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Alberta’s Parker Thompson in pole position in first of 2 weekend races! – details and link to live racing here

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Photos courtesy – RMAC Motorsports Photography

Parker Thompson Teams Up with Speedstar Motorsport to Race the Canadian Touring Car Championship

Parker Thompson has been enlisted by adventurous Canadian race team, Speedstar Motorsport (SSM), to pilot the #1 Audi R8 LMS GT4 race car in the Canadian Touring Car Championship GT Sport class. The season opens this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park as part of the Castrol Victoria Day SpeedFest. Thompson will start race 1 from pole position after setting the fastest time of any CTCC entrant during Friday afternoon’s qualifying session.

Speedstar Motorsport has a rich history in the Canadian Touring Car Championship. With connections that extend all around the world, the team has also participated in China Formula Grand Prix, the infamous Macau FIA GT World Cup and recently challenged the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.

Parker Thompson

“I want to express my gratitude to Albert Au and Frank Law of Speedstar Motorsport, and Michael Croxon at New Roads Automotive Group for this opportunity. I have a lot of respect for what they have accomplished in racing and look forward to building a relationship with their team. It is a dream of mine to get behind the wheel of an Audi GT car.  I’m excited about my future with the team and manufacturer as I put my mark on sportscar GT racing.”

Frank Law – SSM Project Director

“We are thrilled to have Parker joining us for the 2019 CTCC season. We’ve been very keen and have been following Parker throughout his outstanding open-wheel racing career. Ever since our initial conference with Parker, we have been very enthusiastic about the prospect of having him join our team. We have heard great passion from Parker about our team accomplishments and future goals. Additionally, partnering with Parker is in line with our team vision to develop young, talented Canadian drivers within the GT car family. Great to welcome Parker, and have him represent our team, sponsors and manufacturer!”

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND LINKS

Speedstar Motorsport – https://speedstar.com/motorsport/
Canadian Touring Car Championship – https://touringcar.ca
Castrol Victoria Day SpeedFest  – Full Event Schedule (PDF)

CTCC Event One Schedule at Castrol Victoria Day SpeedFest

Race 1– Saturday May 18th, 2019, 08:00 – 08:40 EST – LIVE STREAM HERE
Qualifying 2 – Sunday May 19th, 2019, 09:00 – 09:30 EST
*Race 2– Sunday May 19th, 2019, 17:35 – 18:15 EST – 
LIVE STREAM HERE


About Parker Thompson

Red Deer, Alberta native Parker Thompson is regarded as one of Canada’s premiere racing drivers. He started racing karts at age 8 and his natural talent and competitive drive quickly elevated him to international level competitions. By age 13 he was ranked 3rd in the world in Rotax Max karts. Now 21 years old, Parker continues his successful career racing on the Road to Indy, and in multiple sports car series.

About SpeedStar Motorsport (SSM)

Based out of Markham, Ontario, Speedstar Motorsport has a background in motorsports that dates back to 2006. The team has a winning history in the Canadian Touring Car Championship, Porsche GT3 Cup,  China Formula Grand Prix and Macau FIA World Cup. SSM recently partnered with Belgium based WRT to contend in the Rolex 24hrs of Daytona. The team took their Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo to a 3rd place finish in GTD.

After 15 years as a TV reporter with Global and CBC and as news director of RDTV in Red Deer, Duane set out on his own 2008 as a visual storyteller. During this period, he became fascinated with a burgeoning online world and how it could better serve local communities. This fascination led to Todayville, launched in 2016.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Snuffed-Out Flames: From Beatdown To Teardown in 18 Months

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“Sic transit gloria” There have been rude collapses in the NHL’s recent past, but few have happened with such alacrity as the Calgary Flames’ descent into hell. Two years ago this April, the Flames were favourites to beat their provincial rivals, the Edmonton Oilers, in the second round of the 2022 playoffs. The Flames had beaten the Dallas Stars with a Game 7 OT snipe from Johnny Gaudreau. Meanwhile, the Oilers had been life-and-death to subdue the L.A. Kings in their own seven-game ordeal.

For two franchises looking to make a statement, this first playoff meeting of the Alberta rivals since 1991 was perfect timing. Led by the incomparable Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the Oilers had been knocking on the door to a long playoff run for a few years. The high-scoring Flames, meanwhile, had shocked the NHL by taking the Pacific after just one playoff series win since 2004. All three players on their top line— Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuck, Elias Lindholm—had scored 40 or more goals, while goalie Jacob Markstrom was a Vezina Trophy nominee.

