Alberta
‘Learning moment:’ Embarrassing loss to Flames was catalyst for Oilers’ playoff push
EDMONTON — It was not the Edmonton Oilers’ finest hour, but a big loss to their Battle of Alberta archrivals might have been instrumental to their playoff push.
The Calgary Flames pumped nine goals past the Oilers, in what could have been Edmonton’s most embarrassing outing of the season, when the teams last met on March 26.
Yet the Oilers went on a 13-2-1 tear after that game to close the regular season, and then rallied to beat the Kings in seven games in the first round of the playoffs.
The Calgary blowout was a look-in-the-mirror moment. Their rivals might have actually done the Oilers a favour.
“It allowed the coaching staff to use it as a learning moment for our group,” said Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft. “For us, it was an opportunity to focus our group on the type of game we needed to play in order to have some success. And here we are.”
The Flames and Oilers split the four-game regular-season series, but Calgary won both games on Saddledome ice, where the two teams will start Wednesday.
“We played them at different times in the season, and our season has been a little different than most years,” said Oilers winger Zach Hyman, who scored twice and added a couple of helpers in the series win over Los Angeles. “We were a different team earlier on in the year. And, later on in the year, they caught us a couple of times. But I think they helped us grow as a team, to face adversity.”
Winger Zack Kassian, who had a goal and an assist in the first round, admitted that there were some red faces in Oilers jerseys after the nine-goal bonanza at the Saddledome.
“Whenever you get spanked, no matter who it’s against, you want to have a bounce-back game,” he said. “We got embarrassed, and we bounced back. I think we showed perseverance all year; if we had a bad game, we came back with an even stronger effort.”
The 9-5 score from March 26 was a throwback to the glory days of the Battle of Alberta of the 1980s and early 1990s, when the likes of Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, McDonald, Fleury and MacInnis used to fill the scoresheets.
Hyman suggested several times during his time at the podium that this series, in contrast, would be tight-checking and a battle of wills. In fact, playing against a Kings team that liked to clog up the neutral zone should prepare the Oilers well for the Flames’ big defensive unit.
“We learned a lot from the L.A. series,” Hyman said. “We understood where we had the most success. When we got caught and were turning the puck over in the neutral zone, that’s when we were having trouble.”
Hyman said the Oilers would need to get pucks deep, get into the corners and work the cycle despite the physicality the Flames will bring to the games. He said the Oilers will need to “play heavy.”
“It’s different than the regular season, it doesn’t matter what happened in the regular season or what the record was… the playoffs are a different game. It’s a different style of play. It’s tighter, it’s harder to play, there’s more emotion.”
To illustrate Hyman’s point, the Oilers swept the Winnipeg Jets over the course of the regular season in 2020-21, only to be swept by the Jets in the first round of the playoffs.
“I don’t read too much into the regular season, to be honest,” Kassian said. “As you guys can see, the hockey is completely different than it was in the regular season. There’s so much more going on.”
Oilers 55-goal man Leon Draisaitl, who is labouring through a lower-body injury suffered in a Game 6 scrum in L.A., was not on the ice for practice Tuesday.
Also absent were forwards Evander Kane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Woodcroft was vague when it came to accounting for their absences and talked about the players who were there, rather than addressing the big names who were away.
“I thought we had a really good practice today. I thought some of the people who might not be in the everyday lineup provided a little bit of a boost and a little energy… We’re well-prepared heading into Game 1.”
Oilers general manager Ken Holland said on Edmonton radio station 630 CHED that Draisaitl, Kane and Nugent-Hopkins would play Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2022.
Steven Sandor, The Canadian Press
Canada’s agricultural land is under increasing pressure to produce more food as demand grows domestically and internationally, while the industry grapples with limited resources and environmental constraints, a new report found.
“We need to grow more food on less land and in a volatile climate,” said Tyler McCann, managing director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute.
The report by the institute released Thursday looks at the pressures on Canada’s agricultural land to produce more food while also mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, said McCann.
Despite Canada being a big country, it doesn’t have as much agricultural land as people might think, said McCann, with the report noting that agricultural land makes up only around seven per cent of the country.
Because of that, we can’t take what we do have for granted, he said. “We need to be really thoughtful about how we are using our agricultural land.”
In 2020, Canada was the eighth largest country in terms of cropland area, the report said, with that cropland decreasing by seven per cent over the previous two decades.
Canada is a major producer and net exporter of agriculture and agri-food products, the report said, exporting $91 billion in products in 2022, and one of the top 10 exporters of wheat, canola, pulses, pork and beef.
In the coming years, Canada will face increased demand from countries whose populations are growing, the report said.
“With population growth on one side and climate change on the other, Canada will be amongst an increasingly smaller number of countries that is a net exporter,” said McCann, noting that Canada’s own population is growing, and farmland also needs to be protected against urban sprawl.
