U.S. star Caeleb Dressel reacts after winning the gold medal and breaking the Olympic record in the men's 50 meter freestyle final at the Tokyo Olympics. Al Bello/Getty Images
Al Bello/Getty Images
TOKYO — U.S. star sprinter Caeleb Dressel is on a hot streak. He added two gold medals to his haul from the Tokyo Olympics, departing the Games with five golds.
Dressel and his teammates Ryan Murphy, Michael Andrew and Zach Apple set a world record in the 4x100 meter medley relay.
Earlier today, Dressel touched the wall first in the 50 meter freestyle, setting an Olympic record in the shortest and fastest swimming distance with a time of 21.07.
The 50 meter free is a mad sprint — just one length of the pool. Swimmers don't even take a breath the entire way. Dressel exploded off the blocks and touched the wall first — nearly a half second before his closest competitor.
It's been an astonishingly successful Games for the 24-year-old from Florida, who came into it with a world record but no previous individual Olympic medals.
He also won individual gold in the 100 meter freestyle and the 100 meter butterfly, breaking his own world record. Earlier in the Games, he led off the gold-medal-winning team in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay.
Some 145 firefighters have been mobilised to extinguish fire near Patras, Greece’s third-largest city.
About a dozen homes burned and five people were hospitalised with breathing problems as firefighters fought a forest fire near Patras, Greece’s third-largest city, authorities said.
Some 145 firefighters, 50 trucks, eight firefighting planes and helicopters have been mobilised to extinguish the fire in the Zeria region in the Peloponnese, about 210km (124 miles) west of Athens, the firefighting service said on Saturday.
The authorities evacuated people from four villages in the region as well as from the tourist resort of Loggos on the coast.
About a dozen homes burned and five people experiencing breathing problems were transported to hospitals in the region, the civil protection authority said.
Firefighters told The Associated Press news agency that the fire was large and advancing on multiple fronts, although winds had abated somewhat.
Greece is hit by forest fires every summer, but experts have warned that global warming increases their frequency and intensity [Andreas Alexopoulos/AP]
Hospitals in Patras and the neighbouring city of Aigio had been put on notice to admit any injured people, while the coastguard has been on standby to rescue any swimmers overcome by smoke.
The Greek press agency ANA said the highway between the Peloponnese and continental Greece had been closed.
Greece is hit by forest fires every summer, but experts have warned that global warming increases their frequency and intensity.
Greece has been in the grip of another heatwave since Friday, with temperatures hovering between 42 and 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), weather forecasters say.
Several days ago, a fire ravaged Mount Penteli, close to the capital Athens, but caused no casualties.
It was the same area where a fire in July 2018 went on to kill 102 people in Greece’s worst-ever toll from a forest inferno.
The wildfire near Lampiri village, west of Patras, started high up on a mountain slope but has moved dangerously close to seaside towns [Andreas Alexopoulos/AP]
A total of 56 wildfires have broken out in the past 24 hours in Greece, aided by a combination of dry weather, a heatwave and strong winds. Most were put out at an early stage, Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis said.
The heatwave is expected to peak Monday, with temperatures inland ranging from 42 to 46 degrees Celsius (107.6 to 114.8 Fahrenheit).
Temperatures will remain at 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) or above in much of Greece until at least Friday, meteorologists say.
In neighbouring Turkey, the death toll from wildfires raging in Turkey’s Mediterranean towns rose to six on Saturday after two forest workers were killed, the country’s health minister said.
Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests and some settlements, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and forcing people to evacuate.
Apoorv Sinha, centre, CEO of Carbon Upcycling, carries a piece of equipment at the company's facility in Calgary, Alta., Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
Jeff McIntosh/The Globe and Mail
A semi-trailer is idling just outside Enmax Corp.’s Shepard gas-fired power plant on Calgary’s eastern outskirts, and it is loaded with a grey granular substance that’s become Apoorv Sinha’s life’s work.
Mr. Sinha’s startup, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, has invited business partners and government officials to have a look at the reaction vessel that yielded the powder from the plant’s waste carbon dioxide, and then watch the 40-tonne load trundle away to a concrete batch plant in Edmonton.
His team manufactured the additive from the greenhouse gas that otherwise would have been emitted into the sky. Lafarge Canada will add the powder to its concrete mix in place of some of the portland cement it normally uses, and lower emissions from making its own products.
“There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way, but to really make the impact that we’re striving for we’ve got to change behaviour. The aspiration here is that we start with this Western Canadian business unit, then Lafarge all across the world starts to change how they do business,” said Mr. Sinha, a 31-year-old entrepreneur who has been Calgary-based Carbon Upcycling’s chief executive officer since the technology was first proven in a reactor the size of a cookie tin six years ago.
Carbon Upcycling is in a fast-growing segment of the Canadian cleantech sector focused on manufacturing useful products and providing innovative services by tapping into the massive volumes of CO2 captured from all kinds of energy and industrial processes to reduce the impact on climate.
