Red Deer Advocate, December 14, 2015

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Red Deer AdvocateMONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

Your trusted local news authority www.reddeeradvocate.com

Two sectionsAlberta . . . . . . . . . . . . A3

Business . . . . . . B9-B10

Canada . . . . . . . . A5-A6

Classified . . . . . . B6-B7

Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . B8

Entertainment . . . . .A10

Sports . . . . . . . . . B1-B7

INDEX

PLEASE RECYCLE

Bones found in woods those of missing girl

Eight years after she vanished near her home in Trois-Rivieres, Cedrika Provencher has finally been found.

Story on PAGE A6FORECAST ON A2

WEATHER 30% flurries. High -5. Low -17.

TURNOVERS COSTLYThe Red Deer Rebels came

bearing gifts and consequently dropped a 5-2 decision to the

visiting Calgary HitmenSPORTS — PAGE B1

Critics vow to

keep up pressure

The Alberta government passed its farm-safety bill, but critics have no in-tention of letting up.

Central Alberta Wildrose MLAs Ja-son Nixon and Ron Orr were invited to a rally in Ponoka on Saturday night. Next Friday at 11 a.m., Innisfail-Sylvan Lake MLA Don MacIntyre will be at-tending a Bill 6 gathering just east of Sylvan Lake off Hwy 11.

Some political observers have com-mented they have never seen the elec-torate so angry at its government.

Angry demonstrations have led to outright threats against Premier Ra-chel Notley by some critics.

Wildrose Leader Brian Jean added his voice on Friday to the many calling for respect and restraint.

Lacombe-Ponoka Wildrose MLA Ron Orr agrees there has been some “petty vitriolic statements out there that shouldn’t have been made.”

There is nothing wrong with peace-ful protest — it’s a key part of democ-racy — but he and his party do not sup-port any inappropriate or threatening comments.

“It shouldn’t be happening,” said Orr, who was a pastor before entering politics.

Now that the bill is passed, the NDP government has promised full con-sultation with farmers and ranchers while the fine details of regulations are ironed out, a process that could take more than a year.

BY PAUL COWLEYADVOCATE STAFF

Prolific Christian author humbled by her literary journey

Author Janette Oke accomplish-ments go beyond many writers’ dreams.

She’s written about 70 books, and numerous television movies and series have been inspired by those books.

Oke, now 80, wrote her first novel when she was 42. Today, according to her publisher Bethany House, based in Minnesota, 30 million copies of her books have sold in 16 different lan-guages around the world.

The author, whose Central Alberta roots run deep, began writing because she felt there was a void in Christian inspirational fiction.

Oke was born in Champion in south-ern Alberta but at the age of three she moved with her parents, Amy and

Fred Steeves, and her siblings to the Hoadley area, about 25 km north of Rimbey.

That’s where she grew up, and where the family’s homestead is, which eventully became the Steeves House Museum for many years until it closed a couple of years ago.

The museum and the contents of Oke’s writing room have recently been offered to the Rimbey Historical Soci-ety.

Oke, described as an Evangelical Christian, has resided in Olds for the past 15 years. She remembers always being interested in writing and was a prolific reader as a youngster.

“As I grew older I found that being a person from the faith community I wasn’t finding the type of literature that I felt matched my world view.”

BY MARY-ANN BRRADVOCATE STAFF

Photo by JEFF STOKOE/Advocate staff

Prolific author Janette Oke of Olds with a few of her older and more recent titles.Please see OKE on Page A2

A Grinch-y economy has taken some of the sparkle out of the Christmas shopping season so far.

Local retailers said there appears to be a little less spending this year, al-though some figure it’s about the same as last year.

A woman who works at a Bower

Place Shopping Centre clothing shop said overall traffic appears to be down a bit.

“I don’t think there’s as much dis-posable income,” she said, adding more online shopping is also a factor.

“It’s definitely down. But (Friday) night, it was insane,” she said, adding the mall was packed.

She predicted the parking lot would be full again by the afternoon.

“It’s still pretty good.”A salesperson at a jewelry store

said the economy has had a noticeable impact.

“It’s a different year,” she said. “It’s definitely slower.”

But while sales might be down a little, it has not been a dramatic drop. she added.

BILL 6

Please see BILL 6 on Page A2

Photo by ASHLI BARRETT/Advocate staff

Ayla Parsons, 3, drops a couple of teddies into a bin as part of AMA’s annual Fill Our Fleet program collecting donations for the Red Deer Food Bank. Until Dec. 19, AMA will be accepting new teddy bears and money, which will be delivered to the food bank in time for Christmas.

Fill our Fill our fleetfleet

Retailers feeling economic pinchBY PAUL COWLEY

ADVOCATE STAFF

Please see RETAIL on Page A2

SETTING THE STAGE Jenna Goldade has big plans for the Scott Block’s two theatre spaces.

PAGE A3

A2 RED DEER ADVOCATE Monday, Dec. 14, 2015

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Olds, Sundre: today, 30% flurries. High -5. Low -18.

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Banff: today, 30% flurries. High -5. Low -14.

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Lethbridge: today, 30% flurries. High -4. Low -11.

Edmonton: today, 30% flurries. High -5. Low -16.

Grande Prairie: to-day, a few flurries. High -10. Low -14.

Fort McMurray: to-day, 60% flurries. High -6. Low -12.

LOCAL TODAY TONIGHT TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY

REGIONAL OUTLOOK

WINDCHILL/SUNLIGHT

GRANDEPRAIRIE-10/-14

JASPER-4/-12

BANFF-5/-14

EDMONTON-5/-16

RED DEER-5/-17

CALGARY-5/-11

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Numbers are unofficial.

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Clearing. Sunny. Sunny. Low -20. Sunny. Low -19.HIGH -5 LOW -17 HIGH -5 HIGH -9 HIGH -15

TONIGHT’S HIGHS/LOWS

LETHBRIDGE-4/-11

Weather

Windchill/frostbite risk: LowLow: Low riskModerate: 30 minutes exposureHigh -5 to 10 minutes: High risk in 5 to 10 minutesHigh -2 to 5 minutes: High risk in 2 to 5 minutesExtreme: High risk in 2 minutesSunset tonight: 4:22 p.m.Sunrise Tuesday: 8:38 a.m.

Orr said on Friday he was planning at the rally to send the message that the legislation is a long way from being finalized and Wildrose will be holding the government’s feet to the fire to ensure the agri-cultural community’s voice is heard.

“I’ve already had some people come to me who are trying to put together some industry groups and things like that,” he said, adding Wildrose will help any way it can.

Orr offered his thanks to those who expressed their concerns at rallies, emails, phone calls or let-ters. That input both highlighted the key areas of concern and were successful in convincing the gov-ernment to amend its legislation.

MacIntyre said he’s heard that finalizing all of the required regulations could take 18 months to two years.

“We are going to hammer (the government) to ensure the farming community are the people who have the input into what those (regulations) look like,” he said.

When first proposed, the NDP heralded their bill as landmark legislation, he said. It was only after farmers, ranchers and Opposition members spoke out that that the government brought in six pages of amendments.

“The pressure has to stay on,” he said.MacIntyre said has received between 1,000 and

2,000 emails on Bill 6 and numerous phone calls and letters to his office.

So, given her desire to write, and her Prairie background with a love for the pioneer period, she said it was a natural area for her to write about. Her books usually have a pioneer-era theme with female protagonists.

The first book she wrote was Love Comes Softly. It’s the story of a pioneer couple who head west. The husband dies accidentally and the wife is left alone and pregnant. Along comes a stranger, offering to marry her, and it goes from there. It became a movie in 2003.

Oke was working in a bank office in Didsbury when she began writing, which became her sole em-ployment for many years.

She has retired twice before, but now says she really is retired. The first time she came out of re-tirement was when she was asked to co-author with another Christian writer, Davis Bunn. She thought she was done after that but she ended up co-author-ing three books with her daughter, Laurel Logan.

“So now I think I am really done,” Oke said.“I was doing for a number of years three books a

year and it was absolutely exhausting. Besides that, once you’re a writer, people assume you’re a speak-er, so there was all of this speaking engagements and whatnot that went along with it. That I finally decid-ed I couldn’t carry both loads.”

Oke knows well the crews that do her movies, and she’s been on set in places like California and South-ern Alberta. There will be filming in the new year in Langley, B.C., for a TV series based on her books. She does not receive any money for the movies.

Oke said her journey has been very humbling, particularly when she has received so many letters from people who share their lives with her.

“I feel like I am giving them an opening to express how they feel.” She still corresponds with some long-time letter writers. She doesn’t have a public email.

“People don’t change. Circumstances do. The ba-sic needs of humanity are always the same. It doesn’t change over the years and it doesn’t change with the location so people are able to relate in a very special way.”

In the Nineties, the Steeves family decided to preserve the family farm, and make the homestead house, once the Hoadley post office residence, into a museum. The small home was restored in the era that the eight Steeves children grew up in, complete with wood stove.

The museum, which opened in 1998, drew visitors

A saleswoman at another clothing store said it has been steady so far this season.

“It hasn’t been super, super busy,” she said, add-ing the mall has been crowded though.

Another women’s clothing retailer said sales so far were on par with last year.

“Everything’s been good.”Dan Hachey, general manager of Parkland Mall,

said retail is “surprisingly boisterous” considering the bad news on the economic front.

“It’s probably a little under last year,” he said, adding retailers are taking it in stride.

Spirits appear to be remaining high among most shoppers.

Given slumping oil prices many retailers were concerned about the upcoming season, which is al-ways hugely important to merchants.

“When the economy is the way it is you always wonder how our residents are doing, but, fortunate-ly, it doesn’t seem to be showing in people’s purchas-es for Christmas,” Hachey said.

Solid sales numbers from retailers aren’t usually available until February, when retail analysts will be able to take stock of the season.

Reg Warkentin, policy co-ordinator Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce, said they are hear-ing that the season should be reasonably good.

While there has been no shortage of bad econom-ic news over the last few months, Red Deer’s unem-ployment still sits at only 5.5 per cent, which would be an enviable number in many jurisdictions.

The economy is down compared to some of the banner years of not so long ago, said Warkentin, but overall it could be much worse.

For many businesses, the first quarter of next year — traditionally a slow time — may provide a clearer picture of where the retail economy stands.

RETAIL: ‘Surprisingly boisterous’

BILL 6: Six pages of amendments

OKE: Pioneer-era theme and female protagonists

STORIES FROM PAGE A1from near and far, including those who came to see where Oke got her start. It was sustained with reve-nues from a tea house on the property. The contents of a basement room in the tea house where Oke wrote have also been offered to the Rimbey Histori-cal Society.

The museum was meant to share the time period with other people, Oke’s roots, and also a home base for family gatherings.

Oke said that rather than let the home deterio-rate, they offered it to the historical society.

Cheryl Jones, administrator and curator of the Rimbey Historical Society, which runs the 10-acres PasKaPoo Park Historical Museum in town, said they have just become aware of the donation and the board will be discussing it.

They will need to find funds to relocate the build-ing, Jones said.

“It would be a great addition to our historical mu-seum.”

[email protected]

His office is struggling to respond to everyone.“We can’t keep up with it. They’re coming in fast-

er than we can answer them.”Thousands of emails and letters have gone to oth-

er Central Alberta MLAs’ offices as well, he said.Adding to the anxiety in the agricultural commu-

nity is the vague answers it has been getting from Workers Compensation Board officials on what is now required for each individual farm or ranch.

“The whole thing was ill-conceived from the get go.”

ICE-COLD ART

Photo by ASHLI BARRETT/Advocate staff

Sophie Knievel, 5, creates some “Ice-Cold Art” — cards and gift tags inspired by ice — during MAGnificent Saturdays at the Red Deer Museum Saturday afternoon. MAGnificent Saturdays runs again on Dec. 19 at the museum, where families can create some Christmas-themed artwork and crafts between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

B.C. in recovery mode after latest

in series of stormsBY THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER — Southwestern British Columbia

is recovering from the latest in a series of storms to

blow through the region over the past week.

Powerful winds and wet weather toppled trees

and downed power lines over the weekend, cutting

off power for thousands of Vancouver Island resi-

dents.

About 500 people on the west coast of the Island

are still without electricity while crews work to fix

the outages.

BC Ferries cancelled several sailings as Saturday

wore on before eventually calling off all remaining

sailings on its principal ferry routes between the

Island and the mainland for the rest of the evening.

The ferries were back in service Sunday though

with some delays.

A wind warning remains in effect for the Island’s

west coast, along with a rainfall warning for Metro

Vancouver and snowfall warnings moving up the

Fraser Valley and over the Coquihalla.

High winds also forced Vancouver’s Grouse Moun-

tain to shut down its main gondola on Saturday,

leaving about 400 people stranded overnight at the

mountain-top resort.

RCMP in Alberta seek missing woman after body found of woman she knew

GRANDE PRAIRIE — Police in Alberta are trying to confirm that a missing woman is safe after another woman she knew was found dead.

RCMP say that Amber Dawn Diebert, 24, and Jody Michelle Topilko, 30, were both reported missing earlier this week.

Diebert’s body was found in a rural area north-west of Grand Prairie on Friday and police believe she was a victim of foul play.

Insp. Gibson Glavin says the women knew each other and investigators hope Topilko might be able to help them figure out what led to Diebert’s death.

Glavin says investigators don’t believe there’s a risk to the public based on the evidence so far, but that they are anxious to find Topilko safe and sound.

Police are looking for a black, 2015 Chevrolet 1500 pickup with Alberta licence plate L02 511 that may be connected to Topilko.

“There’s concern since we don’t have her and don’t know how she is. But we don’t have any infor-mation, on the other hand, that she is the victim of foul play,” Glavin said of Topilko.

“She’s missing and we’re actively looking for her.”While police said they don’t know if there is an

actual link between the two investigations, they said they aren’t ruling out the possibility.

Glavin said Diebert was last seen on Tuesday and was reported missing on Thursday.

Topilko was reported missing on Tuesday, and was last seen shopping in Grande Prairie with a fam-ily member on Nov. 29.

“They knew each other in some way and that’s the only connection we have between them right now,” Glavin said.

Developing a thriving theatre scene in Red Deer’s downtown is Jenna Goldade’s goal.

Goldade is taking over running the Scott Block’s two theatre spaces at 4818-50th Ave. with the aim of eventually having live performances happening there every weekend.

“We have the talented people here, and the resources to make it happen,” said the co-found-er of Against the Wall Theatre and its Bull Skit sketch-comedy troupe.

Goldade recently signed a one-year lease to run the building that Bull Skit has been renting for monthly shows. The lease can be extended to three years.

Against the Wall Theatre had been looking for a permanent home, at which monthly Bull Skit shows did not have to be scheduled around other bookings. Although a potential building was located north of Superstore last summer, and an indiegogo funding campaign raised $36,000 towards the cost — “which was amazing” — Goldade noted many expensive up-grades were needed for this space. It also wasn’t as centrally located as the Scott Block.

The Red Deer College theatre graduate, there-fore, jumped at the leasing offer made by the owner of the historic Scott Block building, Doug Anderson. “I’m excited for this opportunity and challenge,” said Goldade, who wants to expand upon the facil-ity’s decade-long relationship with the local arts community.

The Scott Block’s former facility manager Diana Gelden feels “It’s a good time to pass the reins and see what AWT can do.”

Money donated for a permanent home for Bull Skit will be held in trust. If the lease arrangement continues beyond a year, the funds will be used for improvements to the Scott Block theatre, said Goldade. If it doesn’t, fundraising will have to be restarted to find a suitable future home for Bull Skit. But she believes the agreement looks promising.

Goldade will be taking all bookings for the Scott Block’s main theatre space (which holds up to 200 seats), and the 60-seat Centennial Stage, which is ac-cessed from the back alley.

She’s hired an assistant, as well as a technical di-rector to help renters with lights, sets and audience seating (which has to be set up and taken down after a show’s run is over). This service wasn’t available before, and Goldade believes it will make the build-ing more attractive to local theatre groups.

Tree House Youth Theatre and the Red Deer Players are already regular users of the space. Gol-dade is also hoping to book shows by Prime Stock Theatre, Ignition Theatre, and local music acts, such as The Dirrty Show — as well as out-of-town troupes.

“I want the Scott Block to be the place where you can see theatre every weekend.”

Goldade intends to “jazz up” the building with better lighting, while retaining its affordability to non-profit groups. She said having local theatre groups operating out of one facility will be bene-ficial as they can share re-sources and support each other’s projects.

“People will see that we have a really great space in Red Deer,” add-ed Goldade, who believes the building’s owners have done a wonderful job of transforming it from a former furniture store and indoor paintball range to a theatre.

“We’re happy to take it to the next step.”

[email protected]

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Goldade has big plans for Scott Block’s

theatre spaces


Jenna Goldade of Against the Wall Theatre is excited the theatre group has now taken over the running of the Scott Block’s theatre space.

BY LANA MICHELINADVOCATE STAFF

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COMMENT A4MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

This week Albertans learned about the devastating rise in suicide deaths in our province. It is staggering. Alber-ta has a high rate to start with (higher than Ontario, for example). More Albertans die by sui-cide each year than in fatal car collisions. And that was before this year’s increase. This new trajectory is be-yond alarming.

We often talk about the rate, the trends, the causes … but in light of all of these big-picture concepts we must remember that these are people. These are our friends, neighbours, broth-ers, fathers, daughters, col-leagues.

These are people who do not want to die but rather, people in extreme pain — so extreme that the only solution they can see is death.

When people are at the point of con-sidering suicide, they will often put out ‘invitations’ or signs — they are looking for someone to reach out to them. Be bold! Ask directly! The worst thing that can happen is an awkward moment. The best thing that can hap-pen is life-saving. When people consid-ering suicide are asked directly, they

say “Yes.” Your job is to connect them to help. Don’t be worried about solving their problem — you can’t solve it any-way. Just listen. And connect them to

help. (See help lines listed below).

Is this recent increase due to the current econom-ic downturn in our prov-ince? While it is too early to determine this, and not possible to know without a detailed breakdown of the new data, one thing is certain: the time to act is now. We need to take sui-cide prevention seriously in Alberta: it is everyone’s responsibility.

The Centre for Suicide Prevention was privileged to present to the provincial Mental Health Review this

fall. The bi-partisan committee invited online input from all Albertans, ran many focus groups, and hosted formal presentations from 22 organizations, of which we were one. We recom-mended Alberta implement a coordi-nated, multi-pronged suicide preven-tion approach with dedicated lead-ership reporting directly to the Pre-mier. Suicide goes beyond the scope of the Health Ministry. It cuts across

socio-economic lines, ages and ethnic-ities; therefore, our reach must extend past Health as well.

To reduce the suicide rate, Alber-tans must all work together and from all angles. There are four best prac-tices in suicide prevention which will begin to affect the rate when employed in a coordinated strategy. They are:

• Open and easy access to mental health care: including province-wide crisis-line access and universally ac-cessible psychological services;

• Responsible media reporting: as we’ve seen this week — open, thought-ful, candid discussions about suicide, its prevalence, and where to get help;

• Restricting access to lethal means: make it more difficult for people to access things that can kill them. We commend the City of Edmonton for be-ginning to erect barriers on the High Level Bridge and Calgary Transit for educating all of their train operators in suicide alertness and prevention; and

• Education: everyone can learn about suicide and how to help others. This category includes research, pub-lic awareness campaigns, “gatekeeper training” (equipping people with the skills to identify and intervene with people at risk of suicide), and techni-cal training for our clinicians.

Quebec brought their rate down significantly by employing a similar strategy. Saskatchewan has recent-ly extended their crisis-line services throughout the province. British Co-lumbia has just earmarked $3 million for gatekeeper training province-wide. Nunavut has a newly-appointed Min-ister of Suicide Prevention. Alberta needs to act now.

As service providers, let’s coordi-nate our efforts. As Albertans, let’s start a domino effect: the more we talk about suicide, the more we will erode its stigma, the more people will feel comfortable offering help, and the more people will feel comfortable ask-ing for help. We all have a role to play and together we can beat this silent killer. Suicide is preventable.

24-hour crisis lines in Alberta: Cal-gary and area: Distress Centre Calgary (403-266-4357 (HELP) [email protected]); Cold Lake and area: Dr. Mar-garet Savage Crisis Centre (780-594-3353, 1-866-594-0533); Edmonton and area: Canadian Mental Health Associ-ation — Edmonton (780-482-4357 HELP) 1-800-232-7288); Lethbridge and area: Canadian Mental Health Association — Lethbridge (403-327-7905, 1-888-787-2880)

Mara Grunau is the executive director for the Centre for Suicide Prevention.

MARAGRUNAU

INSIGHT

We must open up to talk about suicide

Enough fear mongeringI’ve had it. Enough is enough. Enough short-

sighted, narrow-minded, bigoted letters to the editor about the impending arrival of 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada.

Virtually every day lately there’s someone writing about the “invasion” of Canada by refugees. There’s hand-wringing about how refugees don’t speak our language and might not accept “Canadian culture” (whatever that is). There’s fretting about how refugees will take scarce jobs that should be available to real Canadians in these hard economic times. The authors ask “why don’t we spend that money on our own needy like the homeless in Canada instead of wasting it on refugees?” and “what about our indigenous people who don’t have clean drinking water? Let’s clean up our own house first!” (these aren’t direct quotes but my attempt to distill the essence of these sentiments). Then of course there’s the completely unfounded presumption that ISIS will load a bunch of sleeper terrorists onto our refugee evacuation flights in a masterful “Trojan horse” ploy.

