No need for further delaysUTMSU has to stop sending mixed messages about a Student Centre expansion. Medium Opinion, page 4

$10-million grant for IMIThe new Innovation Complex is the recipient of UTM’s largest municipal grant to date.Medium News, page 3

Retro music at Hart HouseThe stage adaptation of the classic ’80s-themed The Wedding Singer is a hit.Medium Arts, page 5

The philosophy of scienceA conversation with the renewed Canada Research Chair about his work yields new perceptions.Medium Features, page 8

Blues lose the cluesFor the season start, the normally winning women’s hockey team gets mauled by the Lions.Medium Sports, page 10

THE VOICE OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF TORONTO MISSISSAUGA

January 13, 2014Volume 40, Issue 13mediumutm.ca

Students to vote on expansion feesA second Student Centre referendum is on the way after the first failed ratification last year

The UTM Students’ Union is hold-ing a referendum on fee increases that would see the levy rise to $50 per semester for up to three years to cover the cost of expanding and maintaining the Student Centre.

After gathering feedback, the executive team decided to run the referendum to replace anoth-er with the same terms that was passed in a vote last year but failed ratification due to mishandling of the voter list.

Full-time undergraduate UTM students and Faculty of Medicine students will have a chance to vote for or against the question from January 28 to 30 after a campaign period this week.

TEMPORARY FEE INCREASEThe first proposed increase is $27 per student per semester for a

maximum of three years in order to raise $2 million for the actual construction costs of the expan-sion.

The university has promised it will match a student contribution

dollar for dollar up to a maximum of $2 million if a student commit-ment is demonstrated, yielding a final budget of $4 million for the expansion.

In an interview with the Me-

dium, Raymond Noronha, presi-dent of UTMSU, explained that the student contribution had been capped at $2 million in order to maximize the ratio of university to student contributions.

“If we were to collect $4 million from students and the university pitched in $2 million, it would be fifty cents to a dollar,” he said.

Because the total collection from students will not be allowed to exceed $2 million, the duration of the increase could be reduced if enrolment increases.

The duration could also be lowered if outside sponsors were found. Because the Student Centre is the property of the university, the Office of Advancement could put in a request to add the expan-sion to their list of donor projects. UTMSU cannot approach donors directly. Any donations would be counted against the money owed, not added to the budget.

According to Noronha, the uni-versity has informed UTMSU that its contribution of $2 million de-pends on students demonstrating their commitment through a ref-erendum.

jASMeen vIRk/The MedIUMUTMSU’s president, Raymond Noronha, in front of the current Student Centre, built in 1999.

Three-day Winter Clubs Week slowLast week’s event saw 40 clubs and societies at the tables, but not so many students

From Tuesday to Thursday, vari-ous campus clubs and academic societies tabled in the Student Centre to recruit new members during the poorly attended Winter Clubs Week.

According to UTMSU’s VP campus life, Grayce Slobodian, the annual event showcased approxi-mately 40 clubs and academic so-cieties. Tables were principally set up inside the Presentation Room and in the lobby of the Student Centre, where club and society representatives chatted while waiting for students to trickle into the building.

“Winter Clubs Week is a bit slower every year compared to

September’s, but this year I believe there was a lower turnout than usual due to the weather,” said Slobodian.

“It’s just been really bad traffic,” commented Edna Bovas, the vice-president of UTM Student Sup-port, a group that helps students

develop useful skills for the job market.

LARISSA HOnewS edIToR LUkE SAwCzAkedIToR-In-ChIeF

ChRISTy TAM/The MedIUM

Students engage with club and society executives during winter Clubs week.

MARIA IqBALASSoCIATe newS edIToR

Clubs continued on page 2

Fees continued on page 3

2 «NEWS THE MEDIUM 01.13.2014

Master of Management& Professional AccountingMMPA

• Designed primarily for non-business undergraduates• For careers in Management, Finance and Accounting• Extremely high co-op and permanent placement

To learn more about the MMPA Program, attend our information session:

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 11:00 am – 1:00 pmRoom DV3130, Council Chambers, Davis Building, University of Toronto Mississauga

www.utoronto.ca/mmpa

December 18, 4:00 p.m.Theft Under $5,000Campus Police investigated the theft of a computer from a lab in the Davis Building.

December 20, 5:15 p.m.Controlled Drugs and SubstancesCampus Police, along with Peel Re-gional Police, is investigating an in-cident where controlled substances were found inside a residence unit. Investigation continues.

December 22, 11:30 a.m.Property DamageDue to severe weather, numerous trees had fallen in and around the residence areas. The Grounds De-partment ensured the safety of the residence areas and began cleanup.

December 22, 1:30 p.m.Fire CallA smoke detector in the CCT Build-ing was triggered due to a water leak. The building was on by-pass and Mississauga Fire Department was not dispatched at the time. All was in order and the system was put back online.

December 27, 4:26 p.m.Trespass to Property ActTwo persons were attempting to gain entry into the gym fraudulently using another person’s membership. Cam-pus Police identified the persons and banned them from the RAWC.

January 7, 8:40 a.m.Personal Safety ConcernCampus Police and Peel Regional Police assisted an elderly non-com-munity member who had no place to go. The non-community member was taken to hospital for medical treat-ment due to the cold temperatures.

January 7, 12:57 p.m.HarassmentCampus Police interviewed and cau-tioned a male student regarding un-wanted online messages. The student was advised to cease all contact with the other student.

January 8, 11:10 a.m.FraudCampus Police responded to a com-plaint about a fraudulent parking per-mit. The vehicle was issued a parking infraction. Investigation continues.

“Unless I was in this club, I wouldn’t have known [about Win-ter Clubs Week], so maybe it’s just an advertising thing,” continued Bovas.

Maryam Khattab, president of the Muslim Students’ Association,

one of UTM’s largest clubs, shared Bovas’ sentiments.

Another student, Maheera Ak-bani, said she avoids Clubs Week “because there’s people pulling and tugging at you, and it’s such a small enclosed space that you kind of feel obliged to give every club your time”.

All three executives agreed that the poor weather conditions were also a major factor in the below-average turnout.

Slobodian added that UTMSU also promoted Clubs Week in the Davis Building this year to in-crease attendance.

Streak of bad weather hurts turnoutClubs continued from Cover

North Building Phase One namedFormer staff member wins contest with “Deerfield Hall”

The name “Deerfield Hall” has been chosen to grace the extension to the North Building, which is UTM’s old-est academic structure.

Governing Council approved the name last month following a campus-wide naming contest. It will be the of-ficial name of Phase One of the North Building Reconstruction project.

Chosen from among nearly 200 submissions from students, faculty, and staff, “Deerfield Hall” was sub-

mitted by Amanda Gallagher, for-merly a member of UTM’s Informa-tion and Instructional Technologies Services, by a committee consisting of senior administration.