A spate of technological developments in the fields of chemicals, manufacturing and agriculture has caught the attention of environmentalists, scientists and venture capitalists alike, as companies tout new uses for the heat-trapping gas that would otherwise be spewed into the atmosphere, injected underground or used to boost oil production.
Of course, there is also a phalanx of environmentalists who are wary of carbon capture, saying the practice will prolong the use of fossil fuels, which they contend must end for the world to get to net-zero emissions.
Even so, the business opportunity looks huge. The U.S.-based Global CO2 Initiative has estimated the market will be worth as much as US$800-billion a year by 2030, and Canadian entrepreneurs and scientists are already making their mark.
In April, another company focused on lowering concrete’s carbon intensity, Halifax’s CarbonCure Technologies Inc., won part of the US$20-million Carbon XPRIZE, a nearly five-year competition sponsored by Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance and U.S. power company NRG Energy Inc. The next phase of the technological race has a US$100-million purse, and is sponsored by Tesla Inc. founder Elon Musk and his foundation.
Other major tech players, including Canadian e-commerce giant Shopify Inc., have dedicated funds to find solutions to the carbon conundrum.
The trick for developers will be proving they can scale up and commercialize their innovations – sell them in industrial and consumer markets at a profit – so they will attract investors and make a real difference in the fight to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Here are five emerging Canadian companies with carbon utilization technologies that could be on the verge of major market breakthroughs.
Carbonova Corp.
Calgary
Dr. Pedro Pereira Almao, right, and Dr. Mina Zarabian, co-founders of Carbonova, pose in front of the company's technology at their lab in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, July 22, 2021. Jeff McIntosh for The Globe and Mail
Jeff McIntosh/The Globe and Mail
Under an electron microscope, the carbon nanofibres Carbonova produces at its lab at the University of Calgary look like tangles of ramen noodles. To the naked eye, they are a black powder, one that stands to revolutionize everything from construction materials to car parts to electronics because of an unusual combination of strength and light weight.
Carbonova’s secret lies in the science of how it produces the material from carbon dioxide and an even more potent greenhouse gas, methane, using two catalysts to trigger chemical reactions. It is the brainchild of CEO Mina Zarabian and chief technology officer Pedro Pereira Almao.
When the pair, experts in catalyst research, developed the process that spit out the material in 2016, they were elated. But celebration was tempered somewhat by skepticism among other chemical engineers, used to coke being the cheap byproduct of such a reaction, not a sought-after material used in the most advanced manufacturing, Ms. Zarabian said.
“Although it looks the same – it’s black and under analytical equipment it says it’s carbon – when you put it under a microscope, you see it’s a different type of carbon. Carbon can be formed in many different ways,” she said.
The energy-saving process and its potential have caught the attention of investors, including well-known names in Canada’s oil patch: Pat Carlson, former CEO of Seven Generations Energy Ltd., and Perpetual Energy Inc. CEO Sue Riddell Rose. Carbonova fields frequent calls from large CO2 emitters.
The real test, however, will be producing enough of the product for global markets, and at a low-enough cost, to realize its benefits.
“You can use it for so many things. The reason we cannot use it at this point is that it’s too expensive,” Dr. Pereira, who is also a professor at the university, said during a tour of the research facility. “So we’re going to make it less expensive but also available for everybody, while we reduce, considerably, the environmental impact – the process for producing carbon nanofibres.”
Carbon nanofibre is prized for strength and versatility. They are 40 times stronger than steel and a quarter of its weight. The material can be used in paints, electronic components, metal and plastics. It is also more electrically conductive than copper.
Today, global production of carbon nanofibre and nanotubes, at less than 5,000 tonnes a year, is dwarfed by carbon black, at 14 million tonnes, and standard carbon fibre, at 150,000 tonnes.
Carbonova is now scaling up, having recently completed a $2-million financing round. It is also part of a Canada-U.S.-European consortium that will study the development of products for the building and automotive sectors over the next three years, on behalf of a multinational company in the construction sector looking to reduce its carbon intensity.
Its customer’s tests have yielded positive results, but it wants more volume. Now, Carbonova is building a reactor it describes as “semi-commercial’ in scale that will yield 150 times more than the bench prototype.
Once the pilot proves itself, the goal is to build modular plants at a cost of $20-million to $30-million each that can produce thousands of tonnes a year. The plants will be designed for sites where there are emissions to tap and proximity to end users of the carbon nanofibres, Ms. Zarabian said.
The founders hope to keep the company and its intellectual property in Canada, especially the West, but Ms. Zarabian is cognizant of how difficult that can be as a startup tries to scale up, a frequent worry in Canadian tech. “Business sometimes is a race,” she said.
CO2 Gro Inc.
