hockey, hockey, hockey, football

1. Canada’s Sochi 2014 Olympic hockey team camp, Calgary Alta. (No on-ice work-outs, insurance.) Starting long journey to Bolshoy Ice Palace or somewhere like that. Hockey Canada HQ, Canada Olympic Park (COP), Cowtown. Sochi Games Feb 7, 2014 – Feb 23, 2014.

2. NHL preseason tickets go on sale today (first game Sept 14). Regular season begins Tues Oct 1, 2013.

3. Setphen J. Hapner's hockey book, sneak preview. Hockey, the Product, Players, The Product, well-compensed MMA gliderators, The Industry: A fan's pissant. Ken King's New Empire vs Daryl Katz. BIFF! ZOW! CONFEDERATION AND WORLD WAR I! ZAP!

4. Football, The Halftime Show, like 41st Parliament, scheduled to return post-July-shuffle (Gerry Ritz, stays) on September 16th, now postponed until October. Sometime. After the Australian federal and Alberta municipal elections. Maybe. The 2013 Grey Cup in Regina, Saskatchewan on Nov 20-24.

Hedley (2010 Olympics, Parks Canada) to perform but, more importantly, 2012 Grey Cup Halftime Show, incl Diamond Jubilee Medal.for UK Head of State.Instead. Yo, nothing says CFL fans better than a 10-17 year-old demographic for 100th Grey Cup.

knut, siku, human zoos & sculptures

Knut, 2007

Siku, 2011

Knut proponents are riled up about Siku at the Scandinavian Wildlife Park, Denmark. Siku is cute, but it's not Knut. ('The new knut' whose mother had not enough milk is not really an orphan.) Knut fans are mustering a memorial tribute with voting until January 8, 2012 on 42 entries: Pick a knut memorial sculpture. Be prepared, some of the submissions are underwhelming.

Footballer turned curator.  Lilian Thuram's 'Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage' --- "traces the history behind circuses, stage shows and 'zoos' in which people were the exhibits, dating it back to 1492 when Christopher Columbus displayed six 'Indians' at the Spanish royal court" (Daily Mail article). The exhibition is at Paris' Quai Branly, France, from Tuesday 29th November to Sunday 3th June 2012.
See more, including a video and the museum's website. Following his retirement in 2008, he established the Lilian Thurman Foundation.

In politics, Thuram made headlines during the 2007 French elections by calling out the institutionalized racism of Nicolas Sarkozy. (Article: France World Cup player Lilian Thuram now fights racism, November 11, 2009.)

Speaking of, there was a nazi encounter with swastikas and death threats on Christmas Eve for a biracial couple in Newmarket, Ontario. The man, from Nigeria ('nigger'), and the white woman ('whore'), are considering moving. The couple has already spent $6000 repairing damages. It isn't the first time.

An Occupy sculpture was hauled away from an encampment in Calgary, Alberta.

You can sign the Petition: Keep the “Heart of the Beast” sculpture as a permanent part of Olympic Plaza.