Construction began on Deerfield in the summer of 2012. It will be a freestanding building linked at two levels to the remainder of the North Building. According to Principal Deep Saini, who addressed UTM staff in an email last week, the main floor will include food services, study spaces, and rehearsal spaces for the theatre and drama program, and the

remaining three floors will have class-rooms, dry research laboratories, and offices for the psychology and math and computer science departments.

“We had a tough time narrowing down the choices, but I hope you will find the name as pleasing and as suit-able [...] as our naming committee did,” Saini concluded.

Deerfield Hall is the first of three phrases of planned reconstruction of the North Building. The remaining two are yet to be funded.

Deerfield Hall is scheduled to open in August 2014.

jasmeen virk/tHe meDiumDeerfield Hall has been chosen as the official title of the newest addition to the campus landscape.

UTM library waives fines

alan lovette/pHotoAlmost 10,000 pounds of non-perishable food items were collected for UTMSU’s food bank.

The Hazel McCallion Academic Learning Centre held their second annual Food for Fines event dur-ing the last week of November.

The library donated 9,681 pounds of non-perishable food

items to the food bank run jointly by UTMSU and Community on Campus, according to the food bank.

UTM students traded one food item for a $2 reduction of their library fines, to a maximum of $20. Many students reached the $20 maximum but still brought in

more than was necessary to clear their fines.

Shane Chan, an information loans technician at the library, was the Food for Fines project lead. He revealed that last year—the first time the tri-campus event was held—UTM raised the most food, with almost 1,200 items.

LAriSSA Honews eDitor

LAriSSA Honews eDitor

01.13.2014 THE MEDIUM NEWS» 3

Natalie Lam3rd year, accounting

Christy Chan3rd year, commerce

Ryan Mok2nd year, commerce

Jiankai Pei4th year, accounting

So weird...

It’s interesting. We don’t have names here related to the natural environment.

I guess it’s appropriate, considering the amount of deer on campus.

It’s okay, because youactually see a lot of deer around.

»What do you think of the name “deerfield hall”?

French first ladyhospitalized in wakeof affair revelations

French first lady Valerie Trierweiler has been admitted to hospital fol-lowing reports of an affair between President Francois Hollande and an actress, but will be discharged on Monday, sources said on Sunday.Hol-lande, 59, threatened to sue celebrity magazine Closer, alleging a breach of privacy after it said he was having an affair with Julie Gayet, 41.

Source: The Globe and Mail

Accenture confirmed as lead contractor for Obamacare website

Accenture has been chosen to replace CGI Federal as the lead contractor for the Obamacare enrolment web-site, which failed to work when it launched in October for millions of Americans shopping for health insur-ance, U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Saturday. The glitches created a political crisis for President Barack Obama.

Source: CBC News

Computer glitches cause further delays at Toronto Pearson airport

Computer glitches are causing major delays at Toronto’s Pearson Interna-tional Airport on Saturday. Officials with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said there are problems with the computer program that air-lines use to register passengers at check-in. The GTAA says passengers should plan for it to take longer to go through the check-in process.

Source: CBC News

Alberta woman who died of H5N1 was in her 20s

The Alberta woman who died of H5N1 bird flu was in her 20s and a healthcare worker at Red Deer Hos-pital. It was the first reported death of avian flu in North America. The infected woman, an Alberta resident who recently travelled to Beijing, Chi-na, died on January 3. WHO hopes to understand whether human-to-hu-man transmission occurred.

Source: CBC News

Mayor Rob Ford’sSaturday night provesa hit online

Toronto’s mayor was out and about and all over Instagram on Saturday night. Social media in Toronto, no-tably Instagram, recorded a wave of Mayor Rob Ford encounters amid Saturday nightlife in Toronto. The mayor has told media that he’s done with drinking in the wake of his crack cocaine scandal.

Source: The Toronto Star

PERMANENT FEE INCREASEThe second proposed increase is $10.50 per semester indefinitely as part of the Student Centre levy, in order to cover new operating costs associated with the expansion and to provide a reserve for maintenance ex-penses, according to Noronha.

Full-time students currently pay $12.50 per semester to the levy. These proposed fees yields a total of $50 per semester to UTMSU beginning next fall for a maximum of three years, down to $23 per semester after the $2 million is raised.

Noronha said that even in the ex-isting Student Centre, costly unex-pected maintenance would not be affordable within the means UTMSU currently receives.

IF IT PASSESOf the nearly 13,000 students cur-rently enrolled at UTM, a minimum of 5% are required to vote in order for the referendum to be valid.

If a majority of voters are for the question, work could begin in the summer, including the search for an architect, according to Noronha.

According to Noronha, the same money is worth less every year be-cause of the inflation on construction costs, so not everything originally promised will fit into the budget as more time passes.

The priorities for expansion in-clude multipurpose rooms and club and society offices, said Noronha. At present, clubs and societies are allot-ted office space by UTMSU’s Clubs Committee based on their activity on campus. The offices are often shared by two or three clubs, and some clubs do not have office space.

Noronha identified improving

food and services as essential steps to making the Student Centre more of a “hub” of student activity, and said that the Blind Duck’s kitchens will also be expanded and InfoBooth services added.

“Once we have an expanded Blind Duck Pub, we will be able to cater to those needs for healthier, possibly cheaper food options, and also more diversity,” he said.

Noronha could not specify which services might be added but said he will be looking at other universities and their student unions as models.

THE FIRST REFERENDUMThis referendum has been expected for the past year as a replacement for the identical one held last year, whose unofficial results were not ratified by UTMSU’s Elections and Referenda Committee.

Some 18% of UTM students voted in the referendum, of whom about 60% voted in favour of the fee in-creases and the expansion.

However, human error that the union attributed to then-chief return-ing officer Babatumi Sodade, who re-signed over the incident, resulted in a decision not to ratify the results.

UTMSU had been provided on a T-Card scanner loaded with the voter list for the U of T Students’ Union’s annual general meeting that Novem-ber, and the list included St. George students, who were not eligible to vote because they are not members of UTMSU.

Jill Matus, U of T’s vice-provost of students, alleged that UTSU had breached confidentiality agreements by supplying this scanner to UTMSU, which UTSU denies having done. Matus’s office had made a CD with the correct list available to UTMSU, but it was never retrieved.

Because it was not possible to sort through the data, the referendum would not have been ratified by high-er university bodies, said Noronha, who promised more care this time around.

“We’re making sure that there is no confusion between UTMSU and the offices downtown at U of T, and that we get the most accurate and recent voter list,” he said. “It’s frustrating for students as well.”

SECOND TRYNoronha was concerned that students were not aware of the results of the first referendum and would be con-fused about its appearing again this year.

When deciding whether to rerun the referendum, which he declined to use as a platform point in last year’s election, Noronha solicited feedback from students.

As the major beneficiaries of the Student Centre, said Noronha, club and society executives were mainly in favour of the expansion and associ-ated fee increases.