Toronto
CO2 GRO's Corporate Development Manager, Dil Vashi, at the commissioning of a CO2 Delivery Solutions feasibility system with Prism Farms in Leamington, Ontario. HANDOUT
Handout
CO2 Gro Inc. has been on a long road with its technology for improving the use of greenhouse gas in greenhouses. The founders’ initial plan more than a decade ago was to capitalize on keen interest in algae for biofuels. It had success in the lab at the National Research Council Canada in Halifax, and launched an initial public offering.
As oil prices surged to US$147 a barrel in 2008, algae was seen as the next big thing. Then crude fell back to earth during the financial crisis, and the buzz died down. Algae no longer looked like a viable business, but the plant-growth technology would prove versatile.
Canada’s legalization of marijuana in 2018 was the start of CO2 Gro’s second act.
Pumping CO2 into greenhouses has long been known to increase plant growth by as much as 30 per cent, but the process is inefficient, and during hot months the gas gets vented into the atmosphere. CO2 Gro’s technology involves infusing water with CO2, but in a way that does not yield club soda. The solution is misted onto plants in short bursts, improving the efficiency of the process.
The pot industry quickly became a top market, and now CO2 Gro has sold its misting systems to eight licensed cannabis operations. It is also concentrating on other crops grown in protected structures, including peppers and berries – those with large enough leaves for the technology to be effective.
“The use of carbon in most cases has not been a very precise thing. People burn fuels to make carbon, they do all sorts of things to get the CO2 for the carbon, and in most cases it’s lost,” said John Archibald, CO2 Gro’s CEO.
To pump the gas into a 100,000-square-foot greenhouse, an operator may have to inject up to a million cubic feet of CO2, he explains. In many cases, as much as 90 per cent of that then gets emitted.
“What we do is put the CO2 into the water at a specific solution rate, and put it onto the leaves in a mist so the leaves basically uptake nearly all of the carbon that we give them. So we use about 5 per cent of the carbon that somebody would if they were gassing,” he said.
The technology has also proven itself in another important way: It reduces the need for herbicides, because the solution alters the pH level on the surface areas of the leaves, allowing the plants to resist pathogens such as E. coli, mould and powdery mildew, a common problem for cannabis producers.
“So a lot of folks look to us for the natural pesticide that comes part and parcel with putting on mildly acidic water loaded with saturated CO2 molecules,” said Sam Kanes, the company’s vice-president of market research.
CO2 Gro has 10 staff, and uses a global network of independent sales representatives to market its delivery systems. Its largest shareholder is U.S.-based private equity firm Ospraie Ag Science LLC.
In the past year, CO2 Gro has signed several deals with companies around the world to determine the commercial viability of the technology in their operations. They grow crops such as lettuce, strawberries and peppers, as well as orchids and roses.
“We are seeing an average of 30-per-cent crop increases, and to generate those crop increases we’re only adding about 5 per cent of the CO2 to the atmosphere,” Mr. Archibald said. “In a world that is experiencing food stresses to feed populations, particularly in the emerging economies that’s an important gain. We can’t work with wheat and we can’t work with rice, but we can make a significant contributions at the margin.”
CleanO2 Carbon Capture Technologies Inc.
Calgary
Jaeson Cardiff, left, CEO of Clean02, explains his CARBiN-X technology that uses a chemical process to convert CO2 captured from heating system exhaust into a stable carbonate used in soaps and detergents, at the company's facility in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, July 22, 2021.
Jeff McIntosh/The Globe and Mail
Jaeson Cardiff is a plumber and gas fitter by trade who started his company, CleanO2, developing technology to strip carbon dioxide from furnaces. Now he is marketing soap with natural ingredients to some of Canada’s best-known retailers.
The two go hand in hand. The reaction unit Mr. Cardiff invented removes carbon from the flue exhaust of commercial boilers, and using heat, the reactor produces potassium carbonate. The company mixes the white, powdery substance into its lines of soaps and cleaners, with benefits similar to a water softener.
The soap started as a novel marketing tool, but that changed quickly, as the company realized retailers and consumers liked the products.
“I had multiple conversations with Kathi Fischer, our chief science officer, saying something to the effect of, ‘We’re never going to be a soap company. I don’t want to be a soap company. We’re a carbon capture company. We will not make soap,’” Mr. Cardiff said. “Now we’re making soap.”
The liquid hand soap and body bars have names such as Wilderness Lager, Spearmint & Clay and Mulled Merlot, and the company produces car wash detergent.
“You’d have to be fools not to notice attraction of a product made from carbon that was sequestered from a heating appliance. And you have to be even bigger fools not to modify your business strategy to incorporate that,” he said in CleanO2′s fragrant East Calgary office and manufacturing centre.
Besides removing CO2, the reaction unit, called CARBiN-X, also provides more efficiency to buildings by generating its own heat that can be used for water. A single unit, which is about the size of a couple of refrigerators side by side, removes six to eight tonnes of carbon per year.