Yes, there were clouds on the Flames’ horizon. Gaudreau was weeks from being an UFA. His cohort Matthew Tkachuck, was likely to be asking for a boatload of money in contract talks. Numerous key veterans would also be up for pay raises within the next two years. But a win over their Edmonton rivals could dampen that downer.

Edmonton had no such contractual distractions, having sewn up their core of McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Darnell Nurse. It showed. The series was over quicker than anyone expected. Even Game 1’s 9-6 decision for the favoured Flames saw them blow a 5-1 lead before salvaging the game. They also led Gm. 2 by 2-0 before Edmonton mounted another (successful) comeback. In fact, Calgary’s defence would not hold leads in the remaining four games of Edmonton’s 4-1 series triumph.

As the series dragged on, Calgary’s top line seemingly could not match the speed of McDavid and the Oilers’ deadly attack. Outside his series-opening hat trick, Tkachuk had just a single assist and a -4 rating in the series. Gaudreau had just two points in the final four games while Lindholm was held to a single goal and one assist in Games 2-5. (McDavid, by contrast, ended up with three goals and nine assists against suddenly porous Flames goalie Jacob Markstrom).

For those looking for the moment this Flames’ iteration fell apart, the blown leads in Games 1 & 2 is a good place to start. Coach Darryl Sutter did not gild the lily for his underperforming stars. “It’s not being critical, that’s just true. They’re going to tell you that, too. Missed opportunities go the other way.” For much of the next 18 months, the team would go into free-fall.

In the weeks after elimination, Gaudreau walked away from a max contract offer to sign in… Columbus? That led to Tkachuk forcing the ill-fated Jonathan Huberdeau trade from Florida after refusing to renegotiate a new deal in Calgary. Having signed an eight-year contract Huberdeau then collapsed to just 15 goals and 55 points. His staggering 60-point drop-off represented one of the worst in NHL history among non-injured players between two seasons. At one point Sutter even put enforcer Milan Lucic on Huberdeau’s line.

A dazed Huberdeau fumed. He had company as seemingly the entire team feuded with Sutter. As the Flames dropped to fifth in the Pacific (and out of the postseason) the noises began about which veterans wanted out if Sutter was retained. Sutter was finally dumped, but the damage had been done for new GM Craig Conroy in his first GM job. Unless his team started fast in 2023-24 he’d be conducting a rummage sale.

The Flames did not improve off their dreadful collapse in 2023-24. (Not helped by news that forward Dylan Dubé was arrested in the Team Canada 2018 sexual-assault scandal.) Yes, some youngsters like Conor Zary, denied a shot by Sutter, have shown well. But 14-16-5 in late December wasn’t enough. Having shipped Tyler Toffoli to New Jersey earlier (stealing Ygor Sherangovich) Conroy had to find suitable deals for his departing veterans when everyone in hockey knew he had no leverage. In short order, Chris Tanev, Nikita Zadorov, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev and Noah Hanafin were peddled for Andrei Kuzmenko, prospects Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo, Artem Grushnikov, and Daniel Miromanov. The deals also bagged two more first-rounders, another second, four thirds, a fourth and a fifth pick— all spread over the 2024/25/26 drafts.

In a surprise move, Conroy hung onto ace goalie Markstrom to go with remaining veteran forwards Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman and defensemen McKenzie Weager and Rasmus Andersson. Maybe Conroy deals him at the Draft? Depending on your outlook, the team is now gamely trying to a) sneak into a playoff spot or b) hurt its draft position by playing spirited, if undermanned, hockey.

There is much potential in the draft haul Conroy has engineered (he has two first rounders and two second rounders this June), less so in the actual bodies he obtained. A safe estimate might be that the Flames will not return to the postseason till their long-delayed arena is finally completed by 2027-28. Maybe a phenom will appear— a la Gaudreau—to speed things up.

But it’s a reach to say that Flames fan watching puck drop of the Edmonton series in April of 2022 could have foreseen this teardown happening so fast and so brutally to a team that sped out to a 5-1 lead over the Oilers that night. But it did. The only thing making it worse will be an Oilers Stanley Cup win in 2024.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Testing! Testing!: The PGA Tour Has A Dead Parrot Problem

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Jupiter, Fla.: In case you haven’t noticed, the PGA Tour is doing its rendition of the Dead Parrot sketch from Monty Python.