Well, those people asked, so here’s my answer: Because it’s a matter of life and death. Preserving human life takes priority over other problems.

Subsection 3(2) of the Canada Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sets out the objectives of that Act respecting refugees, including the following:

• to recognize that the refugee program is in the first instance about saving lives

• to fulfill Canada’s international legal obligations with respect to refugees

• to establish fair and efficient procedures that

will maintain the integrity of the Canadian refugee protection system, while upholding Canada’s respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all human beings

• to protect the health and safety of Canadians and to maintain the security of Canadian society

• to promote international justice and security by denying access to Canadian territory to persons, including refugee claimants, who are security risks or serious criminals.

Our refugee program is not a new left-wing escapade invented by Justin Trudeau. This system has been in place for decades.

We all wish life in Canada could be better, especially for the least fortunate among us. But if you ask me whether we should spend $1.00 on the homeless here or $1.00 saving a life or sparing a family from the horrors of ISIS or the al-Assad regime, I’ll proudly say “let’s save a life.”

We’ve all seen the iconic images of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body washed up on a Turkish beach. Don’t worry; his family didn’t flee Syria in an inflatable raft to steal your job.

Grant WatsonRed Deer

NDP caught trying to sneak Bill 6 through

By my estimates, at least 700 people showed up to hear what the NDP government had to say about Bill 6 in Red Deer. Some 500 were allowed into the meeting room, while the rest of us were outside on the street.

To the credit of Danielle Larivee the Minister of Municipal Affairs, she came outside to address the crowd, as the NDP team were dealing with those in-side.

Not surprisingly, there was a half hearted apology about getting the “messaging wrong”, double speak for “it’s not our fault but yours, for not understand-ing our intent”. What is really required is for the NDP government to apologize for their arrogance, lack of respect for Albertan’s, and democracy.

Only when faced with mounting pressure, from growing numbers of protesters, and increased media coverage; did this government finally realize they got the cart before the horse.

Anyone would assume that to bring forward such a Bill, many meetings would take place prior to it being brought forward. Consultations with industry stakeholders, and farming organizations, plus out-reach to ordinary family farms through town hall meetings.

If this kind of ground work had been done in ad-vance, the Bill would likely have been worded quite differently, and been more acceptable. Everyone in the agriculture industry wants a safe work environ-ment, but to ram through flawed legislation without advance consultation is just wrong.

It’s time the NDP consider killing Bill 6, taking it back to the drawing board, and bringing it back when it’s ready and been reasonably vetted.

I feel as though someone has been caught red handed doing something wrong; and just doesn’t want to admit it, and make things right. Reminds me of our former government, which acted with the same level of disrespect toward the voter.

Norman WiebeRed Deer

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BY THE CANADIAN PRESS

ST. ANDREWS, N.S. — The old con-vent in rural St. Andrews, N.S., had been for sale for more than a year when the Sisters of St. Martha conclud-ed that fate or something more pow-erful was telling them the big, empty home had a higher purpose.

In September, within a few weeks of Pope Francis urging more parishes to take in Syrian refugees, the nuns had turned their attention to making the house available when a call came from a local group thinking the same thing.

“Maybe it wasn’t meant to be sold,” says Sister Brendalee Boisvert, the or-der’s congregation leader. “Maybe this was always in the mind and heart of the Holy Spirit — that we would al-ways have a family enjoy this home that we enjoyed for 87 years.”

With the help of the religious order, volunteers with the Tri-Heart Society are now preparing for the arrival of a privately sponsored Syrian family of six who have been living in a camp in Lebanon.

The volunteers have been told the family’s 43-year-old father is an elec-trician and welder, and his 39-year-old wife has secretarial skills. They have three sons — ages 16, 13 and six — and an eight-year-old daughter.

Little else is known about the fam-ily, except that they speak Arabic and the eldest son speaks some English.

Tri-Heart has raised more than $30,000 for living expenses. As well, the seven-room convent has been cleaned up, stocked with supplies and is accepting donated furniture.

A cozy living room with a flat-screen TV has replaced a small chapel. School supplies sit in neat piles on a small desk in an upper bedroom. And when the call went out last week for a kitchen table and chairs, a donated set showed up the next morning.

While there’s no question the nuns and volunteers have the best inter-ests of the refugees at heart, the ques-tion remains: is a quiet, rural corner of eastern Nova Scotia an appropri-ate place to settle a family from a war zone?

Flights booked for Kurdi relativesBY THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER — The aunt of a Syrian toddler whose lifeless body pictured on a Mediterranean beach sparked worldwide outrage over a ref-ugee crisis says the flights have been booked to bring some of her relatives to Canada.

Tima Kurdi said her brother Mo-hammad Kurdi, along with his wife and five children, are scheduled to arrive into Vancouver the morning of Dec. 28.

Mohammad is the uncle of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old boy who died alongside his mother and older brother when their overcrowded boat flipped while crossing the treacherous waters between Turkey and Greece.

Tima described informing her sis-ter-in-law after learning Saturday morning that Citizenship and Immigra-tion Canada had finalized the family’s travel arrangements.

“I phoned them and I said, ‘They booked you Dec. 28.”’ said Tima on Sunday when reached by phone at her Vancouver-area home.

“And first she said to the kids, ‘Oh my God, the flight is booked Dec. 28.’ And the kids were screaming. And she was like, ‘Really? Seriously?’ And we started crying and crying and crying. … There were no words after that, just crying and tears.

“It was the most emotional phone call,” she said. “It almost took me back to that news when I heard about my nephew (Alan).”

Mohammad Kurdi has been in Ger-many since leaving his family in Tur-

key seven months ago to find work. He has yet to meet his youngest child, who was born in July. The family will reunite in Frankfurt before flying to-gether to Canada.

Tima is in the process of opening a hair salon in Port Coquitlam, B.C., where she said Mohammad will join her as a barber. Back in Turkey his

14-year-old, eldest son Chergo worked

in a clothing factory to help support

the family during his father’s absence,

but he will go to school once he arrives

in Canada, said Tima.

“Of course — this is the first thing

he has to do,” she said. “He’s not going

to be working.”

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS

Newly-arrived Syrian refugees Raffi Der Kaspar, 10, and his sister Lara, 17, are greeted by Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, left, Immigration Minister John McCallum, second from right, Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, centre, and Herritage Minister Melanie Joly, second from right, at a welcome centre, in Montreal, on Saturday.


OTTAWA — An Ottawa school choir’s song billed as a welcome to Syrian refugees coming to Can-ada has garnered widespread at-tention including praise from the prime minister.

The song performed by a choir at De La Salle secondary school was posted on YouTube last week under the title “Welcome to Canada Syrian Refugees.”

According to the YouTube post, it was an historical song that was sung to the Prophet Mu-hammad when he sought refuge from Mecca to Medina.

It has been viewed nearly 700,000 times since it was post-ed Dec. 11, including by Justin Trudeau.

“WATCH: Ottawa high school students sing a traditional Ara-bic welcome song. Well done De La Salle,” Trudeau tweeted on Sunday.

Choir director Robert Filion told Global News the song was his attempt at bringing diversity and cultural inclusion and was not originally intended for Syri-an refugees — more than 300 of whom arrived by Canadian gov-ernment planes since Friday.

The video post has received widespread Canadian media at-tention and was even picked up by a Turkish news agency.

Old convent in Nova Scotia ready to welcome family of refugees

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Bones those of missing girlBY THE CANADIAN PRESS

TROIS RIVIERES, Que. — Eight years after she vanished near her home in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, nine-year-old Cedrika Provencher has final-ly been found.

Quebec provincial police an-nounced Saturday night that human remains discovered in the woods out-side the city were those of Cedrika, who went missing on July 31, 2007.

News of the discovery prompted an outpouring of condolences on social media, including from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“My heart goes out to the family of Cedrika Provencher,” he tweeted. “May you finally be able to mourn your daughter and may she rest in peace.”

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard also expressed his sympathy for the Provencher family on Twitter.

Cedrika’s disappearance spawned massive manhunts, a huge police in-vestigation as well as the recruiting of many others to help find the freck-le-faced girl whose missing person posters once graced lamp posts and store fronts across the region.

Despite a large reward and several suspects being questioned over the years, no arrests have been made.

Cedrika was last seen being ap-proached by an adult to help search for a missing black and white dog on the evening of July 31. She was never

seen again.On Sunday, a Facebook post at-

tributed to Cedrika’s grandfather Hen-ri Provencher thanked the public for helping the family to look for the girl.

“Despite the pain and broken heart, I want to thank from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of Cedrika’s family all the population, police, media, and numerous volunteers who helped and

participated in the search from near and far,” said the post on the Face-book page dedicated to Cedrika.

“You showed great generosity and a great solidarity in the horror we’re living.”

Pina Arcamone of the Missing Chil-drens’ network said she was both re-lieved and saddened for Cedrika’s family. She said it is always devastat-ing to lose the hope of finding one’s child alive, but hopes the family will finally be able to grieve.

Martin Prud’homme, the direc-tor-general of the Quebec provincial police, would not elaborate on wheth-er or not police had any new leads, saying only the case was “progressing.”

He said he spoke with the young girl’s parents Sunday morning and was at the site where the remains were dis-covered in the afternoon to check on the investigation.

Prud’homme, who was part of the team investigating the disappearance in 2007, said the case brought back memories for him and remains “partic-ularly close to my heart.”

The remains discovered in the woods were turned over to forensics experts for analysis after they were discovered by Friday evening.

On Sunday, about 50 officers were on the site where the body was discov-ered.

They were expected to continue their search Monday morning.

File photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS

Nine-year-old girl Cedrika Provencher is shown in this handout photo. Quebec provincial police confirmed late Saturday that human bones discovered Friday evening in Saint-Maurice, near Trois-Rivieres, are those of Provencher.

Infrastructure minister says rules,standards will speed up flow of funding


OTTAWA — Canada’s new infra-structure minister says projects that are shovel-ready and meet the Liberal government’s national objectives will get some of the billions in new federal cash being made available.

Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi says those big objectives are threefold: grow the economy, create jobs and make the country more sus-tainable.

Sohi says shovel ready projects mean a municipality has done all the relevant studies, public consultation and planning — to qualify for financial help from the federal government.

He accused the Harper Conserva-tives of announcing money for proj-ects that weren’t ready to begin so they could reap some political capital.

“We want to create a process where

I don’t go out and make announce-ments without even consulting with my departmental staff or getting their input or not even having an applica-tion in for that project,” Sohi said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“We will develop some processes that bring in more accountability and also more transparency.”

That will include better explana-tions to cities about why a project pro-posal was rejected, and set new ser-vice standards like speeding up appli-cation processing times.

“If we make a commitment to a proj-ect, and if a project has been sitting on our staff’s table for six months, that’s unacceptable,” Sohi said.

The Liberals have promised to in-crease infrastructure spending by an average of $6 billion a year over the next 10 years, raising the federal in-vestment to $125 billion during that time.

The extra money is supposed to be spread equally to public transit proj-ects, green infrastructure, such as wastewater facilities, and social infra-structure like affordable housing.

Sohi said the government plans to refocus its marquee infrastructure program, the New Building Canada Fund, on more cross-country projects like highways, ports, and border cross-ings to help speed up the flow of com-mercial goods and trade.

Sohi didn’t say whether the new money the Liberals are promising would top up a suite of existing fund-ing programs at Infrastructure Canada, or add a new program on top of what is already there to pay for upgrades to water and wastewater systems, social housing, seniors’ facilities, and infra-structure in aboriginal communities.

“Infrastructure is a way to opportu-nities,” he said.

RCAF needs to speed up delivery of Cyclones to avoid

chopper shortage

OTTAWA — Canada’s air force must speed up crew training and the deliv-ery of CH-148 Cyclone helicopters in the next two years to avoid a shortage as five decade old CH-124 Sea Kings are finally retired, says a senior de-fence official.

A senior defence official has told The Canadian Press they are looking at ways to do both, starting next year.

Concern that the Sea Kings may be phased out faster than the Cyclones have the equipment to be fully capable of replacing them has been around since the former Conservative govern-ment announced last June that the old helicopters would be slowly retired by 2018.

CANADABRIEFS

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DAMASCUS, Syria — Rebels en-trenched in an eastern suburb of Da-mascus fired volleys of mortar shells into the Syrian capital on Sunday, kill-ing three people, including a child, and wounding 33, Syria’s state-run news agency and residents said. Gov-ernment forces hit back with airstrikes that activists said killed at least 28 people.

The Damascus suburb, known as Eastern Ghouta, is held by rebels fight-ing to topple President Bashar Assad who often launch mortars into Damas-cus, his seat of power.

Sunday’s barrage — more than 40 mortar shells according to one report — was particularly strong and sus-tained, shaking residents out of bed in the early morning as shells struck residential districts.

SANA said a child was killed and three people were wounded, and said the shells caused material damage to cars and buildings.

The government responded with airstrikes and missiles on suspected rebel outposts in Eastern Ghouta.

The Local Coordina-tion Committees and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, two oppo-sition outfits that track the war, said at least 28 people were killed in Douma and Saqba, which are part of the same sprawling suburb.

The Observatory re-ported earlier that 40 shells hit Damascus on Sunday. The shelling came as the United Na-tions humanitarian chief, Stephen O’Brien, was vis-iting the Syrian capital to review humanitarian work and assess the im-pact on civilians of the in-tensified fighting and mil-itary operations.

Following a meet-ing with Foreign Minis-ter Walid al-Moallem, O’Brien said he was pur-suing efforts to have hu-manitarian aid reach all Syrian people. Al-Moal-lem, according to SANA, emphasized the need for reconciliation and local truces to help in that re-gard.

Meanwhile, Hezbol-

lah announced the names of at least 11 militants it said were killed while fighting in Syria.

The Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi-ite group has sent thousands of fight-ers to shore up Assad’s forces. It was not clear when the 11 fighters were killed, but one security official said it happened in the past 48 hours, most of them in Syria’s Qalamoun mountains near the border with Lebanon, where militants operate, including Syria’s al-Qaida branch, the Nusra Front.

More than 250,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in Syr-ia’s nearly five-year conflict, which has left the country divided and devastat-ed. Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State group and its rival, the Nusra Front, control roughly half the country.

Nusra Front leader Abu Moham-mad al-Golani said in rare comments aired late Saturday that local truces only benefit the government. He crit-icized last week’s deal in the Homs neighbourhood of Waer, which saw a few hundred insurgents pull out of the district in return for a cease-fire and the delivery of humanitarian aid.

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WORLD A7MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

Fire kills 23, injures 23 othersBY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOSCOW — A fire swept through a Russian home for people with mental illnesses, killing 23 patients and in-juring another 23, many of whom were on medication or otherwise unable to walk, the emergency services said Sunday.

The remaining 24 patients were safely evacuated, including some who had to be carried out of the building, and the four medical personnel work-ing at the home were unhurt, they said.

The fire raised additional concern in Russia because it followed two sim-ilar fires in 2013 that took the lives of 75 people. After those fires, the gov-ernment had promised to improve fire safety at institutions for psychiatric patients.

Investigators have not yet deter-mined the cause of this weekend’s fire, which broke out late Saturday in Alferovka, a village in the Vorone-zh region about 600 kilometres (350 miles) south of Moscow. The fire in the one-story brick building was extin-guished shortly after 3 a.m. (0000 GMT) Sunday.

The fire started in a section of the home dedicated to patients who were unable to walk, emergency services official Igor Kobzev said on Russian state television. He said 39 of the pa-tients in the home could not walk.

All of the patients at the Novokhop-

ersky Neuropsychiatric Home were men and those who died were aged between 46 and 78, according to a list released by the emergency ser-vices. Those who were evacuated were

placed in a nearby home for elderly and disabled people.

Emergencies Minister Vladimir Puchkov flew to the scene and praised the medical staff and rescuers for sav-

ing so many of the patients.“They carried out 18 people who

were sleeping and under the effects of strong medication,” he said.

Russia has a poor fire safety record with about 12,000 fire deaths reported in 2012. By comparison, the U.S., with a population roughly double Russia’s, recorded around 3,000 fire deaths in 2011.

“The mass death of socially vulner-able people occurs each time for the same reason: a lack of funding, dilapi-dated buildings and too few personnel, especially on night duty,” said Vladi-mir Markin, a spokesman for the feder-al investigative agency.

“However, judging by the preser-vation of such conditions and the rep-etition of these tragedies, the prop-er conclusions from this analysis of the causes either are not made or are made in favour of half measures or the dispersion of budget funds, which does not solve the problem,” he said.

Markin said Russian society should demand the construction of major re-habilitation centres with comprehen-sive safety systems.

His statement listed 11 major fatal fires since 2005 in homes for the aged, disabled and mentally ill across Rus-sia.

Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Firefighters work to put out a blaze at a Russian home for people with mental illness in Semiluki, Voronezh region, about 600 kilometres south of Moscow, Russia. Russian emergency services say more then 20 people died when a fire swept through a home for people suffering from mental illness, and 51 were rescued.

RUSSIA

Syrian rebels fire mortar shells into Damascus

Russian destroyer uses small arms fire to ward off Turkish

fishing ship in Aegean SeaMOSCOW — A Russian destroyer

used small arms fire on Sunday to ward off a Turkish fishing ship and prevent a collision in the Aegean Sea, the Defence Ministry said.

The guided missile destroyer Smetlivy was unable to establish radio contact with the approaching Turkish seiner, which also failed to respond to visual signals and flares, the min-istry said in a statement. So when the

Koroglu Balikcilik was 600 metres (660 yards) away, warning shots were fired from the destroyer and the Turkish vessel quickly changed course, passing within 540 metres (590 yards).

Tensions between Moscow and Ankara have been heightened since a Turkey downed a Russian warplane along the Syrian border last month, and this could further strain relations.

The Defence Ministry summoned the Turkish defence attache in Moscow over what it described as the “provoca-tive actions” of the Turkish ship.

Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov informed Turkish Rear Adm. Ahmet Gunes of “the possi-ble harmful consequences of the reck-less actions of Ankara in regard to the Russian military contingent fighting international terrorism in Syria,” the ministry said in a statement.

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HEALTH A8MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2014


Two separate reports being re-leased Tuesday have used different strategies to reach the same conclu-sion — Canada’s health care wait times leave much to be desired.

The Wait Time Alliance, a group consisting of major doctor’s associa-tions across the country, has analysed data from provincial health care min-istries.

The Alliance says there’s been some improvement in wait times for cer-tain services like cardiac or radiation treatments, but many others are unac-ceptably high.

The Fraser Institute reached its conclusion by surveying 2,382 medical specialists across the country to deter-mine the length of time between when a patient is referred to them and when they receive treatment.

That survey pegs the median wait time is 18.3 weeks, nearly the same as the number reported last year and more than double the length of wait times in 1993.

Both surveys say Saskatchewan and Ontario offer the shortest wait times while patients languish longest in At-lantic Canada.

Both report authors agree that mea-suring wait times in Canada is a chal-lenge complicated by a lack of univer-sal standards across the country.

Alliance chair Dr. Chris Simpson said the data collected by provincial health ministries varies widely, since different regions and even individual hospitals track different numbers ac-cording to their own criteria.

No matter what figures are being presented, however, Simpson said the message is clear — the system as a whole needs to be fixed.

Delays in one area, he said, have immediate repercussions across the rest of the health care sector.

“We have now situations where pa-tients flow from primary care to hospi-tal to home care to long-term care,” he said in a telephone interview. “And ev-ery time there’s a wait for one of these components in the system, the rest of the system backs up.”

Both reports suggest patients can expect an expedited timeline when seeking one of the five priority treat-ments flagged in the now lapsed 2004 health accord, a $41 billion funding agreement between the federal gov-ernment and the provinces.

The alliance said wait times for hip and knee replacements, cataract surgeries, bypass surgeries, radiation therapy and diagnostic imaging have all improved since the accord was in-troduced.

The Fraser Institute survey found that radiation oncology and elective cardiovascular surgeries boast some of the shortest median wait times in

the country at 4.1 weeks and 9.9 weeks respectively.

Both reports also agree that health care lag times are significantly shorter in Saskatchewan than anywhere else in the country, saying the province has adopted new measures in recent years that have brought about a remarkable turnaround.

Fraser Institute senior economist and report author Bacchus Barua said wait times in the province have more than halved since 2011 when median times stood at 29 weeks. The 2015 fig-ure stands at 13.6 weeks, he said, cred-iting Saskatchewan’s willingness to partner with private medical provid-ers and set up a pooled referral system that matches patients with the physi-cian that has the shortest waiting list.

Such “outside the box” thinking, he said, is common among countries such as Germany and Switzerland whose universal health care systems offer shorter turnaround times than those found in Canada.

He said such systems all feature pri-vate sector partnerships and cost-shar-ing arrangements to keep the patient cue moving.

Canada could be well-served by similar strategies, he said, adding that addressing inefficiencies in the cur-rent system would do more good than increasing health care spending.

The Fraser Institute is a think tank whose stated mission is to study “gov-

ernment actions in areas that deeply affect Canadians’ quality of life.”

Simpson said the federal govern-ment has an opportunity to take lead-ership on the issue as part of its stated pledge to negotiate a new health ac-cord.

