Toronto

His team has lost the last two games of the Stanley Cup final, so, true to the ageless code of the NHL playoffs, Chicago Blackhaws coach Joel Quenneville must make changes.

Tuukka Rask leaned to his left, looked to the outside of Jonathan Toews, tried to look around the three bodies in front of him in overtime.

This week’s episode of Defiance, “If I Ever Leave This World Alive,” was written by Bryan Gracia and directed by Allan Kroeker. Gracia’s only other writing credit is for One Tree Hill. Up to this point, there has been very little overlap between the writers with only three having written more than one episode. I’d be curious to know how the writing process works for the show. Knowing that the show was in development for five years leads me to believe that they must have a pretty well-fleshed outline of the characters and where they want to go with the show on which the individual writers are expected to draw. I’m curious how much influence showrunners Murphy, Taylor, and O’Bannon had on the individual scripts that came into them. I’m also curious to see what season two will look like, both in terms of scripts and the writers’ room when both Taylor and O’Bannon have gone on to other projects. This week’s episode seemed to have the clearest plot link to the video game. I’ve only played the game once – at the press tour last fall, but I do seem to recall that plague medicine factored into the game. I’d love to hear from people playing the game in the comments below! Am I remembering that correctly? At the very least, the shout out to Doc Yewll’s (Trenna Keating) friend in San Francisco is a reference to where the game is set. Coming on the heels of my discussion with Beth Roberts (NBCUniversal) last week, this does seem to point to a closer connection between the two mediums. The episode picks up right where we left off last week with the outbreak of viral hemorrhagic fever. Once again the episode also manages to tell the viewer something about past events and cultural relations while also revealing some new facets of the characters. We learn, for instance, why the Castithans refer to the Irathients as “unclean.” Because they are disease carriers, they don’t get the plague. This, of course, makes the humans fear them too. It’s interesting to see Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas) growing closer to the rest of the Irathients. We see both a spiritual side and an animalistic side to her in the episode. Once again, I was impressed at how much Leonidas is able to convey with her body language while being somewhat impeded by the prosthetics of her character. She mentioned sitting at the Toronto Zoo and just watching the wolves as preparation for the role, and it certainly pays off in her body language. It will be interesting going forward to see how this new facet to her life will impact on her relationship with Nolan (Grant Bowler). The moment they share at the end of the episode would indicate that the two have forged a strong enough bond to weather the inevitable strain. The misperceptions between the races was an interesting facet of this episode. While the “typhoid Mary” scenario felt a bit cliché, it still worked. While the Irathients really do seem to be the more primitive and animalistic of the races, they were praying for the other races before the miners got violent. The humans seem to tolerate the other races but remain ready to become hostile primarily out of fear. I can hardly imagine the Castithans praying for any of the other races. Of course, so far, the only real Castithans that we’ve met have been the Tarrs. Quentin (Justin Rain) goes to see Nicky (Fionnula Flanagan) to find out about his mother, Pilar. Once again Flanagan’s performance is outstandingly creepy. We learn that Pilar was bi-polar but controlled by medicine that she and Datak Tarr (Tony Curran) supplied. If we needed further proof that Nicky was corrupt, the fact that she was obviously dealing with Datak proves it. She takes great delight in torturing Quentin by telling him his mother was caught trying to poison him and that his father (Graham Greene) almost killed her. She also reveals that she was having an affair with Rafe. Quentin gives Nicky the artifact in exchange for the information, even though “Luke” (Wesley French) tells him it means he

Once head coach Scott Milanovich sees all that he needs to see from his starters, he'll turn to his bench and ask the Argonauts' backups and prospects to close out the evening.

In normal circumstances, CFL veterans view the pre-season as a platform to familiarize themselves to a new system or get acquainted with new teammates in a competitive backdrop.