The wildfires clouding Canadian skies this week are a “vivid reminder” of the pressure that extreme weather and the changing climate are putting on the agricultural sector, said McCann.
“We need to clearly mitigate … agriculture’s impact on climate change. But we also need to make sure agriculture is adapting to climate change’s impacts,” he said.
One of the ways the world has responded to demand for increased agricultural production over time is to create more agricultural land, in some cases by cutting down forests, said McCann. But that’s not a viable option for Canada, which doesn’t have a lot of land that can be sustainably converted into farmland — and even if it could, doing so could have a variety of adverse environmental effects, he said.
Some of the practices used to reduce emissions and sequester carbon in agriculture can also improve production output on existing farmland, the report found, such as precision agriculture and no-till practices.
However, intensifying the production of current agricultural land also comes with potential environmental downsides, the report said.
For example, McCann said fertilizer is an important part of sustainable agriculture, but there’s a balance to be struck because excessive use of fertilizer can quickly turn food production unsustainable.
“We need to be a lot more thoughtful about the inputs that we’re using,” he said, adding the same can be said about the use of technology in agriculture and the policies and programs put in place to encourage sustainable intensification of Canadian agriculture.
The report recommends that Canada adopt policies that provide financial incentives and technical assistance to farmers and develop regulatory frameworks promoting sustainable land use, as well as promoting education and awareness campaigns, so that the country can “ensure the long-term sustainability of its agricultural sector while protecting the environment.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 8, 2023.
Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press
A family member of five slain students holds a heart sign with their names on it following a court decision in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, May 25, 2016. Alberta’s highest court is being asked to overturn a review board decision on the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party that confined a man to a supervised Edmonton group home. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
By Ritika Dubey in Edmonton
Alberta’s highest court is being asked to overturn a review board decision that confined a man to a supervised Edmonton group home after the stabbing deaths of five young people at a Calgary house party.
The lawyer representing Matthew de Grood argued Wednesday the review board’s decision was biased, citing what she described as political interference from Alberta’s former justice minister.
“The appellant says, ‘I think the conclusion about me is wrong. The board’s conclusion is incorrect and not supported by evidence,”’ Jacqueline Petrie said before the Alberta Court of Appeal. “He says there’s no significant evidence that he’s a risk.”
De Grood, 31, was found not criminally responsible in 2016 for the killings two years earlier of Zackariah Rathwell, Jordan Segura, Kaitlin Perras, Josh Hunter and Lawrence Hong because he was suffering from schizophrenia at the time. Petrie said de Grood has been stable on medication, is at low risk to reoffend and should be allowed to live with his parents while being monitored under a full warrant.
She argued the review board misunderstood medical evidence during the September 2022 review, which deemed de Grood a significant risk despite the assessment showing improvements. She said the board is supposed to recommend the least onerous disposition compatible with public safety and did not do that for de Grood.
The defence lawyer has said the review had been influenced by former justice minister Doug Schweitzer, who weighed in on de Grood’s case in October 2019 after the panel allowed de Grood to transition from institutional care to a supervised group home.
He has been under supervision at a group home. His case is reviewed by the Alberta Review Board yearly to see whether he can transition back into the community while maintaining public safety.
Petrie pointed at de Grood’s “exemplary record,” and that he has been “compliant to the (medical) treatment team.”
“Nobody knew he had schizophrenia (at the time of the stabbings) and needed medication.”
Crown prosecutor Matthew Griener said the board considered a conditional discharge but dismissed it, citing a relapse in schizophrenia symptoms in 2021.
Griener said de Grood’s relapses were brief and happened at the hospital, providing an early window for medical professionals to intervene.
Justice Kevin Feehan said de Grood may be low-risk, but the consequences of even one relapse could be significant.
Reading from an expert’s report, Feehan said: “A low risk to offend doesn’t mean the reoffence would not be severe.”
Some family members of the victims drove from Calgary for the hearing.
Segura’s mother, Patty, said the last nine years have been about de Grood and his rights.
“He should be thankful that he ended up NCR (not criminally responsible) rather than end(ing) with five life sentences for murdering five people,” she said. “He should not be appealing.”
Hunter’s father, Barclay, opposed a potential full release.
“The idea that he wouldn’t be monitored for the rest of his life seems to defy logic, it doesn’t make any sense,” said the father.
Hunter’s mother, Kelly, said the family has had “no healing.”
“We do this every year, at least once. Now, this is the second appeal,” she said. Barclay
Hunter said although there are attempts to reintegrate de Grood into society, he hopes the man is not left on his own with an absolute discharge.
“Regardless of what they say, he killed five people. If that doesn’t stand on its own as a risk factor, then I don’t know what does.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 7, 2023.
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