“There’s always that small propor-tion of students that will be against the idea of a Student Centre expan-sion because they are against any kind of fee increase, and they just don’t use the premises, period […],” said Noronha. “There was definitely a large chunk of students that I spoke to who were looking forward to the expanded Student Centre.”

The current Student Centre was built in 1999 for a student population of about 6,000, less than half of the current enrolment.

UTMSU has been in talks with the university for an expansion since 2007 and has submitted multiple pro-posals, one of which was approved in August 2012.

City invests $10 million in Innovation Complex

The University of Toronto Missis-sauga is receiving $10 million over a 10-year period from the City of Mississauga to help finance the new Institute of Management and Inno-vation.

The IMI is a four-storey build-ing that will house the Institute for Management and Innovation as well as other related economic and management departments.

The building is scheduled to open in September 2014 and is expected to eventually create ap-proximately 101 full-time jobs and annually maintain $20.7 million in labour income and $1.5 million in business income.

“We are delighted that coun-cil has approved this investment that will build substantial com-petitive advantage for the city,” said UTM’s Principal Deep Saini. “This $10-million grant will produce ma-jor economic benefits for Missis-sauga and our region by creating an innovation culture, building a knowledge economy, and attracting global business.”

The IMI will train graduates in areas such as healthcare, biotech-nology, professional accounting, and environmental sustainability. The IMI is expected to result in an increase in enrolment of almost 3,000 students and the employment of an additional 30 faculty from dif-ferent parts of the world.

JADE GARRIDO

Second time’s the charm

JaSmeen VIrk/the medIumUnexpected maintenance could be unaffordable with the current levy, says UTMSU.

Fees continued from Cover

4 « 01.13.2014

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The referendum is back.That’s not a complaint. Last year,

a referendum by UTMSU on fee in-creases to expand the Student Centre was passed by majority vote (with a turnout that blows executive election turnouts out of the water—a whop-ping 18%!), only to founder in the proverbial shoals of bureaucracy. The experience was, as current UTMSU president Raymond Noronha put it, “frustrating for students”.

The choice of statement is some-what surprising, given that it seems to have been a bizarre error on the union’s part that gave rise to the said frustration. As reviewed in our cover story this week, UTMSU used a voter list that allowed downtown students to vote (on fees they don’t pay) and the results were contaminated. The university office responsible for the list claims the right list was made available to UTMSU but never used; the list actually used was the one for UTSU’s annual general meeting. The question of how on earth that list got into UTMSU’s hands remains open. The UTMSU officer in question re-signed, but still, a lament for frus-tration caused by one’s own union rings a little hollow. Never fear: Mr. Noronha has promised the team will be more careful this time.

But what was especially annoying was that this referendum was so long overdue in the first place. The union cites the need for an expansion in terms like “The Student Centre was built in 1999 for 6,000 students, and

must now accommodate 13,000.” Those numbers are correct (not that a huge proportion of us use the build-ing often, considering most of the food and study space is elsewhere). But the discrepancy has mostly just been allowed to grow worse—enrol-ment was already at about 9,600 five years ago in 2009, for example, which is plenty of justification for expan-sion—while not much has been done to rectify it.

In 2007 the expansion discussions between UTMSU and UTM began with a proposal but failed two years later when both parties refused to back down over who would con-trol food services in the expanded building. In 2011, after meeting with focus groups, UTMSU put forth a ridiculous proposal (still available at utmsu.ca at the time of writing) that included a garage door for the pub, lots of soundproof office space, a con-venience store, and more, along with an embarrassing number of made-up words. The extravagant budget led to the proposal’s rejection and raised suspicions that the union wasn’t tak-ing its own expansion campaign—

certainly a useful one for its public image—seriously.

So when a new proposal was made in 2012, an agreement reached with the university over matching student funds, and a referendum held to ap-prove the fee increases, it came as a welcome relief—not least because, as Mr. Noronha has argued more than once, the constantly rising costs of construction mean the same amount of money yields less and less each year. So it was understandably per-plexing to learn earlier this year that Mr. Noronha declined to make any promises in his election and decided to seek feedback on whether to even hold a replacement referendum. For goodness’ sake, the first one was passed by a solid majority of voters, and recall that the value declines ev-ery year, by his own account. What would have justified declining to re-run a successful referendum? Wheth-er you plan to vote for or against the terms, what would have been unset-tling would be year seven of limbo. I’m glad that that won’t be the case.

On the subject of voting for or against the terms, that’s of course an interesting question affected by mul-tiple factors. The timeframe, for one, might dissuade some students: those who are halfway through university now wouldn’t get to see an expanded building. The standard reply to this objection is that we inherited good things from past generations at no personal cost. That one comes down to social conscience, I guess. More in-

teresting to me are the specific terms. Our current Student Centre levy is $12.50 a semester, and will almost double (with a proviso for 10% in-flation per year) if the referendum is passed. An interesting investigation will be how these figures were deter-mined: do students have an easy way of finding out whether the $10.50 per semester increase is appropriate for the projected costs? It’s hard to tell when, according to Mr. Noronha, the services UTMSU plans to add in the expansion are almost totally unde-termined. Food options will expand (no guarantees on a pub open late on Fridays, though, says Mr. Noronha). Maintenance reserves are guaranteed. Beyond that it seems to be guesswork.

In the end, if an expansion yields practical benefits for students—and attracts more use—it will justify itself. But in order to determine whether and how there can be such a result, it would need to move on from being a nice idea, played with for a bit and then put down for a bit, and start re-ceiving serious attention.

An overdue step towards expansionThe more delays, the less bang for our buck. It’s good to see things are moving again

YOURS,

LUKE SAWCZAK

CORRECTION NOTICE

The article “Season half: White Christmas” in the Nov. 25, 2013 issue was incorrectly attributed to Eric Hewitson. The article was actually written by Fergus Talbot.

Whether you plan to vote for or against the

terms, what would have been unsettling would be year seven of limbo.

01.13.2014 » 5

Embracing ’80s fun with The Wedding SingerHart House Theatre shows off their playful side with their sole musical offering of the season

Entering Hart House Theatre for their latest production, The Wedding Singer, I noticed a piece of paper posted on the heavy wooden door at the entrance. Along with a few stan-dard warnings about the produc-tion and its content, it also advised audiences in large, bold letters about the show’s use of “dangerously awe-some amounts of synthesizer”. Any time you see a warning like that, you know you’re bound to be in for an in-teresting show.

The Wedding Singer is Hart House Theatre’s third production of the season and its sole musical offering. The play is based on the 1998 Adam Sandler movie of the same name, set in 1985, and it takes a similarly light-hearted and ’80s-infused approach to the likeable story. It follows Rob-bie Hart (here played by Isaac Bell), an underachieving wedding singer who reconsiders his choice of ca-reer after getting left at the altar at his own wedding by his bride-to-be, Linda (Sarah Horsman).