Some of those terms would apply to Ottawa itself, since the federal gov-ernment is directly responsible for the medical needs of prison inmates, vet-erans and First Nations Canadians.

He said setting criteria to standard-ize the numbers tracked by the coun-try’s 14 health care systems would go a long way to highlighting problem areas and identifying ways to fix them.

“Public reporting of data, I think, is so healthy for a system that wants to improve, because when the public truly understand what kind of value they’re getting from their tax invest-ment and what kind of service is being delivered, they will put on the political pressure that politicians will listen to,” he said.

Barua took a harder line, saying da-ta analysis can only go so far if Canada doesn’t implement policy changes as well.

“Wait times are not simply going to get fixed by provinces measuring them. We’re already doing that, and it doesn’t matter which report you see, pretty much all of them are showing that wait times are too long.”

Canada’s health care wait times need improvementFRASER INSTITUTE SAYS MEDIAN WAIT TIME IS 18.3 WEEKS


NEW YORK — Drug overdoses rose again last year, driven by surges in deaths from heroin and powerful pre-scription painkillers, according to new federal statistics.

Overdose deaths in the U.S. sur-passed 47,000 — up seven per cent from the previous year.

Many of the deaths were due to a group of powerful opioid painkillers, long the leading cause of fatal over-doses. But the number had been sta-ble recently while heroin deaths grew. Experts have speculated that addicts migrated from painkillers to cheaper and easier-to-get heroin.

But last year, the opioid toll rose to nearly 19,000 deaths, an increase of 16 per cent.

Heroin deaths continued to climb, by 28 per cent to about 10,500.

The new government statistics also indicate upticks in deaths from seda-tives and cocaine, but those numbers are less than the deaths from the opi-oids and heroin.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week posted the tally, which is based on death certificates.

The federal agency is analyzing the drug numbers to determine what’s be-hind last year’s increases, said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden. But clearly, he added, the nation’s drug overdose problem “is not getting better.”

Opioid pain relievers, including methadone, OxyContin and Vicodin, have been the focus of a government campaign. The CDC has urged doctors to limit their use to the most serious forms of pain, such as cancer patients

and end-of-life care. But the vast ma-

jority of prescriptions written in the

U.S. are for more common ailments

like arthritis and back pain.

The CDC is working on new guide-

lines for doctors for prescribing such

drugs.

CDC officials believe at least some

of the increase in painkiller deaths

last year may be due to illegally-made

fentanyl, which is a synthetic form of

morphine. Fentanyl may also be con-

tributing to the heroin numbers, in

cases in which heroin is laced with

fentanyl, Frieden added.


In a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December 2015, drug overdoses in the U.S. rose again in 2014, driven by surges in deaths from heroin and powerful prescription painkillers such as Vicodin and Oxycontin. Overall, overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 47,000 — up 7 percent from 2013.

Overdose deaths rise in U.S.

Monday, Dec. 14CELEBRITIES BORN ON THIS

DATE: Natascha McElhone, 46; Patty Duke, 68; Vanessa Hudgens, 26

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Today’s stars favour catching up with friends, plus following creative pursuits.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: In 2016, Saturn will help you power through challeng-ing projects with extra patience and persistence. But youíll find there’s no substitute for hard work.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You may appear unusually calm on the outside but on the inside you’re feeling in-tense, full of fiery energy and ready to burst. Pace yourself Rams or you might just blow a fuse!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Mercury is moving through your internation-al zone, until Jan. 2. So the Christmas/New Year period is a terrific time to travel or play gracious host to guests from far-away.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Geminis often have a superficial grasp of a wide range of subjects. With Mercury moving through Capricorn, strive to focus on one topic at a time, in a thorough and disciplined way.

CANCER (June 21-Ju-ly 22): You’ll make head-way by keeping your eyes and ears open. Stay on top of facts and leave fantasy for the movies.

Don’t be rushed into signing on the dotted line — be patient and wait.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Don’t expect much support from family members at the moment — they have their own prob-lems to deal with. Focus on being the fittest, healthiest and smartest Lion you can possi-bly be.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Mercury is in your creativity zone, which stimu-lates your mercurial mind and your vo-racious Virgo curiosity. So it’s a great time to study, take a day trip or dive into a challenging new book.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A family is-sue is undergoing profound change — like a snake shedding its skin. Circum-stances are challenging, but remember youíre in the process of creating a firm new domestic base.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Venus is visiting Scorpio, which makes you feel even more passionate than usu-al, which can be daunting for those around you. Go easy on them ñ not ev-eryone is as intense as you!

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The focus is on finances Archers, as you strive to come up with better ways to manage money. If you canít handle it yourself, then don’t hesitate to call

on the expertise of a professional.CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): To-

day will work best if you can balance being practical and productive with being creative and compassionate. As the day develops, your mind turns to issues involving financial matters.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Start the day with some relaxation, medita-tion or contemplation. As the day pro-gresses, strive to control your unpre-dictable energy otherwise you’ll end up in hot water!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): When it comes to a group activity — or a com-munity project — use your intuition to zero in on what is required. Then do some behind-the-scenes work to get things moving again.

Joanne Madeline Moore is an interna-tionally syndicated astrologer and col-umnist. Her column appears daily in the Advocate.

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Dear Annie: I am in a painful po-sition with my mother-in-law. I was pretty sure my husband was talking poorly about me to her, so I asked him whether he had badmouthed me to his mother. He totally denied it, saying, “Absolutely not!”

Well, she was visiting recently, and I walked into the room and overheard them both talking negatively about me. I innocently asked what they were dis-cussing and my husband lied outright, saying they were discussing a pur-chase. My mother-in-law looked like a deer caught in headlights.

After she left, I again asked my hus-band what they were talking about and he reiterated his previous lie. A few weeks later, I got a card in the mail from his mother saying, “If my son ain’t happy, I ain’t happy.” I placed it on my husband’s nightstand. He never said a word and acts as though he didn’t see it. The card has since disappeared.

How should I address all of this with my husband and his mom? — Wife

on the OutsideDear Wife :

W h e t h e r o r not your moth-er-in-law likes you is beside the point. Your husband should not be agree-ing with her or worse, egging her on in a race to see who can insult you more. W h e n f a c e d with criticism of his wife, he should defend you. Even when you are in the wrong, he should not be badmouthing you to someone outside the marriage. It’s an emotional betray-al, and it shows disrespect. And over time, it can erode the bonds of your marriage. Tell your husband this must stop and ask him to accompany you

to a counselor. If he refuses to admit there is a problem, go without him and work on this.

Dear Annie: Often when my hus-band and I go out with friends, we will see another couple we know along the way. Of course, we politely intro-duce our friends to the couple. The next thing I know, the two couples are laughing, conversing and setting up a future time to get together. Mean-while, I’m standing there feeling like chopped liver. This has happened more times than I can count.

The people we’ve run into seem to think it’s their right to take custody of our friends. If it hadn’t happened so often, I wouldn’t be so upset.

Is there a way to nicely communi-cate to people that this isn’t OK? — An-noyed

Dear Annoyed: If it’s the same peo-ple every time, we’d stop introducing our friends to them. If it is a variety of couples that poach your friends, you have two ways to deal with it: You can

be flattered that others like your taste

in friends and determine not to be up-

set by it. Friendships aren’t winner-

take-all. Your friends can enjoy the

company of others without it changing

their friendship with you.

The other tactic is to make a brief

introduction and then say, “Sorry we

can’t stay and chat.” Then escort the

couple you are with to the car, down

the street, and into the restaurant or

wherever you are going. Your mistake

is allowing their conversation to go on

long enough for them to get to know

one another and make plans, while you

silently fume on the inside.

Annie’s Mailbox is written by Kathy

Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime ed-

itors of the Ann Landers column. Please

email your questions to anniesmailbox@

creators.com, or write to: Annie’s Mail-

box, c/o Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd

Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

JOANNE MADELINE MOORE

SUN SIGNS

KATHY MITCHELL AND MARCY SUGAR

ANNIE’S MAILBOX

HOROSCOPES

Husband not upfront about conversations with mom


Xing Xing, a 9-year-old male giant panda, formerly known as Fu Wa, one of the two giant pandas from China, sticks his tongue out at the Giant Panda Conservation Center at the National Zoo in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Friday, Dec. 11. The two giant pandas have been on loan to Malaysia from China for 10 years since May 21, 2014 to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two nations.

A TONGUE LASHING Elf musical returns to Broadway starring Eric Petersen

NEW YORK — The Christmas musical based on Will Ferrell’s movie “Elf” has returned to New York for the holidays, led by a stage and TV veteran whose oldest child’s first Broadway show was — that’s right — “Elf.”

Eric Petersen’s 5-year-old daughter, Sophia, caught the show a few winters ago and adored it. Years later, she sat mesmerized for several hours watching her dad at a rehearsal of the show.

“My daughter loves theatre so much and so she’s been going to shows well before most kids go,” Pe-tersen said. “I’m in trouble. She’s totally a show kid. It’s very apparent.”

Petersen plays Buddy in the touring musical that plays The Theater at Madison Square Garden until Dec. 27. He’s joined by a cast that includes J.B. Ad-ams as Santa and Veronica J. Kuehn as Buddy’s love interest.

“I really love playing the character,” said Peters-en. “I feel like I get to do so much fun stuff — phys-ical comedy, which is my bag, and I get to do a little bit of a love story. It’s the whole package.”

The musical opens in the North Pole, where Bud-dy learns he’s not an elf but a human. It then charts his journey in search of his father in Manhattan, perking up everyone he meets.

Petersen looks nothing like Ferrell but director Sam Scalamoni said that was never a goal. “It has to be somebody who understands the comedy and the heart of the piece,” he said. “Funny is great, but if there’s not heart, then I don’t care. Eric is such a bal-ance of both.”

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ENTERTAINMENT A10MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

A magical Celtic evening

The Nutcracker stagedDec. 18-20

It’s time for the most Christ-mas-themed of all ballets — The Nut-cracker — to release its timeless holi-day magic.

Young performers under the di-rection of Tania Strader, will take to the Red Deer College Arts Cen-tre stage next weekend to dance to Tchaikovsky’s famous score.

An epic battle between mice and

toy soldiers will be waged, and young

Clara will travel to the Land of Sweets

once again.

Dazzling costumes, a spectacular

set and some captivating dancing are

promised as The Nutcracker is per-

formed from Friday to Sunday, Dec.

18-20.

Due to its popularity, an extra show

has been added this year at 7 p.m. on

Friday. The ballet will also be staged

twice on Saturday, at 1:30 and 7 p.m.,

and at 1:30 p.m. again on Sunday.

Tickets are $23.80 ($21.80 students/

seniors) from the Black Knight Ticket

Centre.

INBRIEF

With her bullet-proof harp, lilting Gaelic vocals and bubbly personality, Keri Lynn Zwicker packed plenty of Celtic magic into the RDSO’s Christmas concert Saturday night.

Or the “Celtic and Christ-mas concert,” as Zwicker called it — referring to the non-seasonal selections that were thrown into the festive mix at the Red Deer College Arts Centre.

Thirteen of Zwicker’s piec-es — which ranged from a Scottish Robbie Burns tune to traditional music from Ire-land, Wales and Newfound-land, and some originals — were beautifully arranged for orchestra by Red Deer Sym-phony Orchestra conductor Claude Lapalme.

With his inspired arrange-ments, the Edmonton “harp chick’s” gorgeous playing, and lush support from RDSO musicians, how could the concert not be a complete delight?

Even Christmas concert purists got their fix of carols. No fewer than eight favourites were wrapped into the opening medley played by the RDSO, in-cluding It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, O Come All Ye Faithful, Away in a Manger, and Angels We Have Heard on High.

Zwicker then jumped in to deliver a sprightly ver-

sion of I Saw Three Ships, in her clear, bell-like voice, while plucking at the strings of her Alberta-made, carbon-fibre Celtic harp.

Since her red instrument is made of the same material used for body armour, the harpist told the audience her harp resists bullets from shotguns and handguns, “but not rifles,” getting chuckles from the crowd.

Zwicker created some hauntingly beautiful sounds while performing The Huron Carol with the orchestra. If you closed your eyes, you could imagine wind blowing through snow-covered spruce trees, as soft drumming from the RDSO’s percussionist com-pleted the perfect Canadian-ness of the scene.

A specifically Albertan Christmas tune was per-formed by Zwicker as a duet with her husband, Nathan McCavana, on the Irish drum. The soulful God Bless Us Everyone, written by fellow Edmonto-nian Maria Dunn for The Christmas Carol Project, was played only with bodhran and harp — and this sparseness was affecting.

The secular, Celtic part of the program included an epic version of the Newfoundland tune, O No Not I, by Stan Rogers, with crescendo-ing support from orchestra musicians. There was a beautifully ar-ranged Irish melody, Rich and Rare, in which a viola capably filled in for one of the cello parts.

Zwicker’s own Leaky Lodge jig was an audience favourite, as was her rendition of the French carol, Il Est Né.

Also memorable was the lovely and sad Lone Shanakyle, written by Irish poet Thomas Madigan after being exiled for protesting the potato famine. Zwicker’s ephemeral sounds on this tune were com-plemented by light accompaniment from the orches-tra’s strings section.

The only non-Celtic, non-Christmas melody was Milonga, an Argentinian dance, by Alfredo Rolando Oritz. Zwicker explained that Spanish-style harp playing is more “aggressive.” She plucked the strings with her fingernails, not finger pads. With the addi-tion of oddball percussion and some pushy orches-tral horns, the effect was almost Looney Tunes funny.

More sobering — pun intended — was Keg of Bran-dy, by Robbie O’Connell. It featured a swirling melo-dy that mirrored the song’s alcohol-saturated lyrics. On Highland Mary/Lowland Mary, Burn’s lovelorn composition was combined with a companion melo-dy by Zwicker.

The harpist, who ended her performance with the quietly powerful Welsh carol All Through the Night, thanked the orchestra and Lapalme for their “amaz-ing” support. But she carried the concert with her winning voice, ebullient personality, and colourful harp playing.

At the start of the evening, Lapalme revealed he couldn’t resist the idea of having a Celtic Christmas with Zwicker. “The whole idea is too much fun,” he said.

It certainly was.In the words of Tiny Tim: “A Merry Christmas to

us all! God bless us, every one!”[email protected]

LANAMICHELIN

REVIEW

RED DEER SYMPHONY

Mockingjay harpoons whaling tale on quiet weekendBY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — The movie industry braced for the coming storm of The Force Awakens in a quiet weekend at the box office where The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 notched its fourth-straight week atop the box office and Ron How-ard’s whaling tale In the Heart of the Sea capsized.

With The Force Awakens lurking, few studios wanted to push out a new release ahead of the expected box-office behemoth. That left the final chapter of Lionsgate’s Hunger Games saga to remain No. 1 with $11.3 million according to studio estimates Sunday, bringing its domestic total to $245 million.

In the Heart of the Sea, starring Chris Hemsworth, was the only major new wide release to test the pre-Star Wars waters. But hopes for the Warner Bros. film sank with an estimated $11 million despite a production budget around $100 million.

“Ron Howard is an accomplished, terrific filmmaker who took this ambitious project on as a real passion, and we’re proud to have made it with him,” said Jeff Goldstein, do-mestic distribution head for Warner Bros.

Though Goldstein acknowledged it was a disappointing start, he hopes that In the Heart of the Sea —— about the shipwreck of the Essex, which inspired Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick —— will benefit over the Christmas holiday by getting out ahead of The Force Awakens, which opens Thurs-day night.

“There’s a cultural phenomenon around the corner,” Goldstein said. “Our hope was to get in in front of it and get some word of mouth so that when you get down to Christmas week — we leapfrog over this coming week —— that you can break through the clutter of those other new movies.”

In limited release, Adam McKay’s comic rending of the economic collapse, The Big Short, opened strongly with $720,000 in eight theatres. The Paramount Pictures release came into the weekend riding good reviews and a wave of nominations from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes, where it landed four nods including best picture, comedy, as well as nominations for stars Steve Carell and

Christian Bale.Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount, credited McKay

for bringing a wry sense of humour to the Michael Lewis ad-aptation, and creating a movie both powerful and commer-cial. The strong response to The Big Short also vindicated Paramount’s decision —— made after early screenings of the film —— to move the film, which opens wide on Dec. 23, into awards season from its planned release in 2016.

“We thought that we had something really special,” Moore said. “The last week with all the critical attention and audience reaction has certainly proved that out.”

The low-key weekend allowed Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur to take third place with $10.5 million in its third week. Ryan Coogler’s acclaimed Rocky sequel Creed followed close be-hind with $10.1 million in its third week. Slowly expanding Oscar contenders Spotlight and Brooklyn —— both in their sixth week —— continued to crack the top 10 with $2.5 mil-lion and $2 million, respectively.

But with The Force Awakens breaking advance ticket sales records, the force of Star Wars was felt a week before it even opens.

“There’s no question that this weekend was affected by the anticipation of Star Wars,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box office data firm Rentrak. “You have countless moviegoers poised and ready to hit the mul-tiplex later this week. We’re on the cusp of an earth-shatter-ing weekend at the box office.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theatres, according to Rentrak. Where avail-able, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included.

1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2, $11.3 million.2. In the Heart of the Sea, $11 million.3. The Good Dinosaur, $10.5 million.4. Creed, $10.1 million.5. Krampus, $8 million.6. Spectre, $4 million.7. The Night Before, $3.9 million.8. The Peanuts Movie, $2.7 million.9. Spotlight, $2.5 million.10. Brooklyn, $2 million.


TORONTO — The sounds of the hol-iday season are pretty much the same from year to year: Feliz Navidad, Baby, It’s Cold Outside and White Christmas on constant rotation in supermarkets, de-partment stores and coffee shops.

New Christmas-themed pop songs do appear every year, and Thunder Bay, Ont.-native Paul Shaffer says it’s no surprise why artists keep trying to record a new modern classic.

“Everybody wants one, of course, because it comes back year after year,” says Shaffer, who notes it’s not easy to write an enduring holiday song and admits he’s failed several times.

“You’re talking to somebody who has written about four or five of them, including a followup to It’s Raining Men with The Weather Girls, which was called Dear Santa (Bring Me a Man This Christmas),” says Shaffer.

“It didn’t click like It’s Raining Men.”

Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christ-mas is You is perhaps the best and big-gest example of a modern holidays hit — none others have come close in the roughly 20 years since it was released.

For the most part, the old classics hold their ground while newer tunes come and go.

“It’s scary (how) the vast majority of (new holidays) songs become dispos-able. They really do,” says Wendy Duff, program director at Toronto’s 98.1 CH-FI, which has been playing Christmas music 24 hours a day since Nov. 15.

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Rebels stymied by great goaltendingBY GREG MEACHEM

ADVOCATE SPORTS EDITOR

Hitmen 5 Rebels 2The Red Deer Rebels got ahead of themselves

Sunday evening at the Centrium.The Rebels came bearing gifts nearly a full

two weeks ahead of Christmas and consequently dropped a 5-2 Western Hockey League decision to the Calgary Hitmen before 5,272 fans.

The Hitmen were the recipients of a handful of Red Deer turnovers and promptly turned two of them into goals, with Jakob Stukel scoring on a breakaway a mere 31 seconds into the contest and defenceman Jake Bean picking off an errant pass and connecting late in the middle frame.

“Turnovers are always going to kill you and when you play good teams they magnify,” said Rebels GM/head coach Brent Sutter.

Adam Musil pulled the Reblels even with eight seconds remaining in the opening period, cashing a rebound while falling to the ice. His shot was the only one of 18 to get past Hitmen goalie Cody Porter — who was excellent while making 42 saves overall — in the first 20 minutes.

Stukel notched his second of the game during a Calgary two-man advantage early in the second pe-riod, squeezing the puck by netminder Rylan Toth. Rebels forward Presten Kopeck, on the power play, took a cross-ice feed from Lane Pederson and scored on a one-timer at 17:38, but Bean restored the visi-tors’ lead just 11 seconds later.

The Hitmen rearguard jumped on a turnover just outside the Red Deer blueline, moved into the low slot and beat Toth with a backhand shot.

“Look at their first three goals,” said Sutter. “There’s a turnover in the offensive zone and they get a breakaway … and the second goal is due to a terrible line change by our penalty killers (that led to a too-many-men infraction and a two-man disad-vantage).”

Calgary’s third goal, the eventual winner, was a killer considering the Rebels had just drawn even.

“We had just tied it up 2-2 and hoped to get some momentum. Then we make an awful play in the neu-tral zone on a bad pass, don’t do our jobs in our own zone all of sudden it’s 3-2 and they have momentum going into the third.”

Hitmen captain and defenceman Colby Harmsworth was fingered for tripping 39 seconds

into the final frame, but the Rebels failed to capi-talize. Red Deer was denied a two-man advantage when Ivan Nikolishin was tripped and then assessed a highly questionable usportsmanlike infraction for diving late in the Harmsworth penalty.

“We had a chance to take the momentum back on the power play, but our power play wasn’t very good,” said Sutter.

Just a few minutes later, Musil took a tripping penalty and Calgary defenceman Keegan Kanzig beat Toth through a crowd with a wrist shot from the point. Toth finished with 24 saves.

“They get a power play and we don’t take care of

our own zone and it ends up in our net,” said Sutter. “It was game over after that.

“We got back to playing later in the period, but their goalie played very well for them. He outplayed our goalie tonight.”