C: “Look, my lad, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now.”

O: No no he’s not dead, he’s, he’s restin’!”

A visit to the Cognizant Tournament of the Palm Beaches (Honda ended its 40-year sponsorship this year) showed a business struggling to respond to its fan base and its competitor— the LIV Tour, three years after the Great Golf Schism. Around us, those fans who could be bothered watching the golf, not each other, were asking, “Who’s that guy?” as unknown player after player teed up his ball.

Make no mistake, a long shot is a popular story. But the Tour this year has been like golf’s witness protection plan. Canadians loved Nick Taylor’s win in extra holes at Phoenix, but he’s hardly a household name in the U.S.. A steady diet of first-time winners— Matthew Pavon, Nick Dunlap—veterans left for dead— Grayson Murray— and guys sharpening their games for the majors— Hideki Matsuyama, Chris Kirk—  is not making LIV shake in its Skechers.

The problems start with the fields for the Tour’s events after last winter’s  shocking defection of Jon Rahm, arguably the world’s top player. While events on the West Coast swing had a scattering of the remaining top names— Scotty Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Victor Hovland, Colin Morikawa— the Cognizant had only Rory McIlroy as an elite player from the depleted 2024 card holders. The draw sheet looked like a Xmas tree they’d started decorating about 90 percent up the branches.

Whatever star power NBC had for their coverage went into the water on the 16th Hole Saturday with McIlroy’s errant tee shot on the par four. That left it to 2019 Open Championship winner Shane Lowry to carry the recognition segment of the field. That was before a torrential tropical storm delayed play for  four hours on Sunday, pushing the finish to Monday morning.

What made the tepid field so disappointing for fans is that so many of the top pros live in the same area code as the PGA National layout— and many of the non-attendees will play a private Member/ Guest event Monday at the nearby prestigious Seminole Golf Club. (If you want to know what McIlroy was sprinting to finish in the dark Sunday, it’d because he plays Wirth his Dad at that event.)

Whispers suggest that the absence of top names at their event contributed to Honda pulling the plug. If you talk to those close to the Tour, there remains a bitterness among players who stayed loyal to the Tour when LIV threw around crazy money. Assured that they stood for integrity, unlike the Saudi-backed LIV upstart, they’d be rewarded. Only to have the Tour stab them in the back by secretly negotiating  a peace pact with the hated Greg Norman/ Phil Mickelson operation.

As well, having long been told by the Tour management there was no money for changes, the LIV challenge “suddenly” freed up more money. The structure of who plays and for how much was given a radical shift. Just don’t ask fans to explain the Player Impact Program, the new Earnings Assurance Program or the designated play-in tournaments. There’s a lot of Trust Us in the new reality.

One has to only watch a deflated McIroy, the Tour’s staunch defender, to see the embarrassment he feels (he’s now pulled back from the Tour’s governing structure). LIV member Taylor Gooch wondered aloud if a first Masters win for McIlroy would come with an asterisk with so many LIV stars not competing.

McIlroy needs no cap days, but it’s now clear that others who stuck around missed the money dangled by the Saudis, and no one is telling them how they’ll make it up. This disparity was reportedly one issue behind the meldtdown of Team U.S. at last September’s Ryder Cup.

For Cognizant, an IT company that has reportedly signed a multi-year commitment to sponsor the event in place of Honda, it must be a little humbling to see the Tour unable to produce a field worthy of their investment. And players sprinting in darkness to finish rounds so they can make other obligations.

This attrition of the Tour’s hold on the sport might be understandable were LIV grabbing the spotlight of golf fans. But LIV has only a minor TV network in the U.S., a jarring presentation format and very little word of mouth. Joaquin Niemann has won the past two events in the middle of the night North American time. Who knew? But he won’t be at the Masters.

Not that it’s all beer and skittles for the LIV defectors. As the Official World Golf Rankings do not recognize LIV events, players like Sergio Garcia and the South African players on LIV are rapidly losing their world ranking points to get into the major tournaments. A host of players are now scrambling to find a “side door” into the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA. Those tournaments are all over the world, going from this week in Jeddah, SAU, to next week in Hong Kong. (Seems like melatonin is in everyone’s bag.)

It’s a sad state for golf fans being denied the best players on a weekly basis or—  even more disappointing— at the majors. There is little indication what format the so-called settlement will entail when it’s finally hammered out between the Tour and LIV. But one thing they can agree on is that none of this is doing anything to please fans or sponsors of the sport.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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