The South Bayview Bulldog

The notion that Canada might actually perform well enough in World Cup play to win, is utterly alien. And yet, and yet. The astonishing talent of a young man from Edmonton is being revealed on the soccer pitch. And his personal story is equally amazing.

Rod Black leaves TSN

Long-time football, basketball and figure skating commentator Rod Black is leaving Bell Media. It isn’t exactly clear why. Toronto Sun

Chilling bow and arrow killer a terrorist

A woman has been critically hurt when she was hit by a truck on eastbound Highway 401 near Yonge St Thursday afternoon. OPP say she apparently walked onto the highway. Her purpose in making this dangerous decision is unknown. No car or other vehicle has been found.

There’s excitement about the US reopening its border to Canadians in November. But the devil is in the unknown details of tests when you come home plus the price and genuine value of insurance if you get stuck stateside.

SERRA, the South Eglinton Ratepayers and Residents Association, is sounding a battle-cry in the developing struggle to save the low-rise Davisville neighbourhood between Mt Pleasant and Bayview Ave. A City Community Consultation meeting next Monday (October 18) will acquaint homeowners with efforts to deny approval of a 23-storey tower on the southeast corner of Eglinton East and Hoyle Ave. As the SERRA news release suggests, the entire area faces the prospect of development similar to the canyons being built west of Mt. Pleasant. Join the Community Consultation

• Hi-rise craze spawns ad to sell Mann Ave corner for a tower

The Maple Leafs have defeated Montreal 2-1 before a near-capacity crowd at Scotiabank Arena Wednesday night. Immediately before the game, the team announced a one-year deal with TikTok to place the video platform’s logo on their helmets. Toronto Sun

Work has begun at Rosedale Subway Station on Yonge St. to install an elevator. The venerable Line 1 station will also get better signs and CCTV. The full job will be finished in 2024. Rosedale Station opened in 1954.

Lungs for transplant have been whisked by drone from Toronto Western to Toronto General Hospital in a mere six minutes. Best use of a drone ever.

Who has mandate to speak for homeless?

Some 2,500 of Toronto’s homeless are in leased hotels like the former Roehampton at 808 Mt. Pleasant. The Toronto Star is asking what will happen when the leases expire. At the same time, a body called the Shelter Housing Justice Network is demanding that the City open up parks to encampments. The Facebook picture above shows an apparently homeless and disoriented man rolling around on the pavement at Yonge St and Eglinton Ave Tuesday. Among other things, he was shouting “nobody cares.”

US to allow Canadians back beginning in November

The long-since decommissioned City of Toronto incinerator known as the Wellington Destructor is about to be renovated into a new community hub says a news release. The real estate development company TAS has been chosen and has been given a long-term lease. The Destructor was commissioned in 1925. It’s at 667 Wellington St West.

SERRA, the South Eglinton Ratepayers and Residents Association, will meet online Wednesday evening with participants of a community consultation starting at 6.30 p.m. Recent indication that City staff is wavering on the specifications presented by the people-based Midtown Working Group has given urgency to the meeting. SERRA is urging you to join the meeting tonight.

You see them too but The Bulldog has a mania for such things. At upper left, the animated GIF was tweeted by Leaside High School to celebrate a two-day week. Things must slow in the office too. Then there’s the strange story of President’s Choice Tomato Soup. It vanished six months ago and most of the signs for it are gone too. But wait. The secret Loblaws code DNO means that the soup may yet come back. Want to bet? At centre left is a suspiciously Communist sign hung on Roxborough Ave. Looks like the crowd at the 1917-Russian-revolution phone number see an opening in the Indigenous media stories. At the bottom, you can watch the Danny Thomas Show (1953) on CHCH. Or maybe not. Finally, there are suggestions that authorities put a bike rental station at each end of the seemingly endless tunnel in the new bus station at Union Station. Pedestrians are shuddering. We love our oddities.

We’ve become used to all sorts of Korean imports. They range from Hyundais to clean-cut girl and boy K-pop bands. But Squid Game is different.

Nobel nod to Canadian economist

A Canadian economist, David Card, has shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with two US colleagues. His thesis, as we the laymen at The Bulldog understand it, is that corporations really don’t suffer all that much when the minimum wage is increased. As seen in the comments to this CBC report, some people feel a little underwhelmed by this insight.

Man held in New York after girl grabbed off street

The video in this report is just very frightening. An unkempt man lurches towards a grandmother escorting three kids and runs off with a little girl.