Stukel completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal in the final minute.

“I thought he was probably the best of our play-ers tonight and he needed to be with some of the pressure they (Rebels) sustained,” said Hitmen head coach Mark French, in reference to Porter.


TORONTO — Canada’s junior team made four cuts on Sunday — and one important addition.

The Vancouver Canucks gave forward Jake Vir-tanen permission to join Canada’s national junior team, a little over an hour after Hockey Canada completed its first round of cuts to its selection camp roster.

Forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois, Michael Dal Colle and Spencer Watson were cut from the team along with defenceman Jakob Chychrun.

Virtanen is one of four players returning from last year’s gold medal-winning team, joining for-wards Brayden Point and Lawson Crouse as well as defenceman Joe Hicketts. He’s the only member of Canada’s junior team with regular-season experi-ence in the NHL.

“He brings a power-forward element,” said Hick-etts in the lobby of the team’s hotel in suburban Toronto.

“He’s a big, strong, smooth skater who can shoot the puck well. Anytime you can get a player of that calibre back it helps the lineup.”

Virtanen was in downtown Toronto playing with the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets, who he’d been assigned to on a conditioning stint, and will join Canada immediately. The team will leave for Imatra, Finland, late Monday for practices and

exhibition games before the world championship tournament begins in Helsinki on Dec. 26.

The 19-year-old right-winger from New Westmin-ster, B.C., and fellow rookie Jared McCann both made the Canucks roster on Nov. 1, passing their nine-game tryout period. He has a goal and three assists in 19 games with Vancouver and has no points in two games with Utica.

“He brings size, skill and a heavy shot,” said Point. “He’s a physical player, so he brings it all for our team.”

The cuts came after the second of two exhibition games between Canada and a team of all-stars from Canadian universities. Canada’s junior team now has 15 forwards, nine defencemen and three goaltenders with more cuts to come when the team is in Europe.

“I think right now there’s still guys that are wor-thy to be in the conversation,” said head coach Dave Lowry. “The one priority is that we want to make sure that we’re getting it right.”

“We have some decisions that we still think need more time and we’re prepared to do that.”

Samuel Montembeault made 33 saves as Canada shut out the Canadian Interuniversity Sport team 5-0 on Sunday afternoon to conclude Canada’s junior selection camp.

Montembeault was added to Canada’s roster on Tuesday after Mackenzie Blackwood was suspended by the Ontario Hockey League for eight games. The International Ice Hockey Federation honours CHL

suspensions, forcing Blackwood to miss the first two games of the international tournament.

“Pretty great,” said Montembeault. “I wasn’t sup-posed to be here at first, so just to come here and get a shutout was perfect.”

Anthony Beauvillier led Canada with a hat trick while Dubois and Travis Konecny also scored.

Beauvillier’s three-game performance against the university all-stars helped earn him a trip to Finland with Canada.

“An honour, obviously. Just representing my country, representing Canada,” said Beauvillier. “It’s a big tournament and it would be a dream com-ing true being part of that team. Just having a chance to win a gold medal, it’s awesome.

“A lot of Canadian guys would like to be in my place right now. I’m very happy to be here.”

Corbin Boes started in net for the CIS all-stars, stopping 18-of-22 shots in 31:41 of work. Jordon Cooke made 19 saves on 20 shots in relief.

Canada lost to the CIS all-stars 5-4 in a shootout on Saturday night.

In both games, head coach Dave Lowry elected to scratch some of the biggest names from Canada’s se-lection camp roster.

Top NHL draft picks Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner along with linemate Lawson Crouse did not dress.

Photo by ROB WALLATOR/Freelance

Red Deer Rebels Connor Bleackley snaps a shot on net as Calgary Hitmen defenceman Keegan Kanzig tries to block the shot with hit stick during action at the Centrium on Sunday. The Rebels lost the game 5-2.

Please see REBELS on Page B2

McGregor scores sensational knockout over Aldo


LAS VEGAS — (The Notorious) Conor McGregor backed up his trash talk with his fists Saturday night at UFC 194, knocking out Jose Aldo in just 13 seconds to become undisputed featherweight champion.

It was short and violent — the fast-est finish in UFC championship his-tory. And it ended the mystique of Al-do as the best pound-for-pound MMA fighter on the planet while making the brash Irish 145-pounder the UFC’s main man.

Aldo missed with a right and Mc-Gregor floored the champion with a left, adding a pair of hammer-fists be-fore referee John McCarthy stepped in before a stunned crowd of 16,516 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“I knew he would overextend and I knew I would catch him,” said McGre-gor, who held his own post-fight news conference after the other fighters left the dais.

“I respect Jose. I wish him well. But now we are onto the next chapter,” added the new champion, who had predicted a first-round finish.

Aldo (25-2-0) had won his last 18 fights and not lost since November 2005. McGregor (19-2-0) has now won 15 straight dating back to November 2010.

The previous fastest finishes in a UFC world title fight were Ronda Rousey’s 14-second submission of Cat Zingano in February and Andrei Ar-

lovski’s 15-second KO of Paul Buentel-lo in 2005.

Aldo entered the cage as champion while McGregor arrived as interim ti-tle-holder for a win over Chad (Money) Mendes while Aldo was out injured.

McGregor, who won a US$50,000 bonus for performance of the night and likely millions more from what is expected to be one of the UFC’s big-gest-ever pay-per-view takes, left with the one and only belt after a title fight

whose action could be captured in a Vine with seconds to spare.

“I think we need a rematch. It wasn’t really a fight,” Aldo said through an interpreter.

The UFC laid out two possible sce-narios for McGregor. He could stay at featherweight and make his first title defence against Frankie (The An-swer) Edgar. Or he could vacate the 145-pound championship and move up to lightweight to fight for the

155-pound title.“The options are there now … I en-

joy options. Options are a good thing in the fight game,” said McGregor, who held both titles in England’s Cage War-riors promotion.

But he rejected the idea of giving up one belt to fight for another.

The crowd roared as McGregor — clad in green compression shorts — entered first, with “Ole Ole” chants from the stands competing with his Notorious B.I.G. entrance music. Aldo followed him to “Run This Town” by Jay-Z with Rihanna and Kanye West.

The two did not touch gloves before the opening round. The end came soon after.

“I had a little moment when I felt sorry for Jose,” said McGregor.

FightMetric said McGregor landed five significant strikes to one for Aldo, whose lone hit was a left that connect-ed as he toppled face-first to the can-vas.

In the co-main event, No. 1 contend-er Luke Rockhold dethroned middle-weight champion Chris Weidman.

Rockhold (15-2-0) beat Weidman up on the ground in the third round and did the same in the fourth, before ref-eree Herb Dean finally stepped in at 3:12.

“It was Luke’s night,” said Weid-man, his face a road map of cuts and welts.

Two judges had Rockhold ahead 30-26 going into the fourth round while the third judge had it 29-27 for the challenger.


Conor McGregor knocks out Jose Aldo during a featherweight championship mixed martial arts bout at UFC 194, Saturday, in Las Vegas.

UFC 194

Please see UFC on Page B2

Canada adds Virtanen, cuts four from junior selection camp

Please see CAMP on Page B2

The Red Deer Vipers were 1-1 in Heritage Junior Hockey League week-end play, defeating the visiting Stettler Lightning 6-5 Saturday then falling 4-3 Sunday to the Three Hills Thrashers at the Arena.

The Vipers prevailed Saturday despite giving up the the final three goals of the game. Colton Weseen scored twice for Red Deer, while Kale Lapointe, Drew Joslin, Anthony Neurauter and Brent Hoppus also con-nected for the winners.

Dylan Houston led the Lightning with four goals. Derek Muhlbach also scored for Stettler, which got a 38-save outing from Travis Green.

Mack Patchett turned aside 25 shots in the Red Deer net. Both clubs were three-for-five on the power play.

Details of Sunday’s game were un-available.

In other Heritage League weekend games:

• The Thrashers were 5-2 winners over the visiting Cochrane Generals Friday and lost 6-5 to the host Banff Academy Bears Saturday.

Rylan Plante-Crough, with two goals, Ryan Spiller, Jesse Morrison and Cody Phillips scored against Co-chrane.

Greg Pols made 49 saves for the Thrashers, who were outshot 51-35.

On Saturday, the Thrashers out-shot the Bears 41-30 but came out on the wrong side of the score while getting two goals from Patrick Foug-ere and singles from Spiller, Michael Lougheed and Ben Schierman.

Pols made 24 saves for Three Hills.• The Lightning were hammered 12-

2 by the host Airdrie Thunder Friday, their only goals coming off the sticks of Matt Johannson and Andrew Shirley.

Green made 31 saves for Stettler, outshot 43-18.

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Brodie gets Flames another OT winBY THE CANADIAN PRESS

CALGARY — TJ Brodie is Calgary’s latest player to step up at a big mo-ment as the Flames continued their overtime dominance on Saturday.

Brodie scored in the extra period and Johnny Gaudreau had two goals and assisted on the winner as Calgary survived a late third-period collapse to win 5-4 over the New York Rang-ers — the Flames’ ninth straight home victory.

Calgary leads the NHL with a 7-1 record in 3-on-3 overtime. At home, the Flames are a perfect 6-0.

“Great play by TJ Brodie,” said Flames coach Bob Hartley. “The boys are skating well, they’re reading the play well and they’re supporting each other very well.”

The clincher came at 2:09 when Bro-die held the puck on a 2-on-1 rush and put a perfect shot inside the far goal post on Antti Raanta.

“We’re moving in the right direc-tion. I think now we have to find a way to win on the road. We have to start finding ways to win in regulation,” said Brodie, who extended his career-best point streak to six games (one goal, six assists).

Gaudreau has six points (three goals, three assists) in extra time to lead the NHL. The diminutive star has been lethal on home ice with 10 goals and 17 points during the win streak.

“We weren’t happy with that last road-trip and we knew we needed to come in here on this homestand and make a statement and we did a great job,” said Gaudreau.

The Flames have climbed to within two points of Arizona and Vancouver, which are second and third in the Pa-cific. Calgary holds a game in hand on both.

For the longest time it looked like the Flames, who have an NHL-worst four regulation-time victories, were going to win it in 60 minutes.

However, the Rangers scored three goals in the final 15 minutes of regula-tion to overcome a 4-1 deficit.

Tanner Glass started the comeback with his first of the season at 5:13 — that goal coming just 16 seconds after Joe Colborne had made it 4-1.

Dan Boyle pulled the Rangers with-in one at 15:06. With the goaltender pulled to make it 6-on-4, Mats Zucca-rello tied it on a power play at 18:48.

“You look at it on a positive side. That’s a couple of games in a row where we haven’t quit and battled back and made a game out of it,” said Rangers coach Alain Vigneault. “At the same time, it’s very easy to pin-point where we need to improve. Our support and our puck management got us in trouble tonight.”

Mason Raymond, with his first in 15 games, also scored Calgary (13-14-2), which opens a four-game road trip on Tuesday in Nashville.

The Flames finish off the home-

stand 5-0, just as the Edmonton Oilers did the night before. The two Alberta teams swept the same five opponents — Dallas, Boston, San Jose, Buffalo

and New York.

J.T. Miller had the other goal for New York (18-9-4).

The Rangers are 2-6-2 in their last 10.


New York Rangers’ Rick Nash, left, battles for the puck in front of Calgary Flames’ goalie Jonas Hiller during third period NHL action, in Calgary, on Saturday. Calgary won the game 5-4 in overtime.

STORIES FROM PAGE B1

REBELS: Tip of the hat

UFC: Beatdown

CAMP: Scratches

Porter and Stukel both came over in an October trade with the Vancouver Giants.

“Certainly a tip of the hat to our player personnel department for iden-tifying some guys who would be able to come in and immediately help us,” said French. “As a coach you don’t know much about the guys over on that side (Western Conference), but they’ve really helped our lineup.”

The win gave the Hitmen sole pos-session of top spot in the Eastern Con-ference, two points up on Red Deer.

“We’ve had a decent stretch on the road and were able to get home and recharge before we came in here,” said French. “I don’t think it was our cleanest or most complete effort, but in some respects you have to get some gutty wins and the right guys were probably the best players for us to-night.”

Red Deer is one point ahead of the Brandon Wheat Kings and is two up on the Lethbridge Hurricanes, who sit fourth in the conference and third in the Central Division.

“What’s our record now, 1-4 against Calgary and Lethbridge, teams we are fighting with for first place in our di-vision,” said Sutter. “If you don’t beat those teams you’re not going to finish in first place and that’s reality.

“We just haven’t done enough and played well enough. Mistakes have cost us in those games and they’ve cost us in the standings.”

The Rebels, who have played three fewer games than Calgary, are in Cran-brook Tuesday to face the Kootenay Ice, then close out their pre-Christmas portion of their schedule with home games versus the Ice and Hurricanes Friday and Saturday.

[email protected]

The fight turned in the third when Weidman tried a spinning wheel kick. Rockhold evaded the kick, grabbed Weidman and took him down for the first time in his UFC career. Rockhold then mounted Weidman and carved his face open with repeated strikes. The beatdown seemed to go on forever, with Dean allowing the round to end.

Weidman’s face was a mess as he came out for the fourth. He soon found himself on the bottom again and the beating continued.

“I could not believe he came out in the fourth round,” said Rockhold, who also noted he had been on antibiot-ics for a staph infection the last two weeks.

Weidman (13-1-0) had previously beaten a Who’s Who of opponents, in-cluding former champions Anderson Silva (twice), Lyota (The Dragon) Ma-chida and Vitor (The Phenom) Belfort.

Kicking Weidman took a toll. Rock-hold, a former Strikeforce champion, limped out of the cage with the title.

Rockhold and Weidman, who was taken to hospital to be checked out, each collected a $50,000 bonus for fight of the night.

The 29-year-old Aldo, who at five foot seven is two inches shorter than the Irishman, was ranked the UFC’s top pound-for-pound fighter. McGre-gor, 27, was No. 12 in the pound-for-pound rankings, just below Rousey.

Asked if he was now No. 1, McGre-gor said: “I believe so.”

Aldo and McGregor were originally slated to meet at UFC 189 in July. And the fighters talked smack in Toronto, Rio de Janeiro, Las Vegas, Los Ange-les, Boston, New York City and Dublin, criss-crossing North America in sep-arate private jets before heading to Europe to hype that fight.

They almost came to blows in To-ronto when McGregor slapped Aldo on the back while waiting to go on air during a morning visit to CTV’s “Can-ada AM.”

White dubbed it the “war tour.”But Aldo withdrew less than two

weeks before the fight due to a rib in-jury. McGregor fought Mendes instead, stopping him late in the second round for the interim title.

The sandpaper-like McGregor, a former plumber who has yet to meet a microphone or camera he doesn’t like, had taken one verbal shot after another at Aldo, whose lack of English restricted his comebacks. But the Bra-zilian looked calm and businesslike in the buildup to this fight.

Aldo was the only undisputed feath-erweight champion the UFC has ever had. He won the 145-pound crown in the WEC in November 2009 and be-came UFC champ a year later when the UFC bought and absorbed the WEC.

The win earned McGregor a spot on the cover of the UFC’s next video game, alongside Rousey.

Yoel (Soldier of God) Romero, ranked third among middleweight con-tenders, hung on to win a split (29-27, 28-29, 29-28) decision over No. 2 Ron-aldo (Jacare) Souza of Brazil. Romero won his seventh straight while snap-ping Souza’s eight-fight win streak.

“I am ready for everybody,” said Romero.

Romero took it to Souza on the ground in the first round after drop-ping him with a spinning back fist. The wobbly Brazilian was unsure where to go when the round ended. Souza re-covered and hurt Romero, who ran out of gas as the fight progressed, at the fence in the third before taking him down.

Romero, 38, won a silver medal in freestyle wrestling for Cuba at the 2000 Olympics. Souza, 36, is a former Strike-force title-holder and world Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion.

Demian Maia, another former jiu-jitsu world champion ranked sixth among welterweight contenders, out-grappled No. 12 Gunnar (Gunni) Nel-son — a black belt himself — while administering plenty of ground-and-pound pain along the way to a lopsided 30-26, 30-25, 30-25 decision.

Max (Blessed) Holloway, ranked fifth among featherweight contenders, beat No. 8 Jeremy (Lil’ Heathen) Ste-phens by a unanimous (30-27, 30-27, 29-28) decision for his eighth straight win.

Montreal lightweight John (The Bull) Makdessi, returning after a bro-ken jaw in a loss to Donald (Cowboy) Cerrone, lost a split decision to Yancy Medeiros on the undercard.

Defencemen Joe Hicketts and Haydn Fleury were also healthy scratches while Point sat out both games due to a shoulder injury.

Lowry said that Point would be re-moving the yellow non-contact jersey for the practices in Finland and will get in to some pre-tournament exhibi-tion games.

The 2016 world junior tournament will be played from Dec. 26-Jan. 5.

Canada’s Adam Svensson wins Web.com Tour qualifying tourney


Adam Svensson’s schedule is going to be a bit more organized in 2016.

The Surrey, B.C. native shot a fi-nal-round 1-over 72 on Sunday to win the Web.com Tour qualifying tourna-ment by seven shots over Americans Ian Davis and Jason Millard.

The victory gives the Canadian ful-ly-exempt status on the Web.com Tour for the 2016 season.

“It’s huge be-ing able to pick my schedule in-stead of booking your flight Monday night before the next event,” the 21-year-old said in a phone interview. “It’s huge knowing where you’re going to play.”

Svensson had a 2 0 - u n d e r - p a r 266 total over four rounds at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. It’s the second year in a row that a Canadian won the Web.com Tour qualifying tournament with Ed-monton’s Brad Fritsch capturing the title in 2014.

The final round featured high winds, which factored into the playing conditions. But not even the winds or pressure got to Svensson.

“Obviously you have your little

nerves on the first tee but after I set-tled down, I focused on my goal and my game plan throughout the day,” he said.

Svensson, who earned US$25,000 for the win, attended Barry University in Florida, but left after his sophomore season to pursue golf full time. During his time at Barry, Svensson was named a Division II player of the year. He says that his win on Sunday doesn’t

necessarily solidi-fy his decision to leave school early.

“I played pret-ty nicely up to this point this year and I think being able to finish second on the Mackenzie Tour was a nice thing, but I never had any doubts turning pro halfway through my college career,” said Svensson.

Svensson won a Canadian junior title in 2012 and helped Canada to a runner-up finish at

last year’s world amateur team cham-pionship in Japan.

He plans on returning to Surrey on Tuesday where he will spend Christ-mas before returning to Florida for his birthday on Dec. 31.

Heading into the new year, Svens-son has high hopes and new goals.

“Getting a good start on the Web and trying to win out there and secure my PGA Tour card,” he said.

JUNIOR B HOCKEY

Raiders girls finish second at Lethbridge basketball tourney

The Lindsay Thurber senior girls Raiders finished second in a high school basketball tournament at Leth-bridge during the weekend, falling 69-56 to host Catholic Central in the final.

The Raiders opened the tournament with a 70-33 thumping of Archbishop Jordan of Sherwood Park, then defeat-ed Medicine Hat McCoy 66-51. Thurber downed Lethbridge Chinook 77-69 to advance to the title game.

Samuel scores TKO in CalgaryRed Deer boxer Brian Samuel

scored a technical-knockout victory over Maged Hammo of Lethbridge Fri-day night to improve his professional record to 2-1.

The welterweight bout, part of the Dekada Premier Fight Night card at the Genesis Centre in Calgary, was stopped 37 seconds into the third round when Samuel delivered a dev-astating left hook to the chin of his opponent.

Also on the card, Red Deer’s Ryan Machan suffered a four-round, unan-imous-decision loss to Matt Krayco of Calgary in a cruiserweight fight.

In the main event of the evening, a 10-round CPBC cruiserweight title bout, Rob Nichols of Edmonton defeat-ed Frank White of Plympton-Wyoming, Ont., by unanimous decision.

Cunnington wins five goldsRed Deer Catalina Swim Club

member Tammy Cunnington turned in a dominant performance in the U.S. Paralympic and CanAm Open swim championships at Bismarck, N.D., during the weekend.

Cunnington earned five gold med-als, topping the competition in the 50-metre backstroke as well as the 50m and 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly and 50m breaststroke events.

She also set a world record in the 50m ‘fly, established new Canadian marks in the 50m ‘fly and 100m free and posted a global eighth-best time in the S4 150m individual medley.

BY GREG MEACHEMADVOCATE SPORTS EDITOR

The Notre Dame Cougars might be lacking in senior high boys basketball experience, but they have a host of players with a take-charge mentality.

“A lot of our players have played a year or two of JV ball and we have some Grade 12 leadership that made a world of difference for us last year,” said Notre Dame head coach Stephen Merredew, whose host squad defeated Cold Lake Assumption 67-54 in Satur-day’s third-place game of the Cougar Classic senior boys tournament.

“That’s something I can’t say enough about last year’s zone champi-onship team, that I was able to look up and down the bench and every guy was a leader. Our Grade 12s this year have been around this program and they’ve got to experience what we have to of-fer and what we expect. They’re good leaders.”

Just two of the Cougars’ Grade 12 players were with the team last season — guard Cody White and forward Josh Ballantyne.

“Cody and Josh were both key con-tributors for us last year, they weren’t end of the bench guys by any stretch,” said Merredew. “They were solid con-tributors who we’re going to expect a lot out of this year on and off the court.”