Photo by John Tavares in the blogTO Flickr pool

On Wednesday, Josh Kroenke continued his all-out assault on the Nuggets front office after the most successful regular season in franchise history. The Denver Post’s Chris Dempsey is reporting the Nuggets have lost two more front office members in director of player personnel, Mike Bratz, and scouting director Dan Tolzman. While Bratz’s future remains up in the air, the Post’s Benjamin Hochman is reporting Tolzman has taken a “director-level scouting job” with the Raptors. The number of front office members to leave the Nuggets organization this summer now stands at four — and counting. First, if you haven’t seen Pete D’Alessandro’s introductory press conference as the Sacramento Kings’ new general manager, I highly suggest you take the time to watch it. It’s very interesting from a Nuggets fan’s standpoint. Why? Because Pete D’Al comes off as an incredibly intelligent, incredibly savvy, incredibly hungry and incredibly passionate dude. You know, the exact type of guy who generally succeeds in the everyday world and who usually isn’t found in an NBA front office. I must admit: I wasn’t really depressed about the Nuggets’ offseason debacle until I watched that press conference. That’s sort of when it hit me, as in: Holy crap, is this really happening? While there’s no guarantee D’Al will turn into the next Masai Ujiri, it doesn’t take a genius to recognize talent — and that dude has it. At this juncture I feel pretty confident saying the Nuggets lost two of the future (and current, in Ujiri’s case) top five general managers in the league. In his presser D’Al talked for a long time. He answered many questions and even gave a shoutout to the Sacramento Kings TrueHoop blog, Cowbell Kingdom. But of the half hour he spent covering everything from his childhood to advanced statistics, one specific part of his speech stood out like a sore thumb, and that was his explanation as to why he fled Denver to Sacramento. This is what he had to say: To work with Josh would have been incredible. But when are you gonna step out? And when are you gonna do your thing? When are you gonna actually take a leap and believe in what you can do? I’ve always been that second guy. I’ve always been, you know, the guy who could help. And we’ve had success everywhere I’ve gone. And I feel I’m ready. That one paragraph said more about the current state of the Nuggets than any columnist, blogger or talking head has said over the last three weeks since Ujiri first announced he was leaving for Toronto. In a brief, eight-sentence monologue, D’Al essentially confirmed the one thing we’ve been wanting to know all along: Yes, Josh Kroenke is heavily involved in the day-to-day operations of Denver Nuggets; and no, he doesn’t plan on relinquishing those duties anytime soon. Remember, D’Al was in the running for the HEAD general manager position in Denver. He was supposed to be replacing Ujiri to be THE guy. He wasn’t interviewing to be assistant GM. He was already assistant GM. Yet… yet… D’Al TOTALLY answered that question as if he was STILL going to be playing second fiddle to someone else. That someone else, obviously being the aforementioned Josh Kroenke. This summer it’s become very apparent that Josh Kroenke is running the show in Denver; however, I feel his exact role in the organization has been somewhat blurry… until now. To me, that D’Al quote said it all. I know it’s an extremely small sample size and usually I’m not one to over analyze the routine banalities of a press conference, but this is an exception. D’Al’s was honest as he could be throughout that entire interview. He didn’t skate around anything and made a point of answering each question with authenticity. (After all, this was his introduc

Nostalgia will be in the air Thursday night at Varsity, but a sense of a lost moment will be just as palpable. Varsity Stadium was once the home of the Argonauts, who have become basically homeless, a site of many iconic games and countless occasions that are entrenched in CFL lore.

Calling all French Canadians, the town of Burlington, Vt. is now speaking your language. Well, it's not so much speaking, as it is posting signs in French and English around the busy border town.The move is part of a "resolution of French friendliness" the town passed to welcome French-speaking tourists, according to the Toronto Sun. The motion passed by city council over the weekend saw 700 bilingual stickers added to the city's parking meters by The Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region, a chapter of a world-wide association that promotes French culture.More...

Inside TD Garden, Boston Bruins fans were loving every minute of it savouring it, not wanting it to end.