One of the most memorable ele-ments of the film version was its soundtrack of ’80s hits. In the the-

atrical production of the show, you don’t get the authentic ’80s music, and the show instead opts for origi-nal, Broadway-style songs for the characters to perform. (However, if you’re hankering to hear some For-

eigner or Billy Idol tunes, Hart House does kindly pump the theatre with ’80s-approved music before the show and during intermission.) And while the original songs for The Wedding Singer musical, written by Matthew

Sklar and Chad Beguelin, lack some of the immediate catchiness and dis-tinct sound of the music the movie pays tribute to, there are some gems in the bunch. “Casualty of Love” is a pumping rock number that finds

Robbie defiantly leading a table full of single guests at the first wedding he performs at after his breakup. Meanwhile, “Saturday Night in the City” sees the cast heading out for a night on the town and captures the hopefulness in each character.

Hart House’s talented cast brought lots of energy to the musical num-bers. After quickly shaking off what appeared to be some opening night nerves in the first number, Bell proved a charismatic leading man and perfectly evoked the goofy like-ability of Sandler’s Robbie while still giving the character his own twist. Leading lady Ashley Gibson (tak-ing on the Drew Barrymore role here) has the kind of pure singing voice that seems perfectly suited for Broadway.

Even some of the supporting cast had standout moments. Horsman completely nailed her hair-metal breakup number, unleashing a strong voice perfectly suited to this over-the-top power ballad, and The-atre Erindale alum Charlotte Cat-tell was hilarious as Robbie’s crass grandmother delivering the memo-rable rap number from the movie.

COLLEEN MUNROA&E EDITOR

DANIEL DIMARCO/PHOTOThe Wedding Singer offers audiences plenty of neon-tinged song and dance.

Walter Mitty shows the value of adventureBen Stiller takes a more serious approach to filmmaking with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a rare remake worth the retread. Ben Stiller offers a film with impor-tant themes for our generation that never fails to entertain thanks to a fantastic cast.

Stiller stars as the titular char-acter in a moment of crisis. Walter Mitty has worked at Life magazine for 20 years as the manager of nega-tive assets, a role in which he pro-cesses the photographers’ celluloid. When the magazine announces it will convert to an entirely online version, Walter finds himself obso-lete except in one final, important capacity. A famous photographer personally sent Walter the celluloid meant for the final cover of Life magazine. This is also the first cel-luloid in 20 years that Walter can’t find in the delivery package. With nothing to lose, Walter sets out to find the photographer, played by Sean Penn in a small but surpris-ingly funny turn, and determine what happened to the photo.

Some of the most entertaining parts of the film are the constant diversions into Mitty’s daydreams.

These comedic set pieces offer a break from the somewhat heavy plot. They allow us into Mitty’s mind, and for a man who hasn’t lived a lot, his imagination is wild. A particular favourite is a fantasy fight scene between Walter and a

heavily bearded Adam Scott, in which the two unlikely action stars hurtle through the streets of New York in a superhero-inspired se-quence.

Stiller reveals his dramatic side as the lonely, middle-aged Mitty,

while still being funny enough to be likeable. Kristen Wiig plays Walter’s down-to earth coworker, with whom Walter hopes to start a romantic entanglement, if he can only work up the courage. Luckily for the audience, she frequently ap-

pears in Walter’s daydreams, pro-viding some of the film’s funniest moments.

The film is based on a 1939 short story by James Thurber that was first adapted to film in 1947. Still-er’s version is updated and brought into the modern world with consid-erable ease, largely because Walter Mitty is such a great character. He’s the dreamer who discovers what life is all about. What better story exists for cinema? The movie of-fers an important message for all of us: don’t get so caught up in your life that you don’t really live; break away from your patterns and follow your dreams. The beauty of film is that we can experience these stories over and over on the screen, where-as living this kind of story only hap-pens once.

Ben Stiller can be proud of this film, which easily and expertly shifts between dramatic and co-medic while capturing some of the world’s beauty in stunning cinema-tography. In a modern Hollywood scene that tends to focus on the darker sides of life, Walter Mitty is a refreshing film well worth watch-ing. MMMM½

MATT LONG

WALTERMITTY.COM/PHOTOBen Stiller and Kristen Wiig make a charming pair in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

Wedding continued on page 6

6 «ARTS THE MEDIUM 01.13.2014

Some liberties are taken with the finer plot points, but overall, the stage version of The Wedding Sing-er stays pretty true to its source material in terms of story. Some of the dialogue is lifted directly from the screenplay, and the show does of course include Robbie’s touch-ing original song from the movie, “Grow Old with You”. With a large cast and countless costume chang-es, the wardrobe also incorpo-rates many signature ’80s fashion trends: shoulder pads, parachute pants, neon, and big hair. It’s all the stuff you’d expect, but it does the time period justice.

The ensemble cast here is quite large, and in my experience, pro-ductions with smaller casts tend to better suit Hart House Theatre’s intimate setting. At times, The Wedding Singer’s ensemble verged on overwhelming the stage, and

things did occasionally feel a bit hectic. However, I understand their having wanted diversity in programming, and The Wedding Singer has an upbeat energy that would be tricky to convey with a smaller cast.

It’s difficult to talk about The Wedding Singer without using the word “fun”. There’s lots of genuine humour and the musical perfor-mances are fast-paced and fre-quent. It clearly doesn’t take itself too seriously, and everyone in-volved with the production seems to have the same light-hearted ap-proach to the material. The show delivers pretty much exactly what you would expect from an ’80s-themed musical, and while that’s not going to appeal to everyone, The Wedding Singer is extremely accessible and enjoyable.

The Wedding Singer runs until January 25. Visit harthouse.ca for more information.

’80s invasion at Hart House

The iconic Ms. PoppinsDisney flick tells a one-sided but enjoyable history

Have you ever wondered how the beloved children’s film Mary Pop-pins was made? Well, the BBC- and Disney-produced Saving Mr. Banks depicts just that, for the most part.

From that description, Saving Mr. Banks may sound like a boring historical drama that dwells smug-ly on how Disney’s most successful film came to be, but once the film started, I could tell that there was much more brewing beneath the surface.

Mary Poppins was originally based on a series of books written by our protagonist, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson). To make the

Mary Poppins film, Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) had to acquire the rights from Travers, but she didn’t make it easy for Disney or his team. Presented in parallel with this plot is the story of Travers’ bleak childhood in Australia; it’s a sincere coming-of-age tale that helps the audience empathize with Travers and understand why she was so hesitant to give her story away.

The performances in this star-studded film are absolutely bril-liant, with Thompson taking the lead as a truly broken woman not ready to let go of her past. At first, Travers seems insensitive and distant, but over the course of

the film, Thompson successfully opens up her character and reveals her insecurities and fears in a way that I believe that no other actress could have done.

Hanks also delivers a stellar per-formance as the legendary Walt Disney by doing what he does best: making his character relatable to the audience. I didn’t see Walt Dis-ney, creator of a production em-pire. I saw Walt Disney, a man who had promised his children 20 years prior that he would one day make a film adaptation of a book that he believed could give people hope.