The other seniors — guard Don Sin-lao and forwards Franz Credo, Zach Best and Griffin Moline — have come up from the Notre Dame JV program, as have Grade 11 guards Edward Ortiz, Beko Wande, Jeb Maribojoc and Kris LeBlanc, Grade 11 forward Ryan Niel-sen and Grade 10 forward Rudy Soffo.

“All of these guys work really hard in practice and they demonstrated a lot of skill in JV,” said Merredew. “They were a good unit together in JV last year. They put up good results and so far they’ve shown that they are buy-ing in and that they want to win.”

As a result, Merredew hasn’t detect-

ed a problem with the players transi-tioning to the senior game.

“Admittedly it’s early in the season and we haven’t faced a lot of tests,” he said.

The visiting Camrose Kodiaks did present the Cougars with a challenge in league play last week, however.

“Camrose was really good with a lot of Grade 10s who are really athletic,” said Merredew, looking back on the 67-62 Notre Dame win. “Camrose brought it all game and we didn’t expect that, to be honest. Our guys got battle-tested early and there’s nothing wrong with a close game early in the season because it sets you up for later in the year.”

Merredew, in his first year as Cou-gars head coach after serving three seasons as an assistant, sees plenty of potential in his squad.

“If they keep working hard and playing together as a team I think that they’ll like the results,” he said.

• White paced the Cougars with 29 points in the Cougar Classic third-place game.

Airdrie Bert Church was a 76-69 win over Edmonton J. Percy Page in the championship final. Bedford Road of Saskatoon took consolation honours with an 81-23 victory over Prairie Christian Academy of Three Hills.

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Canadians come home with some cashAlthough the Canadian

contingent at the National Fi-nals Rodeo didn’t bring home any world championship gold buckles, the crew did return from Las Vegas with some significant cash from rodeo’s richest event.

After the final calculations were done Saturday night, steer wrestler Tanner Milan cashed in his chips in the av-erage race, where he finished third best among the world’s top 15. The Cochrane cowboy was 52.6 seconds over the ten rounds, and that was worth an impressive $43,154. Add to that the almost $40,000 he won in four go-rounds, and the two-time Canadian champ brings home $83,135 from his first NFR. His $159,461 total for the year meant he finished sixth in the world standings, the best of the six Canadians who made the season grand finale.

“I couldn’t have asked my horses to work any better this week and my brother, Baillie, hazed his (butt) off this week,” Milan told reporters, as the NFR wrapped up.

Bareback rider Clint Laye brings a $52,038 pay-check back to Cadogan to show for his first ten days of work in Vegas. His $142,346 season was tenth best in his event, as he finished off his NFR run with an 82 point ride for a split of fourth in the last round.

“I expected a lot more from myself,” commented Laye, who turned 22 last month. “But it’s a good out-come because I’m going to work harder next year.”

Not far behind Laye was Manitoba’s Orin Lars-en, also making his NFR debut. He collected a few bumps and bruises over the course of the body test-ing event, but wound up with $22,529 to show for it.

Big Valley’s pride, Zeke Thurston, managed to place in the tenth round of saddle bronc action, and that helped him secure a fifth place finish in the average, as he logged 671 points, riding nine of his ten horses. His haul from Las Vegas worked out to $45,692. In his rookie season on the pro scene, the 21-year-old earned $127,970 and finished 11th in the world. The other Larsen brother, Tyrel, won $26,653 for his NFR debut to wind up 13th on the season, with just under $98,000.

The Thomas and Mack arena is a tough place to

run barrels at the best of times, and even harder when you’re using borrowed horses. Okotoks cowgirl Deb Guelly was at her 6th NFR, but was the hard luck story of the bunch, as she experimented with horsepower that would click for her in that place. She wasn’t shut out, but her single payday of $4231 fell short of even paying the repair bill for her truck breakdown on the way down.

Altogether, the half dozen Canucks brought $234,279 U.S. north of the border, along with re-freshed dreams and determination for the new sea-son ahead.

The most dramatic World Championship come-back story of this year’s NFR was in the bareback riding, when Steven Peebles of Oregon put a dent in Kaycee Feild’s drive to a fifth straight word ti-tle. Just before he was scheduled to compete at the Ponoka Stampede this simmer, Peebles was badly injured at a Montana rodeo, and came with inches of actually losing his life.

“In the back of that ambulance that day, I begged God for another chance at life, and I told him that if He gave me that chance I would represent him as best I could and go after a world title as hard as I could,” Peebles told the PRCA. “That’s what’s pushed me this whole time – to not let God down. I look at life completely different now, and I kept fighting for what I wanted. It’s incredible everything worked out as well as it did.”

The closest finish came in the saddle bronc rid-ing, where even a last round win by ‘Wild’ Wade Sun-dell wasn’t quite enough to budge Jacobs Crawley from the number one spot. The Texas cowboy won the average, and edged out the popular Oklahoma rider for the world prize by a mere $3000.

Another Texan, Hunter Cure, claimed his second gold buckle in the steer wrestling, after placing in six rounds and finishing second in the average. Count up another couple for the Lone Star State, as Callie duPerier raced to the top spot in barrels, man-aging a season where she came in as world leader and finished on top as well.

The legendary Trevor Brazile had earlier earned another buckle for his collection in the steer roping, but added in his 13th All-Around title to make his count up to 23 championships, as he also broke the six million dollar mark in career earnings. Brazile very nearly had one more, but for a figure eight loop on the tail of his final calf. That opened the door for fellow Texan Caleb Smidt to win the tie down roping title, in just his second NFR. In the team roping, the buckles went to members of two different teams. Aaron Tsinigine from Arizona came away with the header honors, while Kollin VonAhn earned his sec-ond heeler world title. The impressive young Sage

Kimzey of Okohoma made it back to back world bull riding championships, in his first two appearances at the NFR.

Meantime, just in case fans in Las Vegas couldn’t get enough rodeo with the daily Wrangler NFR dose, rival western wear firm Cinch teamed up with Boyd Gaming to host a Cinch Chute-Out event on the final weekend, featuring many of the contestants who’d finished the year just outside the top fifteen in the standings.

Ponoka-raised Jake Vold was there, and the newly minted Canadian Bareback Champion made a strong statement about belonging in Las Vegas in Decem-ber. He won the first two rounds of the event with matching 86.5 points scores. Then he came out in the top six round, and posted a mark of 88.5. Finally, his domination was capped off as he climbed aboard the top Canadian bareback horse of the CFR, Virgil from C5, and spurred to an impressive 94 for the $10,000 bonus. It wasn’t NFR type cash, but the $14,000 he earned will go a long ways towards his 2016 season expenses.

Closer to home, there was rodeo action at the Agrim Centre in Rimbey Saturday night, during the Ultimate Cowboy qualifier. The event was designed to narrow the field for the increasingly popular chal-lenge, where contestants have to try their hand at all the rodeo events.

Organizer Scott Wyzykoski, known as the steer wrestling dentist in Red Deer, was impressed by the level of competition among those fighting for four available spots for the big New Year’s Eve event in Calgary.

“We had two from Quebec, three Americans and even a transplanted Aussie,” noted Wyzykoski. “It’s different for rodeo, because the crowd gets to see the competitors more than once, so there was a lot of loud cheering.”

Canada’s new All Around Champion, Josh Harden of Big Valley, came out in a tie for first at Rimbey, by placing in every one of the five events he competed in. Splitting top honors with him was Gerald Eash of Montana, while his brother Leroy also made the top four advancing from the night.

The surprise, to Wyzykoski and other rodeo fans, was Cole Goodine. The cowboy from Carbon has been to the CFR four times in bareback riding, but proved he’s very handy in other events as well, espe-cially when he turned in a winning steer wrestling run.

Tickets for Ultimate Cowboy V December 31st at the Agrium Western Events Centre are available through the website www.ultimatecowboy.ca.

Dianne Finstad is a local freelance writer and covers rodeo for the advocate

Hard work and skill to drive Cougars senior boys team

DIANNE FINSTAD

RODEO

NATIONAL FINALS RODEO


Notre Dame Cougar Cody White is held to the outside as Bert Church Charger Rikesh Dwivedl defends during Notre Dame Cougar Classic basketball tournament action in Red Deer, Friday.

LOCAL BRIEFS

SCOREBOARD B4MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

Hockey Local Sports

Transactions

Football

Basketball

Today• Women’s basketball: Hoosier Daddy vs. Age Gap, Ball Hawks vs. Spartans, 7:15 and 8:30 p.m., Lindsay Thurber; Funk vs. Triple Threat, Big Ballers vs. Pink Panthers, 7:15 and 8:30 p.m., Central Alberta Christian; Dynamo vs. Shooting Stars, Storm vs. Rampage, 7:15 and 8:30 p.m., Lindsay Thurber Main.

Tuesday• Senior high basketball: Sylvan Lake at Notre Dame, Innisfail at Lindsay Thurber, Wetaskiwin at Lacombe, Rocky Mountain House at Ponoka, Hunting Hills at Camrose; girls at 6 p.m., boys to follow.• WHL: Red Deer at Kootenay, 7 p.m. (The Drive).• Men’s basketball: BTown Maple Jordans vs. Silver Spurs, Sheraton Red Deer vs. The D Leaguers, 7:15 and 8:30 p.m., Lindsay Thurber.

Wednesday•JV basketball: Notre Dame at Lindsay Thurber, Ponoka at Lacombe, Stettler at Sylvan Lake, Hunting Hills at Wetaskiwin, Rocky Mountain House at Camrose; girls at 6 p.m., boys to follow.

Thursday• Senior high basketball: Rocky Mountain House at Camrose; girls at 6 p.m,, boys to follow.• Men’s basketball: Vikings vs. Bulldog Scrap Metal, Washed up Warriors vs. Wells Furniture, 7:15 and 8:30 p.m., Lindsay Thurber.

Friday• Peewee AA hockey: Airdrie at Red Deer TBS, 6 p.m., Collicutt Centre; West Central at Red Deer Parkland, 7:15 p.m., Kinsmen B.• AJHL: Lloydminster at Olds, 7 p.m.Heritage junior B hockey: Mountainview at Stettler, 7:30 p.m.• WHL: Kootenay at Red Deer, 8 p.m., Centrium.• Midget AAA hockey: Lethbridge at Red Deer, 8 p.m., Arena.

Saturday• Minor midget AAA hockey: Calgary Blazers at Red Deer Strata Energy, 11:30 a.m., Arena.• Peewee AA hockey: Foothills at Red Deer TBS, 12:30 p.m., Kinsmen A; Okotoks Green at Olds, 1 p.m.; Okotoks Black at West Central, 7:30 p.m., Rimbey.• Major bantam hockey: Calgary Flames at Red Deer, 2 p.m., Arena.• Major bantam girls hockey: Calgary Rangers at Red Deer, 2:15 p.m., Collicutt Centre.• Bantam AA hockey: Red Deer Steel Kings at Red Deer Ramada, 2:30 p.m., Kinex; West Central at Olds, 3:30 p.m.• Junior women’s hockey: Thorsby at Central Alberta, 4:15 p.m., Penhold Regional Multiplex.• WHL: Lethbridge at Red Deer, 7 p.m., Centrium.• Chinook senior AAA hockey: Stony Plain at Bentley, 7 p.m.• AJHL: Drumheller at Olds, 7 p.m.• Heritage junior B hockey: Three Hills at Stettler, 7:30 p.m.; Blackfalds at Red Deer, 8 p.m., Arena; Airdrie at Ponoka, 8 p.m.• Midget AA hockey: Olds at Red Deer Indy Graphics, 4:45 p.m., Arena; Bow Valley at West Central, 8 p.m., Sylvan Lake.

Sunday• Minor midget AAA hockey: Calgary Canucks at Red Deer North Star, noon, Arena.• Peewee AA hockey: Red Deer Parkland at Olds, 12:15 p.m.; Foothills at Central Alberta, 2 p.m., Lacombe.• Major bantam girls hockey: Calgary Outlaws at Red Deer, 2:15 p.m., Collicutt Centre.• Bantam AA hockey: Red Deer Steel Kings at Olds, 2:45 p.m.• Heritage junior B hockey: Cochrane at Blackfalds, 3:30 p.m.• Men’s basketball: Grandview vs. Monstars, Chillibongs vs. Washed up Warriors, Johns Manville vs. Rusty Chuckers, 4:15 p.m.; NWS vs. Carstar, Lacombe All Sports Cresting vs. Henry’s Eavestroughing, Triple A Batteries vs. Alken Basin, 5:30 p.m.; all games at Lindsay Thurber.• Midget AA hockey: Red Deer Indy Graphics at Olds, 5:30 p.m.

National Football LeagueAMERICAN CONFERENCE

East W L T Pct PF PANew England 12 2 0 .846 402 253N.Y. Jets 8 5 0 .615 325 256Buffalo 6 7 0 .462 316 301Miami 5 7 0 .417 240 300

South W L T Pct PF PAHouston 6 7 0 .462 259 291Indianapolis 6 7 0 .462 275 356Jacksonville 5 8 0 .385 326 357Tennessee 3 10 0 .231 253 326

North W L T Pct PF PACincinnati 10 3 0 .769 354 229Pittsburgh 8 5 0 .615 344 260Baltimore 4 9 0 .308 278 326Cleveland 3 10 0 .231 240 357

West W L T Pct PF PADenver 10 3 0 .769 281 225Kansas City 8 5 0 .615 331 243Oakland 6 7 0 .462 299 326San Diego 3 10 0 .231 250 334

NATIONAL CONFERENCEEast

W L T Pct PF PAWashington 6 7 0 .462 281 307Philadelphia 6 7 0 .462 301 322N.Y. Giants 5 7 0 .417 307 296Dallas 4 9 0 .308 230 305

South W L T Pct PF PAy-Carolina 13 0 0 1.000 411 243Tampa Bay 6 7 0 .462 288 322Atlanta 6 7 0 .462 279 295New Orleans 5 8 0 .385 323 397

North

W L T Pct PF PAGreen Bay 9 4 0 .692 317 245Minnesota 8 5 0 .615 258 255Chicago 5 8 0 .385 272 314Detroit 4 9 0 .308 267 336

West W L T Pct PF PAx-Arizona 11 2 0 .846 405 252Seattle 8 5 0 .615 340 235St. Louis 5 8 0 .385 210 271San Francisco 4 9 0 .308 188 315x-clinched playoff spoty-clinched division

Thursday’s GameArizona 23, Minnesota 20

Sunday’s GamesSt. Louis 21, Detroit 14Kansas City 10, San Diego 3Washington 24, Chicago 21Philadelphia 23, Buffalo 20Cleveland 24, San Francisco 10New Orleans 24, Tampa Bay 17N.Y. Jets 30, Tennessee 8Pittsburgh 33, Cincinnati 20Jacksonville 51, Indianapolis 16Carolina 38, Atlanta 0Seattle 35, Baltimore 6Oakland 15, Denver 12Green Bay 28, Dallas 7New England 27, Houston 6

Monday’s GameN.Y. Giants at Miami, 6:30 p.m.

Thursday, Dec. 17Tampa Bay at St. Louis, 6:25 p.m.

Saturday, Dec. 19N.Y. Jets at Dallas, 6:25 p.m.

National Basketball AssociationEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L Pct GBCleveland 15 7 .682 —Toronto 16 9 .640 1/2Chicago 13 8 .619 1 1/2Charlotte 14 9 .609 1 1/2Indiana 13 9 .591 2Miami 13 9 .591 2Boston 14 10 .583 2Detroit 14 11 .560 2 1/2Atlanta 14 11 .560 2 1/2Orlando 12 11 .522 3 1/2Washington 10 12 .455 5New York 11 14 .440 5 1/2Milwaukee 10 15 .400 6 1/2Brooklyn 7 16 .304 8 1/2Philadelphia 1 24 .040 15 1/2

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L Pct GBGolden State 24 1 .960 —San Antonio 20 5 .800 4Oklahoma City 16 8 .667 7 1/2L.A. Clippers 14 10 .583 9 1/2Dallas 13 11 .542 10 1/2Memphis 13 12 .520 11Houston 12 12 .500 11 1/2Utah 10 12 .455 12 1/2Phoenix 11 14 .440 13Portland 10 15 .400 14Denver 9 14 .391 14Minnesota 9 14 .391 14Sacramento 9 15 .375 14 1/2New Orleans 6 17 .261 17L.A. Lakers 3 21 .125 20 1/2

Saturday’s GamesL.A. Clippers 105, Brooklyn 100Boston 98, Charlotte 93Detroit 118, Indiana 96Chicago 98, New Orleans 94Houston 126, L.A. Lakers 97San Antonio 103, Atlanta 78Milwaukee 108, Golden State 95Washington 114, Dallas 111New York 112, Portland 110

Sunday’s GamesPhoenix 108, Minnesota 101Toronto 96, Philadelphia 76Miami 100, Memphis 97Oklahoma City 104, Utah 98, OT

Monday’s GamesToronto at Indiana, 5 p.m.Orlando at Brooklyn, 5:30 p.m.

L.A. Clippers at Detroit, 5:30 p.m.Philadelphia at Chicago, 6 p.m.Washington at Memphis, 6 p.m.Miami at Atlanta, 6 p.m.Utah at San Antonio, 6:30 p.m.Phoenix at Dallas, 6:30 p.m.Houston at Denver, 7 p.m.New Orleans at Portland, 8 p.m.

Tuesday’s GamesCleveland at Boston, 5:30 p.m.Denver at Minnesota, 6 p.m.Houston at Sacramento, 8 p.m.Milwaukee at L.A. Lakers, 8:30 p.m.

NBA LeadersTHROUGH DEC. 12Scoring G FG FT PTS AVGCurry, GOL 25 266 148 807 32.3Harden, HOU 24 200 234 698 29.1Durant, OKC 17 160 99 464 27.3George, IND 22 191 142 594 27.0James, CLE 21 209 114 555 26.4Westbrook, OKC 23 207 151 601 26.1Lillard, POR 25 215 111 611 24.4Griffin, LAC 24 229 111 573 23.9Davis, NOR 20 172 111 468 23.4Bledsoe, PHX 23 182 107 512 22.3Anthony, NYK 24 180 123 523 21.8DeRozan, TOR 24 174 165 520 21.7Lowry, TOR 24 160 128 519 21.6Wiggins, MIN 21 154 118 441 21.0

FG Percentage FG FGA PCTJordan, LAC 95 138 .688Whiteside, MIA 110 176 .625Howard, HOU 89 148 .601Parker, SAN 126 224 .563Faried, DEN 96 171 .561

Rebounds G OFF DEF TOT AVGDrummond, DET 25 141 269 410 16.4Jordan, LAC 24 90 231 321 13.4Howard, HOU 18 71 149 220 12.2Love, CLE 22 60 183 243 11.0Davis, NOR 20 38 178 216 10.8

Assists G AST AVGRondo, SAC 24 265 11.0Westbrook, OKC 23 225 9.8Wall, WAS 22 193 8.8Paul, LAC 19 166 8.7Rubio, MIN 16 137 8.6

WHLEASTERN CONFERENCE

EAST DIVISION GP W L OTL SOL GF GA PtBrandon 32 19 10 1 2 120 90 41Prince Albert 31 18 10 2 1 96 94 39Moose Jaw 31 16 10 4 1 112 101 37Regina 32 15 13 2 2 97 107 34Saskatoon 30 11 16 3 0 87 124 25Swift Current 31 10 17 3 1 74 96 24

CENTRAL DIVISION GP W L OTL SOL GF GA PtCalgary 35 21 12 1 1 116 108 44Red Deer 32 21 11 0 0 117 92 42Lethbridge 31 20 11 0 0 127 95 40Edmonton 33 13 17 3 0 92 111 29Medicine Hat 31 10 18 2 1 99 126 23Kootenay 33 6 25 2 0 62 140 14

WESTERN CONFERENCEB.C. DIVISION

GP W L OTL SOL GF GA PtKelowna 31 23 7 1 0 122 90 47Victoria 32 20 10 1 1 110 73 42Prince George 31 19 10 1 1 104 89 40Kamloops 28 14 10 3 1 105 92 32Vancouver 33 10 19 2 2 94 120 24

U.S. DIVISION GP W L OTL SOL GF GA PtSeattle 30 18 10 2 0 103 87 38Everett 29 17 10 0 2 78 62 36Spokane 31 16 12 2 1 104 104 35Portland 30 15 15 0 0 103 96 30Tri-City 31 12 18 1 0 93 118 25

Sunday’s resultsSaskatoon 2 Regina 1 (SO)Medicine Hat 5 Edmonton 4Vancouver 4 Victoria 2Calgary 5 Red Deer 2

Saturday’s resultsKamloops 5 Prince Albert 2Regina 6 Lethbridge 5Brandon 5 Kelowna 1Swift Current 5 Kootenay 2Prince George 3 Portland 2Medicine Hat 5 Edmonton 3Victoria 6 Vancouver 1Everett 4 Seattle 1Tri-City 4 Spokane 3

Tuesday’s gamesKamloops at Regina, 6 p.m.Kelowna at Swift Current, 6 p.m.Lethbridge at Prince Albert, 6 p.m.Medicine Hat at Edmonton, 7 p.m.Red Deer at Kootenay, 7 p.m.Prince George at Seattle, 8:05 p.m.Portland at Tri-City, 8:05 p.m.

