to be “fairly spread out to different companies” across Ontario. This addresses geographic issues but seems to leave the players undefined. The story is being credited to writer Martin Regg Cohn He says the Beer Store will now be required to pay an annual “franchise fee” of as much as $100 million and forced to open more shelf space to Ontario craft brewers.
March Madness page Cara is ready to play hockey
The National Post reports that an Indian bride walked out of her wedding ceremony after the groom failed to solve a simple math problem. The bride tested the groom on his math skills and when he got the sum wrong she decided he was not a good bet as a husband. .The question she asked: How much is 15 plus six? It is not recorded whether it took the man long to say 17 instead of 21 but his best shot would have been to claim he was distracted by his bride’s beauty. According to the Post, the incident took place late Wednesday in Rasoolabad village near the industrial town of Kanpur in northern Uttar Pradesh state, local police officer Rakesh Kumar said Friday. Neither is recorded whether this was an arranged marriage where those to be wed don’t know each other. Sort of sounds like it. The groom’s family is said to have tried persuading the bride to return, but she refused. She said the groom had misled them about his education. “The groom’s family kept us in the dark about his poor education,” said Mohar Singh, the bride’s father. “Even a first grader can answer this.” Police were called and arranged for the return of gifts on all sides.
Reckless endangerment as motorcyclist imperils shoppers in shopping mall
Police in Surrey, B.C. chased and nearly caught a dangerous biker before he headed inside the Guildford Shopping Mall and terrorized shoppers. The video was released by Live Leak and uploaded to YouTube on March 13. It cuts between police helicopter and cruiser footage and surveillance footage from inside the Guildford mall. Left above, this actor takes his bike down an escalator. In centre picture, two boys are about to leave the Walmart when (right) they see the biker bearing down on them. Video page
Oakville Hornet Cara Smith wears her team emblem and is ready to play at Leaside arena.
Hundreds of young women are playing their hearts out for their team this weekend at the Leaside Wildcats March Madness Tournament. Among them is Cara Smith, 9, sporting her team emblem and her number (also 9) on her face. Cara is with the Oakville Hornets and will no doubt help to rekindle the old rivalry between the Hornets and Leaside Wildcats. The tourney runs tomorrow and Sunday with an expected appearance Saturday by Natalie Spooner, former member of the Canadian Women’s National Team.
The design team, Joanna, Rick, Karen, Heather and Margaret, tweeted a wonderful photo of their arrangement on display at the 2015 Canada Blooms. This year’s theme is “Horsepower”. According to the Canada Blooms website, the festival was “founded in 1996 by the Garden Club of Toronto and Landscape Ontario. Today, it is the largest flower and garden festival in the country, celebrating the very best in Canadian gardening and floral design!”. Canada Blooms runs from March 13th-22nd, 2015 at the Direct Energy Centre in Exhibition Place.
Leaside Garden Society's entry at Canada Blooms has lots of Horsepower! pic.twitter.com/to8pSidvMg
— Leaside Gardeners (@LeasideGardener) March 12, 2015
Remarkable sequence sees his friends digging in avalanche snow in the hope that somehow they will find their Australian friend James Mort. This occurred in January at Les Crosets on the French-Swiss border.
See capacity figures for these bins at bottom of the post
The new cost of garbage bins in Toronto reminds us once again of the entire chain of trash creation from elaborate packaging to shoving it under the meadows of Ontario. Ugh! Toronto is still burying garbage in landfill, a doubtful act which many would call an abuse of the fertile soil. A lot of people on the staff at City Hall think we should be moving to Energy from Waste, the well-proven and safe system now at work in Durham Region. At home, it seems we can use a smaller bin to the save taxes. It’s up to you. The new higher prices set in this week’s budget are shown in the image above. The sizes need a capacity figure so here they are: Small hold 75 litres, medium 120 litres, large 240 litres and extra large 360 litres