Yuji Ihara, Clean02's project manager for domestic and foreign markets, cuts soap bars made from technology that uses a chemical process to convert CO2 captured from heating system exhaust into a stable carbonate used in soaps and detergents, at the company's facility in Calgary, Alta., Thursday, July 22, 2021.
Jeff McIntosh/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Cardiff developed the first units 15 years ago for home use. The technology worked, but the business didn’t. The breakthrough came with the decision by the founders to increase the size of the reactors for commercial operations, such as businesses and hotels, and make a viable product with the residue.
CleanO2 has carbon capture units set up at sites across Canada, as well as locations in United States and Japan. Eventually, it plans to set up soap manufacturing at those sites as well, partly to reduce the CO2 emitted during shipping.
One hotel in Minneapolis uses CleanO2′s technology to scrub the carbon from its furnace, and puts the soap products in its rooms, effectively closing the CO2 loop.
Canadian Tire, Sobeys and Safeway, as well as Walmart’s Canadian e-commerce site, are among retailers that already carry CleanO2′s soaps. Power companies such as Fortis BC and Atco Ltd. also purchase the products. CleanO2 is just at the start of an expansion that will see it go from shipping 5,000 units to 100,000 units over the next three months.
Now, Mr. Cardiff says he expects the company to be financially self-sustaining in the next two to three months.
Hyperion Global Energy Corp.
Ottawa
Heather Ward, Co-Founder & President Hyperion Global Energy at Bayview Yards Innovation Centre in Ottawa, on Wednesday, July 28, 2021.
Justin Tang/The Globe and Mail
Hyperion Global Energy is creating what it calls the world’s first carbon recycling business, using an energy-efficient process to remove CO2 from smokestacks in a host of industries and turning it into minerals that can be used in everything from green building materials to pharmaceuticals.
The company’s strategy involves packing all of its gear needed to run the process into shipping containers, and setting them up at mining, energy and manufacturing facilities that emit greenhouse gases. The host producer needs to make no capital expenditures.
Hyperion then aims to supply a US$44-billion global market for the resulting materials, such as calcium carbonate. In some cases, manufacturers generating the CO2 will then be able to buy the minerals back to make their products.
“We have an energy-efficient process and life cycle, right from the inputs to the offtake that we create,” said Heather Ward, Hyperion’s co-founder and president. “This is plug-and-play technology, a drop-in unit that does not require new construction at the site.”
The minerals are non-toxic and Hyperion can adjust the purity based on what customers need for their own products, which could be concrete, paper, plastics or fertilizers. The process creates two tonnes of minerals for every tonne of CO2 processed, and the material can sell for US$500 to US$2,200 a tonne, according to Hyperion.
The company’s journey began five years ago, when Ms. Ward teamed up with Jerry Flynn, who developed the technology, which they call the Tandem Carbon Recycling System. Earlier this year, they joined forces with Luke Tucker, a military special operations veteran who is Hyperion’s CEO.
It’s a pivotal year for the company, which operates in Ottawa’s Bayview Yards innovation centre. Hyperion was a semifinalist in the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, proving with its prototype that it was able to process a tonne of CO2 a week. Hyperion is now pushing that up to one tonne a day as it builds a pilot system. Later this year, it will work with industrial customers in a path to 20 tonnes a day and beyond.
Meanwhile, it received $100,000 in seed funding from Crown-owned Sustainable Technology Development Canada, secured close to $1-million through Ottawa-based Capital Angel Network and won a $770,000 grant from the Natural Gas Innovation Fund. Hyperion also scored funding from Norway’s Equinor & Techstars Energy Accelerator.
Ms. Ward said the money to develop the technology has allowed Hyperion to hit its stride just as global investment in carbon utilization is reaching a tipping point.
“Once we have our commercial system running at a plant, the world will be our oyster. We’ll have proven the technology at an industrial demonstration,” she said.
Carbon Upcycling Technologies
Calgary
Apoorv Sinha, CEO of Carbon Upcycling, speaks to dignitaries touring his company's facility in Calgary, Alta., Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
Jeff McIntosh/The Globe and Mail
Apoorv Sinha is adamant that cleantech companies must show ability to scale up and commercialize their technology, or the industry will face another burst bubble and frustrated investors.
“A lot of it boils down to, not only execution, but looking at some of the really tough parts around making innovation real, which is talking to customers, making sure that what you are doing actually solves the problem, making sure you are making their lives easier, not tougher, and taking all of that into account when you design your product,” he said.
He believes company he co-founded, Carbon Upcycling, is close to proving itself in that realm with a new memorandum of understanding with a global concrete manufacturer LafargeHolcim to use the startup’s unique carbon-based material in its products.
Carbon Upcycling, a finalist in the Carbon XPRIZE, has nine employees plus contract staff, but Mr. Sinha says that number will increase quickly.
“You compare that to like 70,000 for Holcim, and the reason they’re showing interest is because of the significance this has strategically for them,” Mr. Sinha said at his company’s demonstration facility at the Shepard power plant.