Wednesday’s gamesKamloops at Brandon, 6 p.m.Kelowna at Moose Jaw, 6 p.m.Lethbridge at Saskatoon, 6:05 p.m.Victoria at Vancouver, 8 p.m.Everett at Spokane, 8:05 p.m.

Friday, December 18Kamloops at Moose Jaw, 6 p.m.Kelowna at Prince Albert, 6 p.m.Saskatoon at Regina, 6 p.m.Brandon at Swift Current, 6 p.m.Lethbridge at Edmonton, 7 p.m.Calgary at Medicine Hat, 7:30 p.m.Kootenay at Red Deer, 8 p.m.Victoria at Prince George, 8 p.m.Portland at Spokane, 8:05 p.m.Everett at Vancouver, 8:30 p.m.Tri-City at Seattle, 8:35 p.m.

Saturday, December 19Kamloops at Swift Current, 6 p.m.Brandon at Prince Albert, 6 p.m.Moose Jaw at Regina, 6 p.m.Kelowna at Saskatoon, 6:05 p.m.Medicine Hat at Calgary, 7 p.m.Kootenay at Edmonton, 7 p.m.Lethbridge at Red Deer, 7 p.m.Victoria at Prince George, 8 p.m.Vancouver at Everett, 8:05 p.m.Portland at Spokane, 8:05 p.m.Seattle at Tri-City, 8:05 p.m.

Sunday’s summaryHitmen 5, Rebels 2

First Period1. Calgary, Stukel 17 (unassisted) :31.2. Red Deer, Musil 10 (Bobyk, Kopeck) 19:52.

Penalties — Strand RD (hooking) 6:55.Second Period

3. Calgary, Stukel 18 (Karnaukhov, Stallard) 2:29 (pp).4. Red Deer, Kopeck 5 (Bobyk, Pederson) 17:38 (pp).5. Calgary, Bean 13 (unassisted) 17:49.Penalties — Kopeck RD (holding) 0:48, Hagel RD (high-sticking) 1:36, Fyten CAL (interference) 9:14, Harmsworth CAL (high-sticking) 12:00, Pawlenchuk RD (slashing) 12:45, Kastelic CAL (interference) 16:02.

Third Period6. Calgary, Kanzig 4 (Bensmiller, Zipp) 5:24 (pp).7. Calgary, Stukel 19 (Karnaukhov) 19:36 (-EN).Penalties — Harmsworth CAL (tripping) 0:39, Ni-kolishin RD (Embellishment) 1:56, Twarynski CAL (tripping) 1:56, Musil RD (tripping) 4:11.

Shots on goalCalgary 7 12 10 — 29Red Deer 18 16 10 — 44Goal — Calgary: Porter (W, 12-3-1) Red Deer: Toth (L, 16-9-0).Power plays (goal-chances) — Calgary: 2-5 Red Deer: 1-4.Attendance — 5,272 at Red Deer.

WHL Scoring Leaders G A PtsTyson Baillie, Kel 18 33 51Brayden Burke, Let 8 39 47Dryden Hunt, MJ 20 25 45Reid Gardiner, P.A. 20 23 43Brayden Point, MJ 18 25 43Mathew Barzal, Sea 9 34 43Ivan Nikolishin, RD 18 24 42Radel Fazleev, CAL 14 28 42Alex Forsberg, Vic 11 31 42Adam Brooks, Reg 15 26 41Devante Stephens, Spo 10 31 41Parker Bowles, TC 18 21 39Jonathon Martin, SC 22 16 38Egor Babenko, Let 16 22 38Nolan Patrick, Bra 9 29 38Collin Shirley, Kam 20 17 37Tyler Wong, Let 21 15 36Keegan Kolesar, Sea 16 20 36Matthew Phillips, Vic 18 16 34Noah Gregor, MJ 14 20 34Giorgio Estephan, Let 12 22 34Ethan Bear, Sea 9 25 34

NHLEastern Conference

Atlantic Division GP W L OL GF GA PtMontreal 31 20 8 3 100 70 43Detroit 30 16 8 6 78 77 38Boston 28 16 9 3 91 77 35

Metropolitan Division GP W L OL GF GA PtWashington 28 20 6 2 85 62 42NY Islanders 31 18 8 5 89 72 41NY Rangers 31 18 9 4 90 72 40

WILD CARD GP W L OL GF GA PtOttawa 30 15 10 5 92 90 35New Jersey 30 15 11 4 74 75 34Pittsburgh 28 15 10 3 67 67 33Florida 30 14 12 4 76 74 32Tampa Bay 30 14 13 3 71 68 31Philadelphia 30 12 12 6 62 83 30Carolina 30 12 14 4 74 92 28Buffalo 30 12 15 3 72 83 27Toronto 28 10 13 5 64 76 25Columbus 31 11 17 3 74 93 25

Western ConferenceCentral Division

GP W L OL GF GA PtDallas 30 22 6 2 102 79 46Chicago 31 17 10 4 85 75 38St. Louis 31 17 10 4 78 75 38

Pacific Division GP W L OL GF GA PtLos Angeles 29 19 8 2 75 61 40Arizona 30 14 14 2 81 95 30Vancouver 31 11 12 8 79 86 30

WILD CARD GP W L OL GF GA PtMinnesota 28 15 7 6 73 66 36Nashville 30 15 10 5 80 79 35Winnipeg 30 14 14 2 82 91 30San Jose 29 14 14 1 75 78 29Colorado 31 14 16 1 85 88 29Calgary 29 13 14 2 78 103 28Edmonton 30 13 15 2 82 90 28

Anaheim 29 11 13 5 56 73 27

Sunday’s resultsNY Islanders 4 New Jersey 0Colorado 3 St. Louis 1Chicago 4 Vancouver 0

Saturday’s resultsBoston 3 Florida 1Buffalo 2 Los Angeles 1 (OT)Washington 2 Tampa Bay 1Montreal 3 Ottawa 1NY Islanders 3 Columbus 2 (OT)St. Louis 3 Dallas 0Colorado 3 Nashville 2Carolina 5 Arizona 4 (OT)Calgary 5 NY Rangers 4 (OT)Minnesota 2 San Jose 0

Monday’s gamesEdmonton at Boston, 5 p.m.Tampa Bay at Columbus, 5 p.m.Washington at Pittsburgh, 5 p.m.Los Angeles at Ottawa, 5:30 p.m.Buffalo at Detroit, 5:30 p.m.

Tuesday’s gamesEdmonton at NY Rangers, 5 p.m.Florida at NY Islanders, 5 p.m.New Jersey at Buffalo, 5 p.m.Carolina at Philadelphia, 5 p.m.San Jose at Montreal, 5:30 p.m.Tampa Bay at Toronto, 5:30 p.m.Vancouver at Minnesota, 6 p.m.Calgary at Nashville, 6 p.m.St. Louis at Winnipeg, 6 p.m.Columbus at Dallas, 6:30 p.m.Colorado at Chicago, 6:30 p.m.

Wednesday’s gamesOttawa at Washington, 5 p.m.Pittsburgh at Boston, 6 p.m.

Saturday’s summaryFlames 5, Rangers 4 (OT)

First Period1. NY Rangers, Miller 5 (Stalberg, Hayes) 10:56.Penalties — Zuccarello NYR (interference) 3:54.

Second Period2. Calgary, Gaudreau 11 (unassisted) 17:41.3. Calgary, Raymond 2 (Frolik) 17:58.Penalties — Kreider NYR (tripping) 0:30, Monahan Cgy (holding) 1:02, Lindberg NYR (interference) 4:33, Jones Cgy (hooking) 9:43, Ferland Cgy (high-sticking) 19:29.

Third Period4. Calgary, Gaudreau 12 (Jones, Monahan) 2:32.5. Calgary, Colborne 4 (Stajan, Russell) 4:57.6. NY Rangers, Glass 1 (Moore) 5:13.7. NY Rangers, Boyle 2 (Kreider, Miller) 15:06.8. NY Rangers, Zuccarello 13 (Boyle, Brassard) 18:48 (pp).Penalties — Monahan Cgy (hooking) 16:14, Gran-lund Cgy (high-sticking) 18:15.

Overtime9. Calgary, Brodie 3 (Russell, Gaudreau) 2:09.Penalties — None.

Shots on goalNY Rangers 9 5 15 0 — 29Calgary 9 10 6 2 — 27Goal — NY Rangers: Raanta (LO, 4-3-1) Calgary: Hiller (W, 4-4-0).Power plays (goal-chances) — NY Rangers: 1-5 Calgary: 0-3.

NHL Scoring Leaders G A PtsPatrick Kane, Chi 19 26 45Jamie Benn, Dal 20 20 40Tyler Seguin, Dal 15 25 40Taylor Hall, Edm 14 20 34Daniel Sedin, Vcr 13 20 33Erik Karlsson, Ott 6 26 32Johnny Gaudreau, Cgy 12 19 31Michael Cammalleri, NJ 11 19 30John Klingberg, Dal 5 25 30Henrik Sedin, Vcr 9 20 29Vladimir Tarasenko, StL 17 11 28Claude Giroux, Pha 11 17 28Blake Wheeler, Wpg 10 18 28Evgeny Kuznetsov, Wash 9 19 28Bobby Ryan, Ott 9 19 28David Krejci, Bos 9 19 28Patrice Bergeron, Bos 9 19 28Artemi Panarin, Chi 9 19 28Matt Duchene, Col 15 12 27Mike Hoffman, Ott 15 12 27Ryan O’Reilly, Buf 10 17 27Mark Stone, Ott 7 20 27Tomas Plekanec, Mtl 7 20 27

Saturday’s Sports TransactionsBASEBALLAmerican LeagueHOUSTON ASTROS — Traded RHPs Mark Appel, Harold Arauz, Thomas Eshelman and Vince Velas-quez and LHP Brett Oberholtzer to Philadelphia for RHP Ken Giles and SS Jonathan Arauz.National LeagueARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS — Designated RHP A.J. Schugel for assignment.ATLANTA BRAVES — Sent RHP Ryne Harper to Seattle to complete an earlier trade.NEW YORK METS — Announced the retirement of OF Michael Cuddyer.PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES — Traded RHP David Whitehead to Pittsburgh for RHP Charlie Morton. Designated RHPs A.J. Achter and Dan Otero for assignment.FOOTBALLNational Football LeagueATLANTA FALCONS — Placed PK Matt Bryant on injured reserve. Signed DT Joey Mbu from the practice squad.BALTIMORE RAVENS — Placed OT Eugene Mon-roe on injured reserve. Waived OL Kaleb Johnson. Signed QB Bryn Renner and WR Chris Matthews from the practice squad.CHICAGO BEARS — Placed WR Marquess Wilson on injured reserve. Signed S Demontre Hurst from the practice squad.NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS — Signed LB Eric Martin from the practice squad and RB Trey Wil-

liams to the practice squad.NEW YORK GIANTS — Signed DE Stansly Mapon-ga from Atlanta’s practice squad.OAKLAND RAIDERS — Placed LB Neiron Ball on injured reserve. Signed DT Leon Orr from the practice squad.ST. LOUIS RAMS — Placed S T.J. McDonald on injured reserve. Signed CB Eric Patterson from the practice squad.SAN DIEGO CHARGERS — Released WR Shane Wynn from the practice squad. Placed DT Corey Liuget and CB Brandon Flowers on injured reserve. Activated DE Darius Philon from injured reserve. Signed QB Brad Sorensen from the practice squad and CB Adrian Phillips to the practice squad.SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Placed RB Carlos Hyde on injured reserve. Signed TE Brian Leon-hardt from the practice squad.TENNESSEE TITANS — Placed LB Yannik Cud-joe-Virgil on injured reserve. Signed LB J.R. Tavai from the practice squad.HOCKEYNational Hockey LeaguePITTSBURGH PENGUINS — Fired coach Mike Johnston and assistant coach Gary Agnew. Named Mike Sullivan coachTAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Recalled F Mike Blum-den from Syracuse (AHL).American Hockey LeagueNORFOLK ADMIRALS — Assigned F Alexis Loi-seau to Norfolk (ECHL).TORONTO MARLIES — Recalled F Eric Faille from

Orlando (ECHL).ECHLBRAMPTON BEAST — Signed F Ben Power.COLORADO EAGLES — Released G Julien Her-nandez as emergency backup. Signed G Peter Di Salvo.MANCHESTER MONARCHS — Signed F Matt Harlow.

Sunday’s Sports TransactionsBASKETBALLNational Basketball AssociationMEMPHIS GRIZZLIES — Recalled F James Ennis from Iowa (NBADL).FOOTBALLNational Football LeagueBALTIMORE RAVENS — Signed DB Nick Perry to the practice squad.HOCKEYNational Hockey LeagueTAMPA BAY LIGHTNING — Reassigned G Kristers Gudlevskis to Syracuse (AHL). Recalled G Andrei Vasilevskiy from Syracuse.ECHLELMIRA JACKALS — Released F Phil Bronner.RAPID CITY RUSH — Released G Cody Lindhorst as emergency backup.Southern Professional Hockey LeaguePEORIA RIVERMAN — Acquired C Connor Toomey from Macon for F Jake Trask and F-D Nick Grasso.

CANMORE — The Olds Grizzlys fired 43 shots at Canmore Eagles netminder Ryan Bontorin but came out on the short end of a 4-2 Alberta Junior Hockey League decision Saturday.

Riley Smith and Tyr Thompson were the only Grizzlys to solve Bontorin. Brett Radford scored twice for the Eagles, who got single goals from Braden Saretsky and Kyle Pauls.

Ethan Maertens-Poole made 25 saves in a losing cause. Olds trailed 3-0 after one period, then notched two unanswered sec-ond-period goals before surrendering an insurance marker in the third.

The Grizzlys close out the pre-Christmas portion of their schedule with home games Friday and Saturday versus the Lloydminster Bobcats and Drumheller Dragons.

OLDS GRIZZLYS

Generals hammer Ft. SaskatchewanThe host Bentley Generals struck for five

first-period goals en route to an 11-4 drilling of the Fort Saskatchewan Chiefs in Chinook Hockey League action Sunday.

Scott Doucet paced the winners with three goals, while Carter Rigby and Kyle Bailey each contributed two goals and two assists. Kyle Sheen also tallied twice and Todd Fiddler and

Don Morrison completed the Bentley scoring, with Mike Kneeland picking up a trio of help-ers.

Brant Middleton, Brendan Baumgartner, who added two assists, Tanner Cochrane and Brett Holmberg replied for the Chiefs.

Thomas Heemskerk made 21 saves as the winning netminder, while Troy Tremblay stopped 44 shots for the visitors. The teams split four minor penalties.

The Generals, who hold down top spot in the Chinook League with a 9-1-0-1 record, are in Fort Saskatchewan Friday and host the Stony Plain Eagles Saturday.

CHINOOK HOCKEY LEAGUE

The visiting Red Deer Optimist Chiefs struck for three third-period goals — including a pair by Tyler Graber — and posted a 5-1 Alberta Midget Hockey League win over the Calgary Buffaloes Saturday.

Regan Doig, Josh Tarzwell and Kobe Scott also connected for the Chiefs, who got a 31-save performance from Justin Travis.

Red Deer, outshot 32-29, led 2-0 after one period and 2-1 after 40 minutes. The Buffaloes took all five minor penalties assessed in the contest, while the Chiefs took the lone major and game misconduct.

Red Deer improved to 14-4-2 with the win and returns to action Friday at the Arena ver-sus the Lethbridge Hurricanes. The puck drops at 8 p.m.

Minor midget AAAThe Red Deer Strata Energy Chiefs posted

a pair of weekend wins, nipping the North Star Chiefs 4-3 in an all-Red Deer contest Friday and dumping the host Calgary Blue 6-2 Satur-day.

Elijah Johanson paced Strata Energy with two goals in Saturday’s victory. Ty Herle had a goal and two assists and Rylan Burns, Keenan Smith and Angus Macleod also scored for the Chiefs, who held a 46-21 advantage in shots.

On Friday, Strata Energy got a goal and two helpers from Ryan McBeath and additional markers off the sticks of Smith, Herle and Ryan McMann. Replying for North Star were Tristen Hatto, Kyle Budvarson and Hunter Leslie.

Steven Arthur made 34 saves for Strata En-ergy, assessed six of 11 minor penalties and the lone misconduct. Justin Verveda blocked 24 shots in a losing cause.

The North Chiefs also played Sunday against the host Airdrie/Cochrane Avalanche. The score and details were unavailable.

Major midget girlsThe Red Deer Sutter Fund Chiefs bowed out

of the Mandi Schwartz Memorial Tournament at Wilcox, Sask., Saturday with a 3-1 loss to the Edmonton St. Francis Xtreme. Emma Thomas scored for the Chiefs, who outshot the Xtreme 35-14.

Earlier in the day, Shae DeMale scored in regulation time and Maddison Toppe and Ca-leigh Meraw sniped shootout goals to give the Chiefs a 2-1 win over Rocky Mountain Raiders.

Sutter Fund opened the tournament with a 3-1 loss to Weyburn, then defeated the Okana-gan Hockey Academy 3-2.

Abagael Thiessen scored against Weyburn and also notched a goal in the win over OHA, a game in which Brandy Steinman and Jordyn Burgar also tallied for Red Deer.

On Friday, the Chiefs fell 4-0 to the host Notre Dame Hounds despite holding a 26-24 advantage in shots.

Atom AJase Bernett scored twice for the Red Deer

Phone Experts White in a 6-3 win over Red Deer Sheraton Black. Also scoring for the win-ners were Cale Driedger, Ryan Dore, McGuire Lavigne and Carson Mazurkewich. Kohen Rea, Malia Tetreault and Michael Bruce replied for Sheraton.

MINOR HOCKEY

Mike Sullivan takes over as Penguins coach after Mike Johnston’s dismissal

PITTSBURGH — New Penguins coach Mike Sul-livan believes his team has a chance to be great, and it’s up to him to help the players reach their poten-tial.

Sullivan ran his first practice as Pittsburgh’s coach on Sunday, a day after the team fired Mike Johnston and assistant Gary Agnew in an attempt to shake up a star-studded group that has underper-formed through the first two months of the season.

“I’m a firm believer that the players have to take ownership of their team,” Sullivan said. “I believe it’s their team, not mine.”

Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have headlined the team’s high-profile roster the last decade. The Penguins then traded for elite winger Phil Kessel during the summer.

Pittsburgh was expected to be one of the top teams in the league, but instead the Penguins are fifth in a crowded Metropolitan Division. The Pen-guins also have struggled offensively, ranking near the bottom of the NHL with a little more than two goals per game.


PANTHERS 38 FALCONS 0CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Cam

Newton added to his MVP re-sume, completing 15 of 21 pass-es for 265 yards and three touch-downs, and the unbeaten Caroli-na Panthers defeated the Atlanta Falcons 38-0 on Sunday to clinch a first-round bye in the NFC play-offs.

Newton connected on scoring strikes of 74 and 46 yards to Ted Ginn Jr., and Jonathan Stewart ran for a touchdown as the Pan-thers (13-0) scored on their first three possessions.

Newton also threw a 4-yard TD pass to Ed Dickson in the fi-nal seconds of the first half be-fore leaving for good at the end of the third quarter with Caroli-na up 38. He finished with a ca-reer-high quarterback rating of 153.3, and the Panthers won their 17th straight regular-season game.

Carolina’s defence forced four turnovers and had five sacks, while limiting struggling Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan to 224 yards passing. Atlanta is 6-7 and has dropped six in a row.

PATRIOTS 27, TEXANS 6HOUSTON (AP) — Tom Brady

threw for 226 yards and two touch-downs and the New England Pa-triots snapped a two-game skid to clinch a playoff spot.

Brady threw TD passes to Kes-hawn Martin and Rob Gronkowski in the first half to help New En-gland build a 17-6 lead.

The Patriots (11-2) didn’t move the ball as well in the second half, but the defence harassed Brian Hoyer into multiple mistakes. Ja-baal Sheard had strip sacks on Hoyer twice after halftime. The Patriots recovered the second one early in the fourth, and James White made it 27-6 with a 2-yard run three plays later.

Hoyer was sacked five times and left the game to be evaluat-ed for a concussion with about 9 minutes remaining for the Tex-ans (6-7). The quarterback already missed a game this season after getting a concussion on Nov. 16.

STEELERS 33, BENGALS 20CINCINNATI (AP) — Andy Dal-

ton broke his right thumb while making a tackle on an intercep-tion, and the Steelers roughed up backup AJ McCarron while pull-ing away to a victory that left the AFC North up for grabs.

The Steelers (8-5) rumbled with the Bengals during pregame war-

mups and then led the whole way, sending Cincinnati (10-3) to its first lopsided loss of the season.

William Gay returned one of McCarron’s passes 23 yards for a touchdown, and Ben Roethlis-berger had another good day as Pittsburgh’s resurgent offence kept rolling. Pittsburgh has scored 30 points in five straight games, a franchise record.

The game — and potentially Cincinnati’s season — turned on one interception. Stephon Truitt picked off Dalton’s shovel pass in the first quarter, and the quarter-back broke his right thumb while making the tackle.

RAIDERS 15, BRONCOS 12DENVER (AP) — Khalil Mack

had five sacks of Brock Osweiler, including one in the end zone for a safety, and Derek Carr bounced back from an awful first half.