DISNEY.COM/PHOTOTom Hanks pleads with a stone-faced Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks.

NESA HUDA

Martin Scorsese’s newest film, The Wolf of Wall Street, revolves around the unique topic of making money, and it’s surprising that the film itself hasn’t made more bucks at the box office.

In his latest flick, Scorsese (Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed) steps away from the shady realm of the mafia and into the place where much of the world’s money is made: Wall Street. The film seems like the sum of Goodfellas, Scar-face, and Wall Street: a journey filled with money obsession, drug abuse, antifeminism, and record-breaking profanity.

The film follows Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), an ambi-tious New Yorker set on making it in the big leagues on Wall Street. Alongside him are his second-in-command at the stock firm, Don-nie (Jonah Hill), and his second wife, Naomi (Margot Robbie).

The trailer features Belfort claiming that the year he turned 26 he made $49 million, “which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week”. Throughout the film, this ambi-tious attitude peaks, and we see countless prostitutes, drugs, and expensive jewellery, clothes, hous-es, and vehicles—not just cars, but leviathan yachts and helicopters, too. Call him materialistic or crazy and Belfort will curse at you and send you away, because that’s how he is: oblivious. But while Scors-ese lets Belfort, otherwise known as the Wolf of Wall Street, howl his way through an extravagant life, the serious consequences of

illegally attaining money, doing drugs, and cheating on his wife come out in the light of the full moon.

This almost-too-scary-to-be-true story is the perfect example of what not to do in life. At the end of the bum-numbing three-hour film, it’s clear that the age-old les-sons about the dangers of drugs and greed are always relevant. Another obvious lesson conveyed here is being faithful to your sig-nificant other, as we see Jordan’s life fall apart after breaking up his humble first marriage.

DiCaprio’s fantastic depiction of a self-indulgent character is de-serving of an Academy Award—he truly became Belfort in this film. The actor, who has been nominat-ed for memorable roles in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Aviator, and Blood Diamond, has always left the show empty-handed. But with award nominations already flowing in for this role, one can only hope that DiCaprio’s losing streak ends and that he walks away with gold statues.

The Wolf of Wall Street cer-tainly isn’t a family movie, but it’s also not just for those who enjoy money and numbers. Its record-breaking use of the F-word (along with other offensive slurs) and three-hour runtime mean that The Wolf of Wall Street falls just short of being a perfect film. It demands a mature audience willing to step out of their comfort zones, and grants viewers a look into a ma-terialistic life that many people fantasize about—until they get it. MMMM½

CHRISTOPHER ANTILOPE

Inside the shady side of Wall StreetScorsese’s latest delves into debauchery

Wedding continued from page 5

Banks continued on page 7

01.13.2014 THE MEDIUM ARTS» 7

Hana LuluKeepsakeLooking at the cover of Keepsake, I didn’t see much. A few black sym-bols marked an otherwise plain white cover, bringing to mind the incomprehensible Webdings font. Based on that and the name print-ed on the spine—Hana Lulu—I envisioned an indie songstress strumming away on her acoustic guitar. As soon as I pressed play, I realized I was in for something very, very different.

The first track of this four-song EP, “Find the Light”, opened with an automated beeping that sounds like someone reaching out for contact via Morse code. Shim-mering synths soon set in, as did the British accent of lead singer Kevin Desjarlais. (It turns out the band is actually from Manitoba, so I guess we should call it a faux British accent.) Upon hearing all this, I immediately grabbed the jewel case that the CD came in and searched for a release date. 2013. So no, this CD hasn’t been sitting around the Medium’s office since 1987, as I instinctively thought might be the case.

The influence of bands like New

Order and their contemporaries are strong on Keepsake. So strong, in fact, that an argument could probably be made that Hana Lulu is directly ripping them off. But as derivative as the band’s style may be, the catchy hooks are undeni-able. Hana Lulu also wisely keep their electronic sound fairly sim-ple, but still layered and dynamic enough to not become completely monotonous. Desjarlais’ voice is a combination of an authoritative drawl and an upper-register yelp, bringing to mind Robert Smith of the Cure on more than one occa-sion.

“Up and Down” offers a dark, off-kilter synth backing that seems to draw inspiration from the likes of Depeche Mode. It hints at a darker, less conventional side of the band. Meanwhile, the hazy pumping of the title track seems like something that could just as easily have spilled from the mind of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy.

It’s nothing new, really, but Keepsake packs a quick punch of ’80s dance nostalgia. Hana Lulu pay tribute to some of the catchi-est music in history, and if you’re in the right mood, Keepsake is a surprisingly enjoyable listen.

COLLEEN MUNROA&E EDITOR

Lastly, I wanted to mention Colin Farrell’s performance as Travers Robert Goff, P.L. Travers’ father. He has definitely not received as much acclaim as I believe he should—his performance as a father unable to live in the real world and support his family carries the alternate plot of the film. It’s absolutely fascinat-ing to see how the characters and songs in Mary Poppins came to be, and supporting characters Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whit-ford, and B.J. Novak portray these events in a way that’s wholly enter-taining and full of heart.

This film has two drastically dif-ferent moods; the first is a light-hearted, funny tone in the first plot, when Disney is trying to acquire the rights to the novels, and the second is a sombre look at Travers’ childhood. These contrasts were more prominent because the film moved back and forth between the

two in an erratic manner. The con-nections between the plots need to be drawn by the watcher as quickly as possible throughout the juxta-position of scenes of laughter and sadness.

The real P.L. Travers didn’t like the Mary Poppins film, but this wasn’t reflected in Saving Mr. Banks. However, creative licence needs to be taken to make a film really hit home with its audience, and director John Lee Hancock did just that. Without this detail, the film wouldn’t have its amaz-ing ending, and one of Thompson’s best scenes in the film wouldn’t be there for us to see.

This film was definitely more emotionally taxing than I expect-ed, but Disney has done it again. Saving Mr. Banks will pull at your heartstrings with the background of one of the most universally loved children’s movies of all time. MMMM

The whimsical world of Disney

Indie romance comes to TorontoThe Tony Award –winning musical adaptation of Once is a treat

Admittedly, I was a little sceptical when I heard that the musical Once was based on a film of the same name. How do you write a musical that’s grounded in a screenplay? But a show with as many Tony Awards under its belt as Once has at least deserved a chance. Not having seen the film, I found myself approaching the piece without prejudice, at least in terms of the script and production choices.

One of the show’s most original and engaging aspects is audience participation. As I found my seat—almost, but not quite, late—a rau-cous cabaret was in progress onstage. Audience members mingled on the stage, watching a short concert by the actors, all of whom could not only sing but also play an instrument. A similar set-up occurs during the in-termission, when audience members are free to wander up and buy drinks onstage, giving the set a highly real-istic edge.