“It’s really a way for us to punch above our weight, and this company is going to have to go to a few hundred employees in the next couple of years if we’re going to make the type of impact that we want.”
Concrete manufacturing is a major source of greenhouse gases, accounting for about 7 per cent of global CO2 emissions. Hence the industry’s keen interest in seeking breakthrough technology.
Carbon Upcycling’s additive, a supplementary cementitious material, or SCM, can be used to reduce the carbon intensity of concrete, but it can also be an ingredient in plastics, anti-corrosion coatings and a range of consumer products.
The environmental benefit is twofold: First, the company takes the carbon-based fly ash from the generating station and injects CO2 from the plant stacks into the material in its reactor, which is slightly smaller than a city bus. The additive also makes concrete stronger, and reduces its carbon footprint by 25 per cent.
Carbon Upcycling got its start in 2014, when Emissions Reduction Alberta held a competition for technology to convert emissions into products. Mr. Sinha worked with professors at universities in Calgary, Waterloo and Toronto, who helped prove the company’s prototype reactor could be replicated and scaled up.
Four years later, the company fielded calls from the likes of Burnco and TransAlta Corp. in Canada, and LafargeHolcim, asking if the materials could be used in the construction industry. Its relationship with Lafarge Canada grew as Carbon Upcycling entered the XPRIZE competition. It also joined the multinational building products company’s accelerator program in France.
“The scale-up exercise was because of XPRIZE and their deadlines. But really we could never justify it, quite frankly, for just a science competition. They don’t look at market traction, they don’t look at economics, they just look at scale up,” Mr. Sinha said. “What we wanted to make sure was, as a company, we’re actually doing something commercial.”
Jeffrey Jones writes about sustainable finance and the ESG sector for The Globe and Mail. E-mail him atjeffjones@globeandmail.com. Interested in more stories about climate change innovation? Sign up for theGlobe Climate newsletter.
More than five years after a fire gutted a multi-family apartment and commercial building in White Rock’s Five Corners neighbourhood, RCMP say they’ve made arrests.
The massive fire, which consumed a building under construction and an occupied apartment building at 15210 Pacific Avenue, was one of several suspected arsons in the community in May, 2016.
The fire displaced more than 110 residents along with several businesses.
On Friday, White Rock RCMP said two men, one from the “local area” and one from outside the Lower Mainland, were arrested on July 6 for arson, break and enter and theft.
Both have been released while Crown prosecutors consider charges.
Police said the lengthy investigation included the involvement of approximately 120 police and civilian witnesses.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – The Marshall men's golf team had five players honored as All-American Scholar athletes by the Golf Coaches Association of America (GCAA), the organization announced Friday.
Earning the awards were redshirt seniors Matt Hoffman and Cameron Root, senior Brad Plaziak, junior Kyle Mitchell and sophomore Tyler Jones. Root, Plaziak and Mitchell are repeat winners, garnering the honors in 2020. Hoffman and Jones were named for the first time in their careers.
"It is great to have 5 players receive All-America Scholar awards," head coach Matt Grobe said. "Cameron, Brad, and Kyle all repeated the award and that shows how consistent they have been in their careers both on the course and in the classroom. Tyler has had a great first two years at Marshall and this is yet another award to show his dedication to golf and academics. Matt had set this award as his goal several years ago and I am so happy for him that he was able to achieve it in his final year with us. These guys have really been leaders for us on and off the course and I am so happy for them all to receive this award."
Hoffman is a five-time member of the Conference USA Commissioner's Honor Roll and received the Academic Medal in 2021 for a cumulative GPA of 3.75 or better. He finished the year with a 3.88 GPA while working on his master's in business administration. The Westerville, Ohio native competed in six events in his final season and was named C-USA Men's Golfer of the Week on April 22 after leading Marshall at the Wright State Invitational. Hoffman was also the Herd's top finisher at the Mountaineer Invitational. He competed in 19 events during his Marshall career.
Root is also a five-time member of the C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll for a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or better. He finished the year with a 3.38 GPA also working on his master's in business administration. The Columbus, Ohio native played in five events. He shot a season-best 71 in the second round of the Conference USA Championships. Root competed in 28 total tournaments during his time with Marshall.
Plaziak is a four-time member of the C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll and received the Academic Medal in 2019. He finished the academic year with a 3.64 GPA in finance. The Atlanta, Ga., native competed in four events this past year for the Herd and saw steady improvement in the Pinehurst Intercollegiate and the Wright State Invitational. Plaziak will be back as a graduate student with the Herd for the 2021-22 season.
Mitchell is a three-time member of the C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll. He finished the past academic year with a 3.43 GPA as a management major in earning his second consecutive Academic All-America honors.