Carr threw two touchdown passes and the Raiders (6-7) beat the Broncos for the first time since Sept. 12, 2011, despite being held to minus-12 yards in the first half — the worst performance by a team heading into halftime in nearly a quarter-century.

The Broncos (10-3) failed to hold onto a 12-0 halftime lead or several on-target throws from Os-weiler, including two big drops by Demaryius Thomas, one for a touchdown and another for a late first down.

Denver’s Brandon McManus, who nailed four field goals in the first half, clanked a 49-yarder that would have tied it off the left up-right with 10:22 remaining.

PACKERS 28, COWBOYS 7GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Ed-

die Lacy ran for 124 yards and a touchdown, while fellow running back James Starks added two scores.

The Packers (9-4) have a one-game lead in the NFC North over Minnesota after their second straight victory.

With 435 yards and 29 first downs, Green Bay got better pro-duction out of its inconsistent offence with coach Mike McCar-thy assuming play-calling duties again.

The Packers were still ham-pered at times by penalties and problems in short-yardage situ-ations. But the defence and run-ning game came up with big plays in the fourth quarter.

Dallas’ touchdown came on Robert Turbin’s 7-yard run mid-way through the third quarter to make it 14-7. The Cowboys (4-9) suffered a setback to their chanc-es of winning the mediocre NFC East.

SEAHAWKS 35, RAVENS 6BALTIMORE (AP) — Russell

Wilson threw five touchdown passes, three to Doug Baldwin, against the injury-depleted Ra-vens.

Wilson went 23 for 32 for 292 yards. The five TD throws matched a career high — set ear-lier this season against Pittsburgh — and gave him 16 over his last four games. Baldwin scored on passes of 14, 22 and 16 yards. Tyler Lockett caught TD throws of 8 and 49 yards.


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Raptors continue domination of SixersBY THE CANADIAN PRESS

Raptors 96 76ers 76TORONTO — With two starters side-

lined with injuries, this could well have been an ugly stretch for the To-ronto Raptors.

But Luis Scola is doing his part to make sure it’s not.

Scola scored 14 of his 22 points in the first quarter to help the Raptors to a 96-76 victory over the lowly Philadel-phia 76ers on Sunday.

“Starting games well is something that’s helped me a lot during my ca-reer, it’s something I did good a lot of times,” said Scola, who talked to the media while his young son — one of four children — lounged in his locker.

“So I think the team might benefit from it, since I’m starting, it’s a good chance for me to do that.”

The Raptors, who are without Jonas Valanciunas (broken hand) and De-Marre Carroll (knee contusion), also got 25 points and eight rebounds from DeMar DeRozan. Kyle Lowry scored 16 points, and Bismack Biyombo had a team-high nine boards for the Rap-tors (16-9), who ended their six-game homestand with four straight wins af-ter opening with a pair of losses.

Scola, signed by Toronto in the off-season, shot 10-for-14 from the field, and has scored in double figures in four of the last five games.

“He’s one of our engines. He runs

hard. He plays hard,” said Lowry. “For a guy to be his age (35) to push and work as hard as he does, it’s motiva-tion.

“He just knows the game. He knows where he’s supposed to be. It makes the job a lot easier, makes passes easi-er, just understanding where he knows where the next player is going to be.”

Jahlil Okafor led the Sixers (1-24) with 23 points, while Robert Coving-ton had 15 and Isaiah Canaan finished with 10.

The Raptors now have won 10 straight versus Philly, a streak that stretches back to the beginning of the 2013-14 season, the most wins over the Sixers of any team in the NBA.

The Raptors led by as many as 20 points, but, in what’s becoming a bad habit, they couldn’t put the young Six-ers squad away for good until the dy-ing minutes. They led 69-58 going in-to the fourth quarter, but a couple of Covington three-pointers helped pull the Sixers to within six points midway through the period.

“We lost them in transition,” Rap-tors coach Dwane Casey said. “Human nature is you think the game is over, a couple of threes and it’s a new ball game. I’ve said this… we’re not good enough to mess with the game because the game will turn around and mess with you if you do that. You have to make sure you tend to business for 48 minutes.”

Fouls would cost Philly down the

stretch as a parade of Raptors to the free-throw line put Toronto back up by 12 with just over four minutes left. DeRozan muscled his way to the rim for a layup with 2:25 to play that put Toronto up by 14 and sent dozens of fans streaming to the Air Canada Cen-tre doors for an early exit.

Nik Stauskas of Mississauga, Ont.,

had nine points for Philly.Sixers forward Nerlens Noel went

to hospital after the game with an eye injury, and coach Brett Brown wasn’t sure if he would fly with the team.

“We’re just taking precautionary measures with us being 40,000 feet in the air,” Brown said. “It’s a corneal abrasion, and we’ll learn more.”


Toronto Raptors’ DeMar DeRozan and Philadelphia 76ers’ Richaun Holmes chase a loose ball during first half NBA action in Toronto, Sunday.

Newton keeps Panthers rolling, clinch first-round bye for playoffs


Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles dives over the Indianapolis Colts line for a touchdown during a game in Jacksonville, Fla., Sunday. Jacksonville won 51-16.

Homan scores two in final end for win over Jones in

Canadian Open final


YORKTON, Sask. — Ottawa’s Rachel Homan scored a pair in the final end for an 8-7 victory over Winnipeg’s Jennifer Jones in Sunday’s final at the Canadian Open.

It was the third straight Grand Slam victory for Homan, who won the Masters and the National earli-er this season.

“Jones played really well,” Homan said. “They came out firing and we had a couple misses here and there and they had some really well-deserved twos and threes and we had to battle back really hard in that game.”

Jones jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but Homan bounced back for three in the second to take a one-point advantage. Jones fired back in the third with three of her own before Homan added singles in each of the next three ends. Both teams traded deuc-es in the last two ends to round out the scoring.

Homan’s lead, Lisa Weagle, had a game-high 89 per cent shooting percentage.

Toronto’s John Epping defeated Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., 7-4 in the men’s final. It was the first Grand Slam title for Epping in four seasons.

Epping broke the game open in the sixth by scor-ing three.

“It feels unbelievable. It’s just so tough to win a Grand Slam,” Epping said. “All the top teams in the world and to beat three or four of them this week all in a row, it’s just so hard to do. That’s what I think makes it so rewarding at the end of the day.”

The Canadian Open is the third major of the Grand Slam season.

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Publication Dates: Saturday, December 26, 2015Monday, December 28 , 2015

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CALL CLASSIFIEDS403-309-3300

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Misc.Help 880

WHAT’S HAPPENINGCLASSIFICATIONS

50-70

Found 56CELL PHONE found on

Michener Centre Grounds. Call to identify. 403-343-8737

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ANONYMOUS 403-347-8650

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OVEREATERS Anonymous Contact Phyl @ 347-4188

CLASSIFICATIONS700-920

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Clerical 720ACCOUNTING

CLERK

What we Need:• A quick learner who

will take ownership of all the job entails

• Attention to detail and taking pride in striving towards perfection

• Being self-motivated and working with little supervision after train-ing

• Highly organized an d effi cient

• Punctual and multi-tasker

• Good communication skills

What you will do:• Record accounting

journals on all aspects of vehicle sales

• Look after Finance Contracts in conjunc-tion with the Finance Managers

• Communication with agencies such as Gen-eral Motors and Banks

Experience:• 3 years or more work

experience in the ac-counting fi eld

• Accounting Diploma or Degree

• Profi cient in Microsoft Excel and Word

• Preference given to ex-perience in Car Dealership software such as: CDK Global, Reynold & Reynold

E-mail cover letter, resume and references to:

[email protected]

Farm Work 755F/T PEN CHECKERfor general feedlot duties

for large expanding feedlot in Sundre. Experience

necessary. Fax resume to403-638-3908, or call

403-638-4165, or [email protected]

Legal 780NOTICE

Notice toJOHN THOMPSON

who worked for IPSCO INC and/or

EVRAZ NA from July 2004 to February 2010. Please contact Helen

Brock @ 403 346-7717 or at Box 593 Red Deer, AB.

T4N 5G6 before January 15, 2016.

Restaurant/Hotel 820CALKINS CONSULTING

o/a Tim Hortons req’s.FOOD SERVICESUPERVISORS

1-2 yrs. exp. an asset. $13.75/hr., 40 hrs./week, 4 positions, F/T and P/T.

Permanent shift, weekend, day, night, and evening.

Education not req’d. Start ASAP. Benefi ts. Apply at 6620 Orr Drive. Red Deer

or call Kerry at 403-848-2356 for complete

job description

EAST 40TH PUBREQ’S F/T or P/T

GRILL COOKApply in person with resume

3811 40th Ave.

LITTLE Caesars Pizza is now hiring a F/T Food Ser-vice Supervisor. $13.75/hr. 40 hrs/wk. Flexible time including weekends. Must have at least 1 - 2 yrs. food service exp. Email resume [email protected] or apply in person @ 9, 6791 50 Ave. Red Deer. Call 403-346-1600 for info.

Buying or Selling your home?

Check out Homes for Salein Classifieds

Trades 850

BVT TRUCK AND TRAILER REPAIR

is looking for a Journeymen Heavy Duty Truck & Trailer

Mechanic to join our team in

Red Deer for our Evening Shift, Monday- Friday,

2:30 pm-11:00 pm. To join our team, please submit your resume to [email protected]

Misc.Help 880ACADEMIC Express

ADULT EDUCATION AND TRAINING

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GED Preparation

Would you like to take the GED in your community?

• Red Deer• Rocky Mtn. House• Rimbey• Caroline• Sylvan Lake• Innisfail• Stettler• Ponoka• Lacombe

Gov’t of Alberta Funding may be available.

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ELLIS Bird Farm is accepting applications for

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Antiques& Art 1520 COLEMAN STOVE, H. D. single burner from 1950’s, stainless steel, $100. fi rm

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Equipment-Heavy 1630TRAILERS for sale or rent Job site, offi ce, well site or

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Tools 1640SKILL SAW, Craftsman 7.25, $50. 403-314-0804

Firewood 1660AFFORDABLE

Homestead FirewoodSpruce, Pine, Aspen - Split. Avail. 7 days/wk. 403-304-6472

B.C. Birch, Aspen, Spruce/Pine. Delivery avail.

PH. Lyle 403-783-2275

ComingEvents 52

Firewood 1660FIREWOOD. Pine, Spruce,

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FIREWOOD: Spruce & Pine - Split. 403-346-7178

LOGSSemi loads of pine, spruce,

tamarack, poplar, birch. Price depends on location

of delivery. Lil Mule Logging 403-318-4346

HouseholdFurnishings1720

BUNK BED, with desk & dresser built in. New cond. Pd $1300. Asking $5000.

o.b.o. 780-916-0221

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Misc. forSale 1760

100 VHS movies, $75. For All 403-885-5020

8 X 10 AREA RUG, green, beige and burgundy tones,

clean, $30 obo. 403-755-2760

PICTURE framing supplies. 587-447-3641 for info

PROPANE heater for in-side travel home, works

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FOWLER Reta Miriam Fowler (nee Austin) died on December 9th, 2015 in her home among her family in Victoria, BC. Reta was born in Toronto, Ontario on July 20,1928 to Estelle and Robert Austin. She grew up there and attended secretarial school. She was very active in music and was a soprano in a professional young women’s chorale group. She continued to sing solos throughout most of her life. Reta and her family moved to California for a short time and returned to Toronto where she met Paul Fowler. They were married on September 10th, 1948, settled in Red Deer, Alberta, and raised four children. Working for the Alberta government for over 38 years as a medical and executive secretary, Reta excelled in her organizational skills by managing a busy life with work, home, and an active church life. Reta and her husband Paul retired from Edmonton to Victoria, BC. in 1990. Reta was predeceased by her husband Paul Fowler, both her siblings Robert Austin and Donald Austin, and her grandson, Kieran Bruce. She is survived by her four children: Leah Fowler (Wendy Donawa), Timothy (Kathy) Fowler , Peter (Jody) Fowler, and Neva (Rob) Bruce; her grandchildren: Matthew (Celeste) Fowler, Joshua (Cherise) Fowler, Jeremy Fowler, Caleb Fowler, Connor Bruce, and two great grand children, Kyla Ann Fowler, and Luke Fowler. Reta enjoyed fashion, singing, entertaining, skating, alpine skiing, and bible study groups. She has always been a regular participant in her church, but most of all, she was a consummate and generous friend to many. Friends are invited to join in a celebration of life on December 15, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. at The Victoria Church of the Nazarene, 4277 Quadra Street, Victoria, BC. In lieu of fl owers, please donate to The Compassionate Resource Warehouse. Condolences may be offered to the family at www.mccallbros.com.

McCall’s of Victoria, BC (1-800-870-4210)

Obituaries

McALLISTERRodger Angus McAllister, ‘Angus’ of Innisfail, Alberta passed away at the Innisfail Hospital on Thursday, December 10, 2015 at the age of 81 years. Angus was born on September 1, 1934 in Innisfail. He is lovingly remembered by his wife, Phyllis, his sons Tim and wife Kim of Lethbridge and Jamie and wife Mardell of Stony Plain and four grandchildren, Zack, Amy, Reegan and Lowell. Angus had a great sense of humor and despite his later struggles with respiratory issues, could always fi nd the energy to make friends and family laugh. He was a farmer and welder and avid designer of equipment having worked for over 20 years at Mannville in Innisfail. Angus was an avid horseman and spent many hours with friends and family riding in the west country. A memorial service will be held at the Innisfail Alliance Church on Wednesday, December 16, 2015 at 11:00 am. In lieu of fl owers, memorial donations in Angus’ honor can be made to the Alberta Lung Association or to the Innisfail Alliance Church.

HEARTLAND FUNERAL SERVICES LTD., INNISFAIL entrusted with arrangements.

Phone: 403-227-0006. www.heartlandfuneralservices.com

TUTTYMary Elizabeth1945 - 2015Mary Tutty, of Red Deer, passed away peacefully in her sleep, on December 8, 2015. She was born in Nanaimo, B.C. on December 6, 1945, formally resided in Victoria, B.C., but moved to Red Deer fi ve years ago to be closer to her family. Mary is survived by her two children: son, Charles MacDonald, and daughter, Glesnie Tutty; 3 grandchildren: Colin Tutty, Hayden Tutty, Crystal Pell and her family, as well as many extended family and friends. Although Mom fi nally succumbed to her endless health struggles, she was still the strongest woman we knew. Her strength and will to live was incredible. As per Mary’s wishes, cremation has taken place and a Memorial Service will take place in the spring, at which time Mary will be interred with her grandparents on Vancouver Island. If desired, Memorial Donations in Mary’s honor may be made directly to the Canadian Liver Foundation at www.liver.ca. Condolences may be sent or viewed at www.parklandfuneralhome.com

Arrangements in care of PARKLAND FUNERAL

HOME AND CREMATORIUM,

6287 - 67 A Street (Taylor Drive), Red Deer.

403.340.4040

Obituaries

In Loving Memory ofRachel O’Connor-Hittel

May 11, 1934 - Dec. 14, 2011

Alway in our hearts & the thought of you in our minds

We’ll keep missing youAs the days go by

Love you forever & alwaysThe Hittel and

O’Connor Families

In Memoriam

SHOEMAKERTerrance (Terry) Gordon

Mar. 11, 1959 - Dec. 14, 2005In Loving Memory of our Son, Brother, Brother-In -

Law & Uncle Terry, To hear your voice,

and to see your smile,To sit and talk awhile

To be together in the same old way

Would be our greatestwish today.

Gone, but not forgotten, Dearly missed by,

Your FamilyADULT or YOUTH

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HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Olympic champion Russia won a men’s biathlon World Cup relay on Sunday, while Italy edged Germany in the wom-en’s event for its maiden victory.

Anton Shipulin overtook leader Emil Hegle Svendsen in the final kilometre and held off a late challenge by the Norwegian.

Russia, which included Alexey Volkov, Ev-geniy Garanichev and Dmitry Malyshko, missed six targets and finished the 4x7.5-kilometre com-petition in 1 hour, 11 minutes, 40.8 seconds.

The Norwegian team of Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Tarjei Boe and

Svendsen had to reload seven times in total and trailed Russia by 3.1 seconds. Third-place France finished already 1:01.9 off the lead, while Austria came 1:10.9 behind in fourth despite 13 missed targets and two penalty loops.

The Canadian team of Christian Gow, Nathan Smith and Scott Gow — all from Calgary — and Brendan Green of Hay River, N.W.T., were sixth.

Dorothea Wierer beat Germany’s Franziska Preuss at the finish of the women’s 4x6K relay, giving Italy its maiden win in the discipline.

Italy, which also included Lisa Vittozzi, Kar-in Oberhofer and Federica Sanfilippo, missed eight targets in total and finished in 1 hour, 5 minutes, 32.6 seconds.

The Canadian team of Julia Ransom of Kelowna, B.C., Megan Tandy of Prince George, B.C., Emma Lunder and Rosanna Crawford, both from Canmore, Alta., finished 10th.


Pair of Canadian long-track speedskaters reach podium


HEERENVEEN, Nether-lands — Alex Boisvert-Lacroix won a silver medal in the men’s 500 metres at the long-track speedskating World Cup at Thi-alf Oval while Canadian team-mate Ivanie Blondin took the bronze in the women’s mass start.

Boisvert-Lacroix, from Sher-brooke, Que., was second in 34.76 seconds, just behind Rus-sia’s Ruslan Murashov (34.67). Espen Aarnes Hvammen of Norway was third in 34.86.

World record holder Pavel Kulizhnikov of Russia lost his first 500-metre race of the sea-son when he fell in a corner after Boisvert-Lacroix put him under pressure with a fast start.

“I was off like a rocket,” Boisvert-Lacroix said. “It was my best opening ever and I went into the first turn in the right way, but then I saw Pavel fall in front of me, a few me-

tres away from me. It surprised me a bit and I even had to hold back a little on the crossover to let Pavel go by in front of me to avoid coming into contact with him.

“But after that I was able to get back in gear and with the help of my coach, I was able to refocus on my race. Under the circumstances I’m quite happy about ending up on the podi-um.”

Japanese skater Misaki Os-higiri won the women’s mass start in eight minutes 22.80 seconds. Dutch skater Car-ien Kleibeuker was second in 8:23.23 and Blondin, from Otta-wa, was third in 8:27.96.

Heather Richardson-Bergs-ma edged American teammate Brittany Bowe to win the wom-en’s 1,500 metres. Joey Mantia made it a U.S. double by win-ning the men’s 1,500 to take the overall World Cup lead.

Richardson-Bergsma and Bowe have won or finished second in all four of the World Cup season’s 1,500 races and

stand level atop the standings. Bowe sent Richardson-Bergs-ma into second place in Satur-day’s 1,000.

In a head-to-head race in the final pairing, Richardson-Berg-sma won in 1:55.29 seconds, 0.15 seconds ahead of Bowe. Mar-rit Leenstra of the Netherlands was third and Kali Christ of Re-gina was 16th.

Mantia won his first World Cup 1,500 of the season in 1:44.26, leaving Denis Yuskov of Russia second and Kjeld Nuis of the Netherlands third. Vin-cent De Haitre of Cumberland, Ont., was ninth.

Yu Jing of China won the women’s 500 in 37.84, just three hundredths of a second ahead of Richardson-Bergsma. Zhang Hong was third and Heather McLean of Winnipeg was 10th.

Arjan Stroetinga of the Netherlands won the men’s mass start ahead of Italy’s Fa-bio Francolini and South Ko-rea’s Seung-Hoon Lee. Toron-to’s Jordan Belchos was sev-enth.


Canada’s Ivanie Blondin skates during the 3,000 meter race of the Speedskating World Cup in Heerenveen, northern Netherlands, Friday.

St-Gelais, Maltais and Girard lead charge as Canada wins five medals


SHANGHAI — Marianne St-Gelais, Valerie Maltais and Samuel Girard won in-dividual medals Sunday on a five-medal day for Canada at the ISU World Cup short-track speedskating competition.

St-Gelais, from Saint-Fel-icien, Que., won silver in the women’s 500 metres while Mal-tais, from La Baie, Que., took silver in the 1,500. Girard, from Ferland-et-Boilleau, Que., won bronze in the men’s 500 and the Canadian relay teams add-ed women’s silver and men’s bronze.

St-Gelais has won seven medals in eight individual events this season.

“Not only did I have a Kore-an and a Chinese skater to deal with behind me, but there was also Chinese skater (and gold medallist) Kexin Fan in front of me,” she said. “I was able to control my spot in second place. It’s true that I didn’t win, but being able to maintain sec-

ond position in a race where the level was so high, it’s quite satisfying.”

Maltais, meanwhile, fin-ished between South Korean skaters Suk Hee Shim and Al-ang Kim.

“I overtook on the inside and it took me a lot of time and energy to get to first place,” Maltais said. “Once I found my-self in front, I was able to stay there until the last lap. I really gave it my all but at the end, it was a really fast race and I had trouble maintaining my energy level.

“But I was able to protect second place and I’m happy about that. I will cherish this silver medal. Personally, this was one of the best days — and one of the best weekends — of my career.”

Maltais won gold in the 1,000 metres a day earlier.

In the men’s 500, Girard fin-ished behind China’s Dajing Wu and Dutch skater Sjinkie

Knegt.“I skidded a little bit but

I was able to control it and I came up with a big finish at the end,” Girard said. “This third-place result means I have a medal of every colour so far this season.”

