Readable, teachable news.
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Yesterday was golden for Canada’s female Olympians.
In one of the most exciting hockey games ever played, the Canadian women’s team took the top prize. It was a clash between long-time rivals US and Canada, the best versus the best.
The American women had a solid 2-0 lead going into the third period. But with less than four minutes to go, Canada’s Brianne Jenner put the puck past American goalie Jessie Vetter. The score was 2-1.
The eyes of the world are on Sochi, Russia, where the 2014 Winter Olympics are taking place.
Last Friday, the official opening ceremony took the audience on a Russian journey. It began with the Russian alphabet, with each of the 33 letters highlighting a famous Russian person or achievement.
Later, the athletes flooded into the stadium, grouped according to country. Canada, with 220 athletes, has one of the largest teams in this year’s winter Olympics. The Canadians came into the stadium, a sea of red, behind flag-bearer Hayley Wickenheiser.
“It’s an amazing feeling being able to carry the flag and lead in this awesome powerful Team Canada,” Hayley Wickenheiser told CBC News. “I’m a very, very proud Canadian right now. It’s great to be Canadian in moments like this; you realize how lucky we are to live where we live. I hope everyone back home is proud and enjoys the games.”
Some former professional hockey players are suing the National Hockey League.
In this case, it means they are asking the NHL to pay them money.
Two hundred former players say the NHL didn’t do enough to protect them from concussions.
They say they have brain injuries because hockey is so rough, and they want the NHL to pay for their medical treatment.
The players say they should have been told how dangerous repeated brain injuries are.
They say the NHL waited until 1997 to put a “concussion program” in place, but the league should have known long before that how dangerous concussions are.
The players say the league should have changed the rules of hockey to make it less likely that players would get concussions.
Many young Canadians play hockey. They dream of one day playing in the NHL on a professional team.
Last week, that dream came true for University of Toronto goalie Brett Willows.
One minute he was about to eat dinner with his friends at a restaurant called Noodle Bowl on Spadina Ave. in Toronto. The next, he was suited up as a Toronto Maple Leaf goalie, waiting to go in and play in a professional game.
Willows never got to play in the game, but for a little while, he was a Leaf.
When the Leafs’ goalie, James Reimer, got injured, they put in their other goalie, Jonathan Bernier.
But Bernier would need a backup, and that backup was Brett Willows.
So they called him. Willows ditched the Montreal Canadiens cap he was wearing, threw a $20 bill on the table to pay for the few bites of soup he’d eaten, and ran to gather his goalie gear.
Then he raced to the Air Canada Centre.
Hockey Canada – the organization that sets the rules for amateur hockey leagues in Canada – has voted to eliminate bodychecking for peewee players across the country.
The ban will start in September 2013.
One of the main reasons for the ban is safety, says Paul Carson, vice-president of hockey development for Hockey Canada.
Last year, researchers at the University of Calgary found that young players are three times more likely to be injured in leagues where bodychecking is allowed than in leagues with no bodychecking.
The study showed that peewee players in Alberta, where bodychecking was allowed, suffered 209 injuries and 73 concussions.
In Quebec, where bodychecking is not allowed, there were 70 injuries and 20 concussions.
The Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team has finally made the playoffs.
Tomorrow, the Leafs will play their first post-season game since 2004.
Toronto hockey fans are well known for their enthusiasm for their team—and their patience.
They’re excited their team has finally made the playoffs again.
For each Maple Leafs playoff game Toronto’s CN Tower will light up blue, the colour of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Some people say that Canada has two national athems: “O Canada” and “The Hockey Song” by Stompin’ Tom Connors.
The Canadian icon passed away on March 6, at the age of 77, leaving a hole in the heart and soul of the country.
Connors was a folk musician and a fierce Canadian patriot. He made his way up and down the country, documenting every square inch of every little Canadian town in his songs. He got his nickname because as he played and sang on stage, he stomped his cowboy booted left foot in time to the music.
The songs Stompin’ Tom wrote and sang were songs that Canadians connected with and which drew them together. They were simple, singable and relatable. Songs like “The Hockey Song,” which recounts a hockey game, inning by inning. Or “Bud the Spud,” about a trucker driving a load of PEI potatoes across Canada. Or Sudbury Saturday Night, which tells the tale of ordinary folks enjoying themselves in an Ontario town.
The National Hockey League season is finally beginning.
After 113 days, the dispute between the owners and the players is over.
Fans have been without hockey since Sept. 15; that’s when the NHL season was supposed to have started.
After months of negotiations, players voted in favour of a new “collective agreement” to end the lockout.
Then to officially end the lockout, representatives for both the owners and players signed a document saying they agree to the proposal.
The 30 hockey teams that make up the NHL started training camps on Jan. 13.
There are seven Canadian teams in the NHL: the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Montreal Canadiens, the Calgary Flames, the Edmonton Oilers, the Winnipeg Jets, the Ottawa Senators and the Vancouver Canucks.
Training camp is a time for teams to put together their roster.
It also gives teams a chance to prepare for the upcoming season in hopes of winning the Stanley Cup.
This camp will be shorter than usual as there is a rush to get the season started. As a result there will be no pre-season games.
Changing the rules of hockey to reduce aggressive behaviour like bodychecking is the best way to keep kids safer on the ice, according to a group of Canadian researchers.
In hockey, body checking is when one player charges into another player.
The researchers looked at the different ways people have tried to reduce injuries among young hockey players.
They found that the most effective method is to introduce a “no bodychecking” rule, or at least raise the age when players can begin to bodycheck.
The number of young hockey players suffering brain and spinal cord injuries has increased in the past 15 years.
On some teams, as many as one-quarter of the players will suffer a concussion during a season.
These injuries are often caused by bodychecking.
The start of the NHL season, and the season in general, may not happen as expected.
The NHL has locked out its players.
For the second time in eight years, the NHL is experiencing problems between its owners and players.
The Collective Bargaining Agreement between players and owners has expired.