Jones is a two-time member of the C-USA Commissioner's Honor Roll and has earned the Academic Medal twice. He finished the academic year with a 4.00 as a management major and was named to the C-USA All-Academic Team in April. The Westerville, Ohio native played in six events this spring and led the team with a 73.33 stroke average. Jones had two top 10 finishes and was the top finisher for Marshall five times.
The band of injured brothers continues to add members for the Montreal Canadiens. After Carey Price, Shea Weber and others have all come out with different injuries the Canadiens announced the news that Paul Byron had been injured as well.
The speedy forward had hip surgery earlier on Friday, and while the surgery was successful the recovery period is expected to be five months. This means that Byron is expected to return sometime around the new year.
The operation was performed in New York at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) by Dr. Bryan Kelly.
Byron had five goals and 11 assists in 46 NHL games last season, plus three goals and three assists in 22 playoff games.
Paul Byron left a message on his instagram this week where he thanked the club, players and the fans for their support, the news today puts that message in another light as does some of the moves that Marc Bergevin has made this offseason as the Montreal GM has loaded up on wingers.
Content warning: The following piece contains references to sexual assault
Look, I know that the Ottawa Senators have made some moves over the past few days. I know that there are tons of interesting points to fixate on and speculate about. There will be plenty of time to pontificate about them in the coming days, but before we do that, there are a few more pressing things that I have to get off my chest here. I’m tired of still having to talk about hockey culture, but this is where we’re at.
This is Five Thoughts for Friday, July 30th, 2021.
So many Hurricanes fans are now questioning if this is really an environment full of people who love them back.
But a brand can’t love you back, and the Hurricanes’ touting of a fan-friendly, accepting culture of positive tweets saying “Hockey is For Everyone” was just that — a well-curated brand.
...
They aren’t owned by the community or the fan culture or the fantasy of what it means to be a small-market team. They’re owned by a rich man, Tom Dundon. And he just spent $1 million to sign a player he thinks can be a good deal.
Hockey culture is insidious, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise: The Hurricanes are not exempt.
The fact of the matter is that the Hurricanes are affording a second chance to a guy with a history of overt racism, bigoted comments, abuse of officials, and bullying his own teammates. All of this is known. What’s worse, is Carolina doesn’t even seem to be sure as to why they’re putting their faith in him.
Redemption arcs are for people that have done the work. If DeAngelo has put in the requisite effort, he and the Hurricanes sure haven’t shown us that’s the case.
Photo by Richard A. Whittaker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Let me start off by saying that Jake Virtanen deserves his day in court. The former Vancouver Canucks forward is facing allegations of sexual misconduct, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence that our justice system provides.
That said, his accuser deserves to have her accusations taken seriously, and shouldn’t have to face Virtanen on TV every night, reaping the rewards of his professional hockey dream.
This makes the Hurricanes’ reported interest in Virtanen troubling, to say the least. For an organization that has built a reputation of being inclusive, and accessible to their fans to not only sign DeAngelo, but apparently also kick tires on Virtanen is beyond disappointing.
Photo by Vitor Munhoz/NHLI via Getty Images
Speaking of someone who hasn’t done the work, we enter the Montreal Canadiens’ first-round draft selection from last week. As you well know by now, the Canadiens drafted Logan Mailloux. Mailloux had requested to not be selected this year after being convicted of distributing an intimate photo of a woman from a sexual encounter in Sweden last year, without her consent.
The Canadiens stepping to the virtual podium, on national television, and selecting Mailloux was nothing short of a disgrace. In a strikingly similar scene to Waddell’s meandering, there was Marc Bergevin’s rambling about the unacceptability of Mailloux’s acts — while also talking about how the Canadiens can somehow help him learn and grow, or something. It was more of an answer than assistant GM Trevor Timmins was able to give, anyway.
Again: there haven’t been any signs of remorse or growth from Mailloux. Being drafted in the first round by the Canadiens is nothing resembling a consequence for his actions, so it’s hard to argue he’s paid for what he did. Rachel Doerrie wrote a fantastic piece on the issue for EP Rinkside, and feeling unwelcome in the game she loves. I would highly recommend reading it:
Hockey is a game I’ve loved for 25 years. But, the past few weeks have sent a clear message and I am exhausted.
Hockey culture needs to change. Here is how I feel about being a woman in hockey. https://t.co/gwZ4SPBpLF
Every time I think this story can’t possibly get any worse, it somehow does.
Thanks to more incredible reporting from Rick Westhead, we learned that former Blackhawks defenceman Nick Boynton — a member of the 2010 team — shed some more light on the dynamic surrounding the team during which the alleged offences by Brad Aldrich took place.
“They asked me who knew and I gave them names, basically everybody on the team,” Boynton told TSN in an interview on Wednesday. “I said everybody f---ing knew about it. I said you can talk to the coaches. …I said talk to Torch [former assistant coach John Torchetti]. I called out Brian Campbell, and said talk to Patrick Sharp and talk to Kaner [Patrick Kane]. …The training staff knew. I’m sick of this wall of silence.”
