Torontoist » “Detroit Red Wings”

KAMP: Horrors at the Hands of Humans

Carly Maga — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:30:28 +0000

Three puppet masters portray a day in the life of Auschwitz through a detailed miniature construction of the grounds and thousands of tiny handmade puppets.

When telling the story of the Holocaust, one effective way to overcome our sheer inability to comprehend the scope and scale of such atrocities is to zoom in on one or two stories: share one particular experience, in all its brutal specificity, and we have at least a small way into the event—the small details illuminate the larger whole.

One theatre company from the Netherlands, Hotel Modern, takes a related approach in KAMP (CAMP). The production depicts a typical day at the Auschwitz concentration camp, but instead of zooming in into a closeup, it shrinks everything down, literally, into miniature. It’s the accumulation of thousands of small details that has the impact in this case.

Ontario Bike Summit Aims to Change the Conversation on Cycling

Chris Dart — Fri, 24 May 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Bike Summit organizers say that drivers and cyclists are often the same people.

Eleanor McMahon thinks it’s time to change the conversation around cycling in Ontario.

McMahon is the founder of the Share the Road Cycling Coalition, who will be hosting the fifth annual Ontario Bike Summit this week in Toronto. She says that we need to stop talking about things like bike lanes and other bicycle infrastructure as a zero sum game between cars and bikes.

“We do polling, and our polling tells us that 89 per cent of Ontarians are both drivers and cyclists,” she says. “The notion that it’s cars versus bikes is overblown, and it’s really not working anymore. Deciding to change the conversation means going out of our way to poke holes in that idea and say from the get go ‘We don’t buy into that philosophy, and just because you say it, doesn’t make it true.’ ”

Maple Leafs to Play in Winter Classic

Jamie Bradburn — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:58:52 +0000

Diehard hockey fans to celebrate the arrival of 2013 at an outdoor game near Detroit.

The first NHL Winter Classic in 2008, held at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, NY. Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/canyonero/2159451754/"}canyonero{/a} via Flickr.

The National Hockey League confirmed during a press conference this morning that the Toronto Maple Leafs will play the Detroit Red Wings in the next Winter Classic game, scheduled for January 1, 2013. As rumours over the past month have indicated, the match will be held at Michigan Stadium (aka “The Big House”) in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 50 kilometres west of Motown. The game will likely set a new NHL attendance record, thanks to the stadium’s capacity of nearly 110,000. Tie-in activities, such as the alumni game, a relocated Great Lakes Invitational tournament, and a match involving the Marlies will be held during a week-long “Hockeytown Winter Festival” at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit.

It seems appropriate that the league would choose two of the Original Six teams to play in the sixth edition of the Winter Classic. The rivalry between the Leafs and Wings stretches back to 1927, when both teams had different nicknames (the St. Patricks and the Cougars) and Detroit played their home games across the border in Windsor. With the game only a five-hour drive from Toronto, we suspect a sizeable contingent of Leafs fans will make the westward trek along Highway 401 to a university town used to seeing sports nuts wandering its streets clad in maize and blue.

Weather To Get Hot, iTunes To Get Movies, Hillary To Get Real

Patrick Metzger — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:15:00 +0000

Environment Canada says it’s going to be a hot, sweaty, sticky, sexy summer, perfect for rocking that thong at the beach or just sitting on a fire escape playing saxophone in your undershirt.
According to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the Feds want to convince GM to build a new car in Oshawa, and are willing to drop big bucks to do it. Flaherty is offering to give GM money from the Automotive Innovation Fund to design a car that people might actually want.
Get ready to miss your subway stop—Apple is finally introducing movies to the Canadian iTunes store. Since Torontoist normally doesn’t shill for corporate product launches unless we’re pissed off about something,“WHY DID IT TAKE SO LONG, STUPID APPLE!!!???” That OK for everybody?
Statistics Canada says that 68.4% of Canadians are homeowners—the highest proportion ever. More accurately, 68.4% of Canadians are mortgage holders, and the banks own more homes than ever before.
In the US Democratic primaries, word is that Hillary Clinton will “express support” for apparent nominee Barack Obama this Saturday. Clinton has spent most of the week in a hotel room alternately banging her head on the wall and trying to submit articles to Wikipedia about the American tradition of the “co-President.”
And Detroit beat Pittsburgh 3–2 to win the Stanley Cup, and now match Toronto with eleven Cups over their franchise history. Took ‘em 41 years to catch up, though.
Photo by alexander taves from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Won’t the Real Maple Leafs Please Stand Up?