It’s hard to say exactly when Once begins. The ritual of dimming lights and actors entering from the wings is dispensed with, and instead those of

the audience who are onstage make their way back to their seats in the brightly lit theatre, which never goes fully dark before the action begins. Instead, the performers present a few more songs, which had me nearly in tears even before the play itself had begun.

From there on in, Once is absolute magic. Scenes fold into one another almost imperceptibly and tie in with the music, creating a seamless sound-scape that perfectly underscores a play about musicians. The set, designed to look like the interior of an Irish pub, works beautifully in both indoor and outdoor sequences. One moment has the two leads, played by Stuart Ward and Dani de Waal, standing on a plat-form above the set against the brick wall at the back of the theatre, look-ing at Dublin from above. The floor of the stage is illuminated by tiny lights, truly conjuring up a city at a distance.

The furniture is kept simple and minimal, consisting only of a chair or a desk where absolutely necessary. This is especially effective when con-trasted with the musicians’ instru-ments: each guitar or accordion is all the more noticeable and attention-grabbing because everything else is so

sparse. It’s refreshing to see a Broad-way show that doesn’t rely too much on the technology available these days; bells and whistles seem silly when they’re there only for their own sake.

There was no shortage of talent, either. De Waal in the role of Girl, a music-loving Czechoslovakian immi-grant and single mother, is absolutely enchanting. She refuses to fall into ste-reotypes and doesn’t make a big show of flaunting the accent essential to her character. Ward proves a perfect match for de Waal. Neither outshines the other, and both have numerous chances to show off their talents as musicians and actors. Sometimes in musical theatre the performers act when they sing but not when they speak, but I saw no sign of that here.

I know I’m fully engaged in a play when it stops being a show and be-comes a story whose outcome I must know. Once grabbed me and refused to let go, and when the final moment happened, I didn’t want to believe it was the end of the story. The end was satisfying, but devastating. I don’t want to spoil it for those who, like me, have yet to see the film, but brace yourselves.

JOAN MARCUS/PHOTOStuart Ward and Dani de Waal star in the Toronto production of Once.

KATE CATTELL-DANIELSASSOCIATE A&E EDITOR

Banks continued from page 6

8 « 01.13.2014

The science of active perceptionRenewed CRC Mohan Matthen talks about the cross-pollination of philosophy and science

Mohan Matthen is a philosophy pro-fessor at the University of Toronto, and last November his tenure as Ca-nadian Research Chair in philosophy, perception, and communication was renewed.

Matthen’s work focuses on percep-tion, including how perception is specialized and how it differs between species. His background is varied, in-cluding a B.Sc. in physics and an MA from Delhi University before earning his PhD in philosophy at Stanford; his research is, as quoted from a 2006 interview, “a philosophy of science”.

Along with writing his own book, 2005’s Seeing, Doing, and Knowing, Matthen has edited several others and published many articles and re-views. This week, he sat down with the Medium to discuss his research and the position of CRC.

The Medium: You just had your CRC renewed in November of last year. How does that feel?

Mohan Matthen: It was terrific news. And I’m sure that my depart-ment feels good about the federal government helping out with my sal-ary.

TM: How does it feel to be called “one of Canada’s most promising and innovative thinkers”?

MM: “Promising” seems wrong about somebody my age, but it’s won-derful to learn that my ideas have at-tracted some attention.

TM: Can you share some details about how far you’ve come with your research on how human senses work?

MM: Seeing, Doing, and Knowing

was meant to offer a comprehensive framework for thinking about sense perception. The main innovation there was the realization that percep-tion is species-specific. Human be-ings live in the world differently than birds or dogs, and as a consequence, our perceptual systems gather differ-ent kinds of information than theirs.

I now realize that I (together with most others) adopted what you might

call a snapshot view of perception, which is, moreover, passive. I now think that when we perceive, we probe the world and interrogate it to reveal its secrets. Active interro-gation is a process that unfolds over time, and it integrates vision, hearing, touch, and so on. You get a very dif-ferent picture when you think about gathering information rather than just receiving it.

I still think that it was important to think of perception as specialized by species, but I didn’t realize how transformative it would be to think of perception as active.

TM: How far have you come since you’ve started your research?

MM: Surprisingly far. For my first few years in Toronto, I followed leads that were hinted at in my 2005 book, and thought that my mission was to fill in and extend that framework, which, as I said earlier, was meant to be quite comprehensive. But my new project of understanding active perception has taken me into com-pletely new areas, such as how we try to eliminate error and uncertainty, how we represent space, and how we evaluate our environment.

TM: What made you want to delve into this topic? Did you feel like re-search was lacking in the human senses, or did you just want to focus on something specific?

MM: There’s a huge amount of re-search out there. No lack at all! What I thought was that I could pick out a theme and bring a number of differ-ent lines of investigation together.

MARIA CRUZFEATURES EDITOR

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO MISSISSAUGA/PHOTOCanadian Research Chair Mohan Matthen talks about his latest research.

Matthen continued on page 9

How to eat better than you did last yearIt’s hard to diet on a campus stuffed with pizza, but the Medium’s got you covered

After a winter break filled with meals of roasted turkey, turkey soup, tur-key sandwiches, turkey potpie (I think you get the idea), a slathering of mashed potatoes, and gingerbread houses complete with sickly sweet candy fixtures, the last thing on my mind at the moment is food. Well, not quite. (Could food ever really not be on my mind?)

In fact, like many other UTM students, it’s quite the opposite. The new year and the new term encour-age many students to reevaluate their eating habits and adopt healthier al-ternatives. For most, the change may not be a complete overhaul but rath-er an editing of their current diet.

I’ve compiled a list of advice to help you get over your post-holiday dinner guilt. This year, rather than trying out that new fad diet—which may not only be unsafe but also dif-ficult to maintain—make small, attainable goals that encourage a healthy, balanced diet. Especially one that will be easy to maintain on campus.

DRINK UPIt’s not what you think. I’m not sug-gesting towing along a beer to class. I’m referring to good old H2O. Who knows whether we’re supposed to drink eight, twelve, or twelve hun-dred glasses of water a day, but no doubt the more you drink, the better.

“My new year’s resolution is to drink more water,” says Olivia Or-ton, a third-year theatre and drama studies specialist and history major.

“If I drink more water, I won’t drink as much juice or coffee. It’s good for your skin, body, and overall health.”

Bring your own reusable water bottle to campus and fill up it at the numerous water fountains that were installed throughout campus two years ago. Don’t like the taste of water or find it too boring? Fla-vour it! Add fresh fruits, vegetables, or herbs to your bottle of water the night before to enhance the flavour.

Try sliced grapefruit and mandarin orange, sliced lemon and grated gin-ger, or chopped up mango and kiwi. Or try cocktail-inspired versions of flavoured water by adding chunks of pineapple with a dash of coconut water, or freshly squeezed lime and crushed mint leaves. You could toss fruit and vegetable slices into your ice cube tray when making ice cubes. Or save time and just pop some piec-es of frozen fruit in place of ice cubes

into your water bottle before leaving for class.