I’m sick of the “wall of silence” too. It’s just another example of the myriad ways in which hockey culture needs to change. The fact that there are potentially prominent figures still in the league that have been withholding this information for a decade is sickening. Hockey should not be a safe space for abusers.
Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
I’m sorry this wasn’t Sens-focused. I know you were probably expecting that, but I just rattled off four examples of hockey culture’s toxicity. All of them from within the last seven days.
I love this sport. It’s given more than I ever deserved, and it means the world to me, but it’s not a safe place for everyone. For the racialized people who were hurt by DeAngelo’s unceasing rhetoric, to the women who wonder about their place in the sport while the likes of Mailloux and Virtanen are welcomed with open arms, hockey does not feel like a sport deserving of the reverent reputation it likes to claim.
One day it can get there. This isn’t hopeless, but it has a long way to go.
Alice Betto of Team Italy, right, and Joanna Brown of Team Canada compete during the Women's Individual Triathlon on Day 4 of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Odaiba Marine Park on July 27, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. Brown will be part of Canada's triathlon mixed relay team on Saturday.
Adam Pretty/Getty Images Europe
Andre De Grasse headlines strong Canadian track and field team
Five years removed from becoming one of Canada’s breakout stars at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Andre De Grasse is back on the track looking for a fourth Olympic medal. The Canadian sprint star’s journey in Tokyo begins with the men’s 100-metre preliminary round. De Grasse is coming off silver and bronze medals at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, in 2019. He won silver and two bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Other athletics events beginning Saturday in Japan are the women’s 100-metre and 400-metre hurdles and men’s pole vault qualification.
Fast-paced triathlon mixed relay makes Olympic debut
The triathlon mixed relay makes its debut at Tokyo 2020. Nineteen teams of four – two women and two men – are competing in the event. Each athlete swims, cycles and runs a short distance before their next teammate can do the same. The fast-paced mixed relay is expected to last around 90 minutes. Joanna Brown, Amelie Kretz, Matthew Sharpe and Alexis Lepage are representing Canada. Manitoba’s Tyler Mislawchuk withdrew from the event because of an Achilles tendon injury he sustained in the men’s triathlon.
Quebec’s Tammara Thibeault faces familiar foe in the boxing ring
Canadian boxer Tammara Thibeault’s Olympic journey continues at Japan’s Kokugikan Arena. The boxer from Shawinigan, Que., is back in the ring for a quarter-final middleweight bout against Nouchka Fontijn of the Netherlands. It’s a rematch of the semi-final of the 2019 AIBA boxing world championship, which Thibeault lost to Fontijn. The 24-year-old Canadian is a Pan Am Games silver medalist (2019) and a Commonwealth Games bronze medalist (2018).
Veteran archer `bull’s-eyes’ the quarter-final round in Tokyo
Veteran Canadian archer Crispin Duenas is one victory away from the quarter-final in the men’s individual competition. The Toronto native is up against Florian Unruh of Germany in the round of 16 at Yumenoshima Final Field. Duenas opened the elimination round with a win over Moldova’s Dan Olaru before beating MD Ruman Shana of Bangladesh. It is the fourth Olympic appearance for the 35-year-old Duenas, whose best finish in individual competition was 17th at the 2016 Rio Games. Duenas and teammate Stephanie Barrett were eliminated from the mixed competition.
Canada gets shot at another weightlifting medal at Tokyo Games
Canadian Boady Santavy is looking to add to another weightlifting medal for Canada at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 24-year-old from Sarnia, Ont., is in the Group A medal round of the men’s 96-kilogram category. Canada has already earned one weightlifting medal at the Tokyo Olympics, with Maude Charron of Rimouski, Que., winning gold in the women’s 64-kilogram category. Santavy was faced with serious legal troubles two years ago. He pleaded guilty in 2019 for failing to remain at the scene of a hit-and-run in Sarnia, Ont., and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Five separate but interlocked boundaries combining for a greater whole might seem like an Olympic symbol this week, but local CAOs looking for more efficient regional policing might say otherwise.
Approval of the creation of a single OPP detachment board to service the municipalities of Midland, Penetanguishene, Tay, Tiny and Georgian Bay Township (District of Muskoka) was granted by all councils in recent weeks, with Tay becoming the final affirmative Wednesday evening.
The adoption of a new single OPP detachment board would replace existing ‘section 10’ police services boards across the municipalities for efficiency purposes in serving the regions. It comes as part of a 2019 Community Safety and Policing Act requirement through the Solicitor General, expected to be implemented by early 2022.
In addition to three provincial appointees, one municipal and one community representative from each of the five municipalities would make up the 13-member board.
CAOs for the five municipalities met with each other and interim OPP Southern Georgian Bay detachment commander Joe Evans, and worked together in crafting the most efficient structure to service everyone.