Stephen Johns — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 22:30:33 +0000

It’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times for the Toronto Maple Leafs; in fact, the past couple weeks have been nothing short of surreal. First, the best of times: wins against the high-flying Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens, followed by a thoroughly unexpected Hockey Day in Canada victory over the league-leading Detroit Red Wings, have given the team a boost. Injured players are getting healthy. The return of the much-maligned Bryan McCabe has apparently galvanized the team’s defensive corps, not to mention relegated Andy “The Cause” Wozniewski to the Toronto Marlies. Mats Sundin, meanwhile, who turns thirty-seven years old today, has fifty-eight points in fifty-seven games—not bad for a guy with a “career-threatening” injury (we’ll never tire of using it against you, Steve Simmons!).
As for the worst of times: while some might argue the last forty-one years have been “the worst of times” for the Maple Leafs, last week’s 8-0 loss (at home, no less) to the Florida Panthers made us feel as bad as we’ve ever felt as sports fans. It didn’t help that we were in attendance, taking in the massacre from start-to-finish high up in Section 309. Yet while we’ve grown distressingly used to blowouts—this season alone, for instance, Toronto has lost by four or more goals eight times—the loss against Florida was particularly bothersome given the team’s utter lack of effort. At 4-0, it looked like the Leafs simply gave up. Poor Andrew Raycroft, booed from the second he set foot on the ice, was hung out to dry on goals 5-8; by the time the game was over the fans who stuck around were vociferously chanting, “Let’s go Panthers!” It was a humiliating night for all concerned (apart from the Panthers, obviously, many of whom padded their stats quite nicely) and demonstrated how far the Maple Leafs still are from respectability.
So which is the real Toronto Maple Leafs: the team that beat two of the league’s top-three teams on consecutive Saturdays, or the one who got shellacked by 23rd overall Florida? While much of the evidence would indicate it’s the latter, the recent spate of good performances has reignited talk of a late-season push towards the playoffs. At least one thing’s clear: after spending much of his tenure with the team in limbo, erstwhile general manager John Ferguson, Jr. has finally found stability in the form of an analyst gig with TSN…which includes a starring role with the network’s trade deadline coverage. The irony should eventually crush you to death.
Photo by Stephen Johns.

Randy Moss, Drop ‘Em for These Three

Adrian the Adorable Sports Writer — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 18:59:01 +0000

Peyton Manning, Doug Brien, Joshua Errett. All three neglected to show up while their reputations were on the line. All three were faced with daunting tasks and failed to come through when their teams put the game in their hands. All three possibly solidified their place in sporting history, not for triumph, but collapse.
Reigning back-to-back MVP Peyton Manning completed another kind of back-to-back accomplishment Sunday afternoon. With fifty-three touchdowns going into yesterday’s game, Manning fell to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots for the second straight year, managing to score merely three points on the day. The echo of last year is imminent. In what was dubbed a “career defining” game, it was Brady who instead may have stamped his legend on football folklore. The two-time Superbowl MVP outplayed the storied Manning for the second straight season. If the Patriots proceed to win their third championship in four years, they will forever be recognized as one of their sport’s greatest franchises, leaving the public to once again question Peyton’s accomplishments.
In the other AFC Divisional Game, it was one man’s foot that determined the makeup of next week’s Championship game. New York Jets kicker Doug Brien missed two field goals in the dying minutes of Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. In what was sure to be an unprecedented upset, Brien’s futility allowed the 15-1 Steelers to squeeze into overtime, where it was only fitting that their kicker – Jeff Reed – win the game doing what his opponent found so tough to accomplish. The Steelers now prepare to host the defending champions this coming Sunday.
Torontoist co-editor Joshua Errett also felt the cold hand of defeat this past Saturday night and, in doing so, purged himself of an additional twenty dollars. In what was seen as an utter collapse, Errett’s Chicago Blackhawks blew a 3-1 series lead, only to be shutout by the Detroit Redwings in the Sega Genesis best-of-seven decider. It was Errett’s second attempt of the evening to de-thrown NHL’95 Supreme Grand Master Adrian Ercolani. The one-time Microplay EASports NHL’95 champion found little trouble in beating Ed Belfour and retaining his title. Rumor has it that Errett will be spending the week panhandling to finance his addiction. Do not expect a Mixtape this Wednesday, as he will probably be busy mastering the three button controller.