MAKE YOUR OWN LUNCH“It’s hard to find time to pack a lunch [between] work and school,” says Jaclyn Jambaro, a first-year psy-chology student. Time is precious to a university student. However, a packed lunch allows you to more easily control what and how much you eat each day. Moreover, it’s gen-erally cheaper than buying meals on campus. That said, if you really don’t see yourself portioning out sandwich bags of snacks or rolling up brown paper bags, you should try making your own lunch at school.

For example, buy an On the Go salad in the TFC, but enhance it by cutting up and tossing in a serving of barbequed chicken, tofu, or ad-ditional cooked veggies from Ele-ments. Or make your Tim Hortons bagel more filling and appease a rumbling stomach by bulking it up and requesting a slice of cheese, to-mato, or any of your favourite sand-wich fillings.

MADELEINE BROWNASSOCIATE FEATURES EDITOR

JUNAID IMRAN/THE MEDIUMTake a good look at your new meal plan.

Food continued on page 9

01.13.2014 THE MEDIUM FEATURES» 9

TM: Do you think the study of phi-losophy is sometimes seen as a field that won’t offer something as valu-able as a science would?MM: Sure, a lot of people think

that. I wish they didn’t, but you have to face the fact that philoso-phy is undervalued.TM: What are your thoughts on

this, and how has your research helped in battling these views?MM: I hope that in the next de-

cade or so, I can combat this kind of negativity about philosophy. I have had some colleagues who have had a huge impact on public perception of a lot of philosophical issues: Tom Hurka and Wayne Sumner in eth-ics, Mark Kingwell and Joe Heath in politics, Jim Brown in science.

But above all, I would like to em-ulate Ian Hacking, who taught me when I was at Stanford as a gradu-ate student, and then surprisingly turned out to be a colleague in To-ronto. Ian has made a big difference in so many scientific areas. I’ll nev-er forget a very prominent math-ematical geneticist in Cambridge tell me how Ian changed his whole approach to statistical prediction.

I would like my research on ac-tive perception to develop into a paradigm that scientists can buy into in the same kind of way.TM: Do you have any more

books in the works?MM: My idea of a book is some-

thing very connected, something that brings things together and has an argument that runs from page one to “page last”. When I have an idea, my first inclination is to write a paper. I think about writing a book only when I begin to feel that my ideas can illuminate a whole big area.

That said, I now think I have a book on active perception, in ex-actly that way: an argument from page one to page last that sheds light on a whole big area and forces you to think of it differently.

In the background are a num-ber of ideas that I’ve been playing around about the perception of beauty and about pleasure in gen-eral. But these have not yet gelled. At least not in the same way.TM: For your interview back

in 2006 on the UTM website, you were quoted as saying, “I think that philosophy has something to con-tribute in formulating what sorts of questions are important.” How has philosophy helped you in deciding what questions are important for your theories?MM: I often take traditional

questions in philosophy and ask what scientific psychology can teach us about them. For exam-ple, philosophers have long asked where our perceptual representa-tion of space comes from. Does it, for example, come from touch, and do the other senses tell us how to reach for tactile information? I ar-gue that when you think about the integration of the sense modalities in active perception, you have to take a very different view. In this work, I think of myself as using a philosophical perspective to draw various lines of scientific inquiry together.TM: What’s next for you after

you’ve completed your work on your curent theory?MM: I want to think about plea-

sure. Not a life of pleasure! I want to think about how pleasure in-forms us about the world around us, and about how it can be right and how it can be wrong.

Matthen continued from page 8

Matthen on philosophy and the human senses

Your realistic resolutionsBe serious. You’re not going to climb Mount Everest this year

Dodging the post-holiday dinner guilt

Or you could grab some oatmeal from Second Cup or Starbucks, but throw in chunks of banana or some honey and cinnamon.

Subway is a classic example of a fast food restaurant that lets you control what goes into your meal. Jasleen Gill, a second-year forensic science student, appreciates this freedom: “In the new year, I want to eat healthier and eat more greens. I go to Subway. It has the most vari-ety of vegetables to choose from.” So don’t feel limited by the food options available at UTM. Instead, use them to create the dishes that you really want to eat.

TREAT YOURSELFWhile you may want to improve your eating habits, you shouldn’t let that interfere with your enjoy-ment of eating!

“I don’t think you should restrict yourself,” says second-year biology student Vikram Paul. “I don’t want

to look back 10 years down the line and think, ‘I could have had a piece of pie.’ ”

Similarly, Alice Yu, a fourth-year CTEP student, says, “This school year, I’m eating less junk food. But I still let myself enjoy candy.”

Give yourself permission to have your favourite food, even if it doesn’t grow out of the ground or have nine cancer-fighting nu-trients, but remember to have it in moderation. Designate a certain time of the day to sit down to a treat and take the time to enjoy it rather than eating it while watch-ing the latest episode of Sherlock or texting your friend—you’ll ac-tually appreciate it more and feel satisfied. Have a slice of cake after lunch, but try dividing it up into smaller slices and eat each indi-vidually, or have a cookie with din-ner, but take a break between bites. Eating thoughtfully and slowly can be a philosophy for any meal, any time of day.

Food continued from page 8

Here’s a tiny reminder of all the resolutions made this year that probably won’t last the first week of January. Take a deep breath, believe, and say to yourself, “I will...”

GO TO EVERY CLASSDespite the illnesses, the tests to study for, or general better things you have to do that day, you will put school first and ensure you’re in your seat for every class. You’re never going to skip lecture. Or tu-torial. Ever. All the readings will be done, you’ll be on top of stuff, juggling your full course load with nary a peep. Okay there.

Not gonna lie, though. Consider-ing you’re paying thousands of dol-lars to be here, going to class every day might not be a bad idea.

GIVE LESS TIME TO MY PHONEDon’t think that phone compa-nies don’t know we depend on our phones. We need them to ease our

worried mothers with the knowl-edge that we made it from the front door to the driveway safely, to lis-ten to music, to check the mun-dane Facebook statuses of that girl you hated in high school, and to do whatever else you pretend isn’t a vi-tal part of your daily life.

Maybe you just meant class. You won’t use your phone in class. But if you’re in a class that bores your very soul, I bet every limb attached to me that you’d be on your phone. Don’t fight it. Just tweet about it.

BE ACTIVE IN A CLUBIf you haven’t been a part of a stu-dent club or association, you’re probably not going to join one. Why? Because university is the place where students skip class to study for that same class. There are too many things to stress over al-ready without having to add some-thing else to the list of procrastina-tions.

Besides, don’t kid yourself. The only reason you go to a club’s event is because they have free food.