“We are the last of the five municipalities to review this recommendation and vote on it,” said CAO Lindsay Barron, expressing that once finalized the proposal would be sent off to the ministry of the Solicitor General before its July 31 deadline.
Deputy Mayor Gerard LaChapelle posed a question concerning Tay’s leverage within the budget process.
“I guess my fear is, if the board is independent from council and they have that right to govern and rule, do we have any mechanism where we could control expenditures?” asked LaChapelle.
Mayor Ted Walker responded that there was shared concern in that regard.
“Unfortunately, with the set-up that the province is requiring us to go to, this basically is our only option,“ he said.
Tay council voted unanimously in favour of passing the proposal, and the motion carried.
Interim detachment commander for Southern Georgian Bay OPP Joe Evans expressed happiness with the collective decision to proceed.
“The OPP is committed to building trusting and collaborative relationships with its communities, stakeholders and partners in order to continue to achieve OPP’s ‘Vision of Safe Communities… A Secure Ontario’,” said Evans.
When asked what was next for Evans in the process, he responded that continuing to meet regularly between detachments and communities would be valuable to providing “insight on policing in a community.“
Previously, Midland council carried the motion unanimously, praising the representation each municipality will receive.
A minority of councillors from Tiny and Penetanguishene raised concerns within their separate meetings as per the efficiency of a 13-member board in a ‘too many cooks’ type of scenario. Despite the questions raised, both Tiny and Penetanguishene councils also carried the motion.
Last week, the District of Muskoka carried their motion to approve of the single OPP detachment board “handily”, as Muskoka District chair John Klinck described the vast number of raised hands in favour.
When invited to comment, Township of Georgian Bay councillor Peter Koetsier opted to choose his words carefully.
“I don’t dare add too much for remarks because they reflect on the fact that the township of Georgian Bay are making these arrangements, yet we’re considered part of the district, which is the awkward structure that the province makes us work under,” said Koetsier, to which Klinck agreed.
PERTH COUNTY, ONT. -- Clayton Nicholson may not fully comprehend that he’s about to save his sister’s life -- he just knows she needs help -- and can help her by donating his bone marrow.
“There’s a 25 per cent chance he would be a perfect match for Claire. Luck was on our side and it turns out it worked out real well for us,” says Clayton and Claire’s mom, Mandy Nicholson.
Next week, two-year-old Claire will be heading to a Toronto hospital in order to receive a bone marrow transplant from her five-year-old brother.
It’s a procedure that will hopefully save her life -- a life that’s been spent mostly in hospital -- after the talkative toddler was diagnosed with leukemia days before her first birthday.
“She is going to go through some pretty intense chemo. They’re really going to knock down her bone marrow and make it stop producing cells on its own. Then, Clayton will come in and have a harvest done. They’ll extract his bone marrow and it will get transferred to Claire, kind of like a blood transfusion,” explains Mandy.
Then the family will wait, hope and pray that the bone marrow transplant works.
“Hopefully with any luck, no more leukemia,” says Mandy.
And that will warrant an even bigger parade than the one organized by the family's supporters for Clayton’s fifth birthday, earlier this week.
“He’s been great. Just puts out his arm to take blood, because it’s for his sister. He should just be sore for a couple of days after the procedure and then, well, it probably won’t slow him down for long,” says Mandy.
The Nicholson family heads to Toronto for the start of Claire’s intense chemo next week, with the bone marrow transplant from big brother, Clayton, scheduled for August 11.
Saad, 28, agreed to a five-year contract worth $22.5 million, for a $4.5 million cap hit.
He had 15 goals and nine assists in 24 games last season, his only season with the Avalanche. He has 371 points in 632 games in a 10-year career that included two stints with the Chicago Blackhawks and one with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Saad ostensibly replaces Jaden Schwartz on left wing. Schwartz, 29, signed a five-year, $27.5 million free-agent contract with the expansion Seattle Kraken. Saad joins another new winger -- Pavel Buchnevich -- whom the Blues acquired from the New York Rangers and signed to a four-year, $23.2 million deal.
The move leaves the Blues with just over $8.5 million in salary-cap space with restricted free-agent forwards Ivan Barbashev, Zach Sanford, Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas needing contracts. The Blues have been actively seeking to move winger Vladimir Tarasenko, who requested a trade. He has two years left on his contract with a $7.5 million cap hit.
Saad has been involved in three trades based on contract concerns. In 2015, the Blackhawks dealt him to Columbus where he signed his current six-year, $36 million deal. In 2017, when the Blackhawks thought they couldn't afford Artemi Panarin, Saad went back to Chicago in that trade. Then with only a year left on his deal, the Hawks shipped him to Colorado.
The Avalanche didn't have cap space to sign Saad after giving new contracts to forward Gabriel Landeskog and defenseman Cale Makar.
Greece is hit by forest fires every summer, but experts have warned that global warming increases their frequency and intensity [Andreas Alexopoulos/AP]
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