Former Alliance president Robert Lantos and former president of CBS/Tri-Star Pictures/Sony Pictures Jeff Sagansky have invested millions in TV production company Blueprint Entertainment in order to create better Canadian television. Lantos explains, "The strategy is simple: to design TV shows that from the ground floor are genuinely Canadian...[and] whose first sale is to a network in the U.S. In the States, they perceive these shows as being domestic, so they are able to be......

Development of Maple Leaf Gardens has been in limbo for several years, but it finally looks like things are about to get moving. The 75-year old building, having been vacated by the friendly neighbourhood hockey club in 1999, was purchased by Loblaws in 2004. According to a report in yesterday’s Star, the company is ready to begin a cleanup of the Gardens starting this summer, after which they will begin transforming the interior into......

For the long-suffering fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the year 1967 has become synonymous with past glories and forty years of failure. On Saturday night, the surviving members of the last Leaf team to win the Stanley Cup were reunited at the Air Canada Centre for the first time since that storied championship. An Alex Trebek-narrated video tribute began the proceedings, in what turned out to be a relatively simple, modest, and perhaps......

Former Toronto police chief and current OPP commissioner Julian Fantino is being sued for allegedly using a Police Services board case to maliciously advance his own career. The suit accuses Fantino of multiple skullduggeries, including wiretapping the chair of the Police Services Board. Now, I know what you're thinking - "but Julian Fantino was such a nice police chief. Except for the corruption scandals and the racial profiling and the homophobia." TTC considering leasing out......

A couple of Sunday night events to kick-off or end your week, depending on how you see it. Gypsy Eyes, who is all over the place this week, hosts Last Call Poets at the Cadillac Lounge – 1296 Queen W. – tonight at 8pm. Admission is $7. Depending on how long Last Call Poets runs, you may be able to make it over to the Gladstone – 1214 Queen W. – for Haunted Fishtank poetry......

More than 1,000 friends and family came out to support a departing Chief Fantino last night, bestowing him with honours and friendship bracelets. Okay, we lied about the friendship bracelets. But reading of the speeches tossed off by Fantino fans, TOist discovers not insight about the chief himself, but insight about Mel Lastman's work ethic. To wit: Former Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman said Fantino was a tireless fighter for the city, pointing to the chief's......