South Korea won women’s relay gold and the Netherlands took the bronze. St-Gelais and Maltais teamed with Kasandra Bradette of Saint-Felicien, Que., and Audrey Phaneuf of Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., to win silver.

In the men’s relay, a Chinese skater lost his footing during a turn and brought Girard down with him along the wall with 22 laps to go.

The Canadian squad, which included Charles Hamelin of Sainte-Julie, Que., Pat-rick Duffy of Oakville, Ont., and Charle Cournoyer of Boucherville, Que., came back to take third place behind Hun-gary and Italy.

SHORT-TRACK SPEEDSKATING

BIATHLON


Complete the grid so that every row, every column and 3x3 box contains every digit from 1 through 9.

Solution

ARGYLE SWEATER

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE

HI & LOIS

PEANUTS

BLONDIE

HAGAR

BETTY

PICKLES

GARFIELD

LUANN

TUNDRA

SHERMAN‛S LAGOON

RUBES

SUDOKU

December 142006 — Ed Stelmach sworn in as Pre-

mier of Alberta.1992 — Ralph Klein sworn in as Premier

of Alberta, replacing Don Getty.1990 — Canadian Wheat Board has $1

billion loss; bigger than total of all losses since founding in 1935. They were selling wheat for $40-50 a tonne less than it paid farmers.

1960 — Government sets retirement age

of Supreme Court of Canada and Superi-or Court judges at 75; takes effect March, 1961.

1929 — Prime Minister Mackenzie King signs an agreement transferring control of and revenue from Crown land, water, oil and other provincial natural resources to Manito-ba and Alberta under the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement. Unlike other Canadi-an provinces, the prairie provinces did not receive control over mineral resources or Crown lands when they became provinces. The agreement was made with Saskatche-wan and British Columbia the following year.

TODAY IN HISTORY

BUSINESS B9MONDAY, DEC. 14, 2015

A ‘victory for all the planet’BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LE BOURGET, France — Nearly 200 nations ad-opted the first global pact to fight climate change on Saturday, calling on the world to collectively cut and then eliminate greenhouse gas pollution but impos-ing no sanctions on countries that don’t.

The “Paris agreement” aims to keep global tem-peratures from rising another degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) between now and 2100, a key demand of poor countries ravaged by rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.

Loud applause erupted in the conference hall after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius gav-eled the agreement. Some delegates wept, others embraced.

“It’s a victory for all of the planet and for future generations,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, adding that the pact will “prevent the worst most devastating consequences of climate change from ever happening.”

Brazilian Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira added: “Today, we’ve proven that it’s possible for ev-ery country to come together, hand in hand, to do its part to fight climate change.”

In the pact, the countries pledge to limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human ac-tivity to the levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100.

In practical terms, achieving that goal means the world would have to stop emitting greenhouse gases — most of which come from the burning of oil, coal and gas for energy — altogether in the next half-cen-tury, scientists said. That’s because the less we pol-lute, the less pollution nature absorbs.

Achieving such a reduction in emissions would involve a complete transformation of how people get energy, and many activists worry that despite the pledges, countries are not ready to make such pro-found, costly changes.

The deal now needs to be ratified by individual governments — at least 55 countries representing at least 55 per cent of global emissions — before taking effect. It is the first pact to ask all countries to join the fight against global warming, representing a sea change in U.N. talks that previously required only wealthy nations to reduce their emissions.

“History will remember this day,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said. “The Paris agreement on climate change is a monumental success for the planet and its people.”

Speaking from Washington, President Barack Obama said the climate agreement offers “the best

chance to save the one planet we have.”The deal commits countries to keeping the rise in

global temperatures by the year 2100 compared with pre-industrial times “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and says they will “endeav-our to limit” them even more, to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The world has already warmed by about 1 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times.

Ben Strauss, a sea level researcher at Climate Central, said limiting warming to 1.5 degrees instead of 2 degrees could potentially cut in half the project-ed 280 million people whose houses will eventually be submerged by rising seas.

More than 180 countries have ready presented plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions— a break-

through in itself after years of stalemate. But those pledges are not enough to achieve the goals in the accord, meaning countries will need to cut much more to meet the goal.

“We’ve agreed to what we ought to be doing, but no one yet has agreed to go do it,” said Dennis Clare, a negotiator for the Federated States of Micronesia. “It’s a whole lot of pomp, given the circumstances.”

The agreement sets a goal of getting global green-house gas emissions to start falling “as soon as possi-ble” they have been generally rising since the indus-trial revolution.

NATIONS PLEDGE TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING IN HISTORIC PACT


French President Francois Hollande, right, French Foreign Minister and president of the COP21 Laurent Fabius, center, and United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon applaud after the final conference at the COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change, in Le Bourget, north of Paris, Saturday. Governments have adopted a global agreement that for the first time asks all countries to reduce or rein in their greenhouse gas emissions.

Please see CLIMATE on Page B10

Oil company wants to build gravel island to produce first oil from U.S. Arctic waters


ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Arctic off-shore drilling by Royal Dutch Shell PLC drew protests on two continents this year, but a more modest proposal for extracting petroleum where polar bears roam has moved forward with much less attention.

While Shell proposed explorato-ry wells in the Chukchi Sea about 80 miles off Alaska’s northwest coast, a Texas oil company wants to build a gravel island as a platform for five or more extraction wells that could tap oil 6 miles from shore in the Beaufort Sea.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is deciding how to assess the environmental effect of a produc-tion plan for the Liberty Project by Hilcorp Alaska LLC, a subsidiary of Houston-based Hilcorp Energy Co.

A successful well would mean the first petroleum production in federal Arctic waters.

Hilcorp’s plan for a 23-acre gravel island, about the size of 17.4 football fields, has drawn mixed reviews from conservationists and outright condem-nation from environmentalists who be-lieve the oil should stay in the ground.

Global warming is melting sea ice habitat beneath polar bears, walrus and ice seals, said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Development.

“The impacts of an oil spill on top of that could be devastating and would be nearly impossible to clean up,” she said.

Earlier this year, Shell met with protests in the U.S. and in London, En-gland, over proposed exploration wells in Arctic waters far from deep-water ports and onshore services that could respond to an oil spill.

Greenpeace activists in April boarded a Shell drill rig as it crossed the Pacific Ocean from Asia. Demon-strators in kayaks protested Shell’s use of the Port of Seattle to stage vessels. In Portland, Oregon, activists dangled from a bridge to delay a support vessel departing for Alaska.

Shell drilled one Chukchi Sea ex-ploratory well. However, on Sept. 28, citing disappointing results and an uncertain federal regulatory process, Shell announced that it was pulling out of Arctic waters “for the foresee-able future.”

Meanwhile, the Liberty Project qui-etly moved forward and is closer to production with the blessing of drill-ing advocates, including the state.

“With the recent announcement by Royal Dutch Shell regarding its Outer Continental Shelf development, the importance of Liberty Reservoir proj-ect has only increased,” Alaska Gov. Bill Walker said in an Oct. 14 letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Manage-ment.

Hilcorp would create the island

in Foggy Island Bay, 15 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, the largest oil field in North America. Last year, Hilcorp pur-chased 50 per cent of Liberty assets from BP Exploration Alaska, which drilled at the site in 1997 and discov-ered an estimated 120 million barrels of recoverable oil.

BP considered building a gravel is-land and also “ultra-extended reach drilling” from shore. The drilling type was deemed technically unfeasible, Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson said.

Hilcorp would place conventional wells on the island, positioning them over the oil bearing rock sitting under the ocean floor.

“It’s proven to be a safe and effec-tive means for oil and gas development in the Arctic,” Nelson said by email. “Alaska has a 30-year record of safely operating offshore in the Arctic.”

Endicott, the first development off the shore of Alaska’s North Slope, has operated from an artificial gravel is-land in state waters for almost three decades, she said. Three other fields are in production from offshore gravel islands in state waters.

For the Liberty project, trucks car-rying gravel would travel by ice road to a hole cut in sea ice. The trucks would deposit 83,000 cubic yards of gravel into 19 feet of water. The work surface would be 9.3 acres surrounded by a wall, providing a barrier to ice, waves and wildlife.

Standard rotary drills would ex-tract oil. Hilcorp would move oil by a 5.6-mile undersea pipeline to shore and overland to the trans-Alaska pipe-line.

Hilcorp projects a peak production rate of up to 70,000 barrels of oil per day within two years of initial produc-tion. Over 15 to 20 years, the company predicts it would yield 80 to 150 mil-lion barrels of oil.

Lois Epstein of The Wilderness So-ciety said her group has concerns but has not submitted formal comments.

Residents, Epstein said, worry that islands will affect the migration pat-terns of bowhead whales harvested by subsistence hunters. Because the oil would come from federal waters, residents would not see revenues, but would be the ones most harmed by any spill.


A Transocean Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible drilling unit that Royal Dutch Shell leases from Transocean Ltd., arrives in Port Angeles, Wash. aboard a transport ship after traveling across the Pacific before its eventual Arctic destination, earlier this year. Arctic offshore drilling by Royal Dutch Shell PLC drew protests on two continents this year, but a more modest proposal for extracting petroleum where polar bears roam has moved forward with much less attention. While Shell proposed exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea, a Texas oil company wants to build a gravel island as a platform for five or more extraction wells that could tap oil 6 miles from shore in the Beaufort Sea.

Liberal deficits

could hit $25 billion


OTTAWA — Now that the federal Liberals have shied away from their vow to keep annual deficits under $10 billion, they’ve latched on to another fiscal target — and this one will be much easier to meet.

The new government is suddenly talking about the debt-to-GDP ratio, promising repeatedly to keep it on a downward track every year until the next election.

The government calculates its debt-to-GDP ratio by dividing total federal debt by the overall size of the econo-my, as measured by nominal GDP.

It represents a government’s capac-ity to pay back debt — and focusing on it gives politicians more spending flexibility.

By targeting debt-to-GDP, the Lib-erals could instead be prepared to run annual deficits of up to $25 billion in the coming years and still lower the ra-tio — as long as the economy grows at a decent pace, economists say.

“The government does have a fair bit of room if what they’re trying to do is just see the debt-to-GDP ratio go down,” said Mike Moffatt, who teaches economics at the University of West-ern Ontario’s Ivey Business School.

The adoption of the debt-to-GDP ra-tio as a “fiscal anchor” is not new. It was mentioned in the Liberal election platform as one of the ways to keep spending under control. The campaign rhetoric, however, largely focused on the $10-billion annual deficit.

No longer.With uncosted election promises

piling up on top of unforeseen short-falls in the underlying fiscal plan, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has emphasized the more-reachable fiscal anchor in recent days.

“We will continue to decrease (the debt-to-GDP ratio) every single year because that’s important for the fiscal health of our country,” Trudeau said Wednesday, after casting further doubt on the $10-billion annual deficit target because of economic challenges.

“We always targeted modest defi-cits, we had hoped it would be around $10 billion — we will see if we will be able to hold at that level.”

AND STILL HONOUR THEIR ‘FISCAL ANCHOR’

Please see DEFICIT on Page B10


DILBERT

It says wealthy nations should con-tinue to provide financial support for poor nations to cope with climate change and encourages other coun-tries to pitch in on a voluntary basis. That reflects Western attempts to expand the donor base to include ad-vanced developing countries such as China.

In a victory for small island nations, the agreement includes a section high-lighting the losses they expect to incur from climate-related disasters that it’s too late to adapt to. However, a foot-note specifies that it “does not involve or provide any basis for any liability or compensation” — a key U.S. demand because it would let the Obama admin-istration sign on to the deal without going through the Republican-led Senate.

The adoption of the agreement was held up for nearly two hours as the United States pressed successfully to change the wording on emissions tar-gets from saying developed countries “shall” commit to reducing emissions to they “should.” Experts said that means the deal probably won’t need U.S. congressional approval.

Nicaragua said it would not support the pact. Its envoy, Paul Oquist, said the agreement does not go far enough to cut global warming and help the poor countries affected by it.

Nicaragua is one of eight participat-ing countries that haven’t submitted emissions targets, after Venezuelan envoy Claudia Salerno said her coun-try — which had been holding out — liked the agreement and had submit-ted its pledge.

Thousands of protesters demon-

STORIES FROM PAGE B9

CLIMATE: Provide financial support for poor nations

strated across Paris, saying the accord is too weak to save the planet. People held hands beneath the Eiffel Tower and stretched a two-kilometre-long (1.2-mile-long) banner from the Arc de Triomphe to the business district La Defence.

Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace said the accord is a good start but isn’t enough.

“Today the human race has joined in a common cause, but it’s what hap-pens after this conference that really matters,” he said. “This deal alone won’t dig us out the hole we’re in, but it makes the sides less steep.”

The accord does represent a break-through in climate negotiations. The U.N. has been working for more than two decades to persuade governments to work together to reduce the man-made emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

The previous emissions treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, included only rich countries and the U.S. never signed on. The last climate summit, in Copen-hagen in 2009, ended in failure when countries couldn’t agree on a binding emissions pact.

The talks were initially scheduled to end Friday but ran over as Western powers, tiny Pacific island nations and everyone in between haggled over wording.

The main dispute centred over how to anchor the climate targets in a binding international pact, with China and other major developing countries insisting on different rules for rich and poor nations. The agreement struck a middle ground, removing a strict firewall between rich and poor na-tions and saying that expectations on countries to take climate action should grow as their capabilities evolve. It does not require them to do so.

Some scientists who had criticized earlier drafts as unrealistic praised the final pact for including language that essentially means the world will have to all but stop polluting with greenhouse gases by 2070 to reach the 2-degree goal, or by 2050 to reach the 1.5-degree goal.

That’s because when emissions fall, nature compensates by absorbing less carbon dioxide — and can even release old pollution once there’s less of it in the air, said Princeton Univer-sity’s Michael Oppenheimer. Forests, oceans and soil currently absorb about half the world’s man-made carbon di-oxide emissions.

“It means that in the end, you have to phase out carbon dioxide,” said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

In addition to the cuts in emissions, the goal could be reached in part by increasing how much carbon dioxide is sucked out of the air by planting forests or with futuristic technology, Oppenheimer said, but added such technology would be expensive.

DEFICIT: Ratio can continue to fall

Plain old math dictates the ratio can continue to fall even if the public books slide into the red — at least to a point.

That’s because even if the federal debt gets fatter, the ratio will edge downwards if the economy is growing faster than the debt.

Still, in an economy battered by low commodity prices, the debt-to-GDP promise doesn’t exactly look like a slam dunk, either.

Earlier this month, projections by the parliamentary budget office sug-gested the government could find itself running annual deficits up to $15 bil-lion once the Liberals’ costed, big-tick-et election promises are factored in. On top of that, the party has also made several uncosted vows.

Then, this week, the Liberals con-ceded their new tax package will, in fact, drain more than $1 billion net from the treasury each year.

At the same time, economic growth is sluggish.

When considering the forecasts, Scott Clark — a former deputy minis-ter of Finance — believes the Liberals will already be close to the threshold that would start ratcheting up the debt-to-GDP.

“Then you’ve got a serious problem because then no one’s going to believe you,” Clark said of the danger of not living up to the goal.

“Your credibility will go straight out the window because if you’re going to have an anchor … you have to live up to it. As soon as you break that, the financial markets will come down on you like a ton of bricks.”

The Liberal platform, which helped carry the party to victory in October, also contained a second fiscal anchor: balancing the federal books by the fourth year of its mandate.

But experts believe balancing the 2019-20 budget poses a big hurdle un-less the government cuts spending or hikes taxes — or both — to overcome the weaker-than-expected economy and the pricey basket of electoral promises.

Many experts like Clark argue that lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio is a more-appropriate — and achievable — commitment for a government than a balanced-budget anchor.

The government projects the ratio will gradually fall each year from 31.1 per cent in 2015-16 to 25.2 per cent in 2020-21.

But Don Drummond, a former se-nior Finance Department bureaucrat, questioned the importance of striving to drop an already-low ratio that’s much lower than it’s been in the past.

“Who knows whether it even needs to be brought down?” said Drummond, who was assistant deputy minister of fiscal policy in the 1990s when the ra-tio was close to 70 per cent.

“There’s nothing in the economic literature that drives you towards the notion of an optimal debt-to-GDP ratio…I think it’s a second choice on their part when they can’t produce the deficit target that they want.

“This is kind of a defensive mecha-nism.”

Health care becoming costlier, more importantHealth care is becoming increasing-

ly important and costlier as Canadians age.

A study by BMO Wealth Institute found that the greatest health-care concern among aging Ca-nadians is losing the abil-ity to live independently, not having enough mon-ey to pay for adequate health care and not be-ing able to afford to re-main in their own homes throughout their life-times.

At the same time, a study by the Fraser In-stitute has found that the average cost Canadian families pay for public health care insurance has nearly doubled in the last decade to $12,000 a year.

Canadians general-ly misunderstand the true cost of our public health care system, partly be-cause they do not incur direct expens-es for their use of the health care sys-tem and partly because they cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public health care in-surance, the report says.

In 2015 the estimated average pay-ment for public health care insurance ranged from $3,789 to $12,055 for six common types of families. For the av-erage Canadian family between 2005

and 2015 the cost of public health care insurance in-creased 1.6 times faster than the average income, 1.3 times as fast as the cost of shelter and 2.7 times as fast as food.

In the BMO report 73 per cent said they plan to use their own savings to fund any future long-term care needs. Other options they plan to use include government as-sistance, accessing equity in their homes through a reverse mortgage, and long-term care insurance.

“Declining health as we age has a number of poten-tial repercussions including a

loss of independence that often comes from requiring restrictive or inten-sive care to manage health problems,” says Chris Buttigieg, senior manager of wealth planning strategy with BMO Financial Group. “High health care costs can add to the anxiety of having to make major changes to your day-to-

day life to accommodate more care.”Buttigieg believes Canadians would

benefit from working with a financial professional to create a financial plan that takes into account the potential for long-term care costs in the future.

There are a number of reasons why it’s important to build the potential for long-term health care costs into your financial plan.

These include avoiding being a bur-den to family members and friends, protecting your family finances, pro-viding liquidity, especially for small business owners who may have a sig-nificant portion of their assets tied up in their businesses, funding a higher level of care, accounting for the possi-bility of changing family situations and obtaining greater peace of mind.

The report found that the majority of Canadians would prefer to receive long-term care in their own home rather than an assisted living facili-ty, which can put more financial and caregiving responsibilities on loved ones. Yet more than a third of Canadi-ans have not even discussed any finan-cial issues related to future long-term care needs with their partner or adult child.

There are tax savings and credits

that can be used to help offset some of the expenses associated with long-term care.

Qualifying medical expenses for el-igible dependents provide a tax cred-it that helps to reduce overall taxes. A tax credit can be claimed by those who pay the costs to hire a person to provide care, either within their own home or in an outside care facility.

People who have a severe or pro-longed impairment may be eligible to claim the disability tax credit and a family caregiver tax credit is available for those taking care for a family mem-ber with impairments in physical or mental functions.

“Decisions around long-term care often involve family members whether they become caregivers themselves or need to help to finance the care,” says Buttigieg. “Canadians would benefit from working with a professional to create a financial plan that takes in-to account the potential for long-term care costs in the future.”

Talbot Boggs is a Toronto-based busi-ness communications professional who has worked with national news organiza-tions, magazines and corporations in the finance, retail, manufacturing and other industrial sectors.

TALBOT BOGGS

MONEYWISE

Turkmenistan breaks ground on gas pipeline

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan — Lead-ers from Afghanistan, India and Paki-stan have joined the president of Turk-menistan in breaking ground on a new pipeline intended to deliver natural gas from the energy-rich former Soviet republic to their three countries.

Turkmenistan is believed to have

the world’s fourth-largest gas reserves, but currently exports mainly to China.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov was joined at Sunday’s ceremony by the Afghan president, Indian vice-president and Pakistani prime minister.

India’s Hamid Ansari said the launch of the pipeline “marks the first step toward fulfilling the vision of an economically integrated region stretching from the Bay of Bengal to the Caspian Sea.”

Five things to watch for in the Canadian business worldStatCan: The federal agency is out

with an array of data this week, in-cluding the monthly manufacturing survey for October on Tuesday, the international securities transactions for the same month on Wednesday and wholesale trade figures and the con-sumer price index on Friday. All the numbers help paint a picture of the state of Canada’s economy.

Bank of Canada: The central bank releases its latest financial system re-view on Tuesday in Ottawa, followed by a news conference by governor Ste-phen Poloz.

The review highlights key financial vulnerabilities and potential triggers that threaten the stability of Canada’s financial system.

Valeant: The embattled Valeant Pharmaceuticals hosts an investor day on Wednesday in Montreal. A U.S. Sen-

ate committee on aging recently held the first of a series of hearings on ris-ing drug costs that focused on the prac-tices of companies like Valeant Phar-maceuticals and the U.S.-based Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Uber hot water: A hearing is being held in Calgary on Thursday to hear the city’s arguments for a permanent injunction against the ride-hailing ser-vice. The city of Toronto was paralyzed during rush hour last week when taxi drivers staged massive protests against Uber.

BlackBerry: The struggling Ca-nadian tech company releases its third-quarter results on Friday. Black-Berry is expected to provide details on how its smartphones are selling, including the Priv, the company’s first phone that runs the Android operating system.

Documents

Red Deer Advocate, December 14, 2015