EAT HEALTHIERReally? On this campus? I’m rela-tively sure that switching a pep-peroni slice to a vegetarian one doesn’t count as healthy eating. And those little sandwich wraps in the impossible-to-open plastic? If you can manage to rip it out of the pack-aging, those are probably your best bet. Booster Juice, I hear, is healthy, but there’s a principle involved for me that requires me to not spend $6 on a cup of juice I know is too big for me to finish.

Just follow Ms. Brown’s advice and bring a lunch from home.

GUARD MY MONEY BETTERAn admirable goal for the couple who just found out they were hav-ing triplets.

But for a struggling student who will face nothing but crippling debt after the first step they take out of university, you’re only lying to your-self.

READ MORENo, you won’t.

TODAYILEARNED.CO.UK/PHOTO

Think of how much time would have been saved if we’d never made a list at all.

MARIA CRUZFEATURES EDITOR

10 « 01.13.2014

Blues lose first game of new year

The Varsity Blues women’s hockey team started off the new year un-glamorously this past Friday, losing to the York Lions in a nail-biting game by a score of 4-2.

Heading into the game, the Var-sity Blues held an OUA-best 11-3-1 record while their opponents struggled with a 3-11-1 record.

Backed up by a very exuber-ant crowd making plenty of noise, the Blues started off the game at a quick pace. They outskated the York defenders and constantly sent pucks to the net, but to no avail, and they couldn’t gain a lead at the start of the game.

Halfway through the first pe-riod, the Lions’ Mariah Krancevich helped out her team on the power play, banging home a rebound and taking a crucial 1-0 lead.

A minute after York scored their first goal, the Blues tied it with a puck off Courtney Brind’Amour-McClure’s skate. The Blues did what they do best: bring a puck to the net and use their physicality to push it into the back.

After the first intermission, the

Blues went right on the attack and scored to make it 2-1. A shot from the blue line missed the net but de-flected off the backboard and onto Arden Cowley’s stick. Minutes later, York managed to jump right back into the game and keep the

score even when Kristen Barbara took the puck and flicked it over the pad of Blues goaltender Nicole Kesteris.

Early in the third period, York managed to take the lead again fol-lowing a breakaway opportunity in

which Krancevich scored again by sliding the puck through Kesteris’ five-hole.

The Blues had many opportu-nities in the final four minutes of the game, receiving a 5-3 power play for 30 seconds and having the

man advantage for a majority of the final minutes, but spectacular goaltending from York’s Megan Lee ensured the score remained 3-2 in York’s favour. The Blues had many wide-open shots, but Lee managed to get on top of the puck, preclud-ing a Blues comeback. With 24 sec-onds left, the Lions added an empty net goal and finished off the game with a 4-2 win.

“Our inability to capitalize on the power play and on other oppor-tunities was our downfall today,” said Blues assistant coach Britni Smith. The Varsity Blues had seven power-play opportunities, and over two minutes of those were spent with a five-on-three advantage.

However, this is a rare discor-dant note in the team’s recent histo-ry—it’s only the Blues’ fourth regu-lation loss out of 16 games played this season. “Losses like these are bound to happen,” said Smith. “We just have to find that magic we had in the beginning of the season and ride it out the rest of the way.”

After a three-game road stint, the Blues will return to home ac-tion on January 25, when they face the Brock Badgers.

Women’s hockey team sits at third in the OUA after 4-2 defeat against the lowly York Lions

MAHMOUD SAROUJI/THE MEDIUM

U of T is trailing Queens and Laurier for the top spot in the OUA standings.

ERIC HEWITSON

The surge of the Toronto Raptors

Politics in what was our game

The Raptors’ recent success couldn’t have come at a better time for Toron-to sports fans.

The Toronto Raptors are 18-17 after 34 games this NBA season, in-cluding 12-5 since trading away Rudy Gay. Nevertheless, the good run of form shouldn’t be attributed to his departure but to a complete change of team identity.

The 2013/14 season started off with a lot of promise for the Raptors. The team had a go-to guy in Gay and the right pieces around him to make a genuine push for the playoffs, but, as usual, the team disappointed. The Raptors started off the season 6-12, and the team’s new general manager, Masai Ujiri, knew it was time to make a change.

The trade was announced before the Raptors were to play the Los An-geles Lakers in Kobe Bryant’s much-anticipated return from an Achilles tendon injury that kept him side-lined for nearly seven months. The trade saw Raptors send Gay, along

with Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy, to the Sacramento Kings in return for Greivis Vasquez, John Salmons, Pat-rick Patterson, and Chuck Hayes.

“At the time of the trade, all I could think was ‘Here we go again,’ ” says James Chavez, a second-year visual communications student. “Another season with so much promise has come to a stop, and now we’ll be look-ing forward to the draft where we can hopefully get Andrew Wiggins.”

At the time of the trade, it seemed like the Raptors had thrown in the towel on the season after just 18 games, and were hoping to be bad enough to get at least a top-five pick in the upcoming draft. The Raptors’ trade also seemed like a salary dump, since they owed Gay the equivalent of C$40.4 million for this season and the next, including a player option of 19.6 million next season. It seemed like losing Gay ruined the Raptors’ chances, until something unexpected happened: the Raptors started win-ning games.

Most people who tuned in to watch Canada’s World Junior Hockey Championship this holiday season are probably wondering what’s go-ing on with Canadian hockey. For decades, Canada has been a domi-nant force at the international level, a country producing the best play-ers in the world. Yet we’ve gone two years in a row without a medal at the World Juniors. At the World Junior A Challenge, the United States has won five out of the last six times. Should we, as Canadians, be worried about our hockey perfor-mance? Yes. And the problem lies directly at the roots of the minor league hockey system.

On January 6, the Toronto Star published an article for which many coaches in Ontario’s best minor hockey league, the Greater Toronto Hockey League, were asked for their opinions on the reason for the loss. Some coaches believe the problem is with the selection process, which is a valid point. As Don Cherry says, this process is too “politically cor-rect”. Canada has three leagues—the

Ontario Hockey League, the West-ern Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League—and coaches are asked to choose an equal number of players from each league.

This means that, in some cases, the best junior players aren’t chosen because the coaching staff has to satisfy this requirement. Some play-ers didn’t make the team this year because they are all from the OHL, like Max Domi, son of retired Maple Leafs bruiser Tie Domi, who nearly made the cut for the Phoenix Coy-otes roster; Scott Kosmachuk, who recently signed an entry-level con-

tract with the Winnipeg Jets; and Darnell Nurse, who went seventh overall in the 2013 NHL entry draft to the Oilers.

“We need to be picking the best players available, regardless of what league they play in,” says Mark Run-ciman, a fourth-year criminology major. “We can’t be skipping out on NHL first-rounders. It’s ridiculous!”

Timothy de Medeiros, a first-year sociology major, says, “This loss was embarrassing.” De Medeiros was angry that Connor McDavid, a skilled prospect selected to the Ca-nadian squad, didn’t get enough ice time during the tournament.

But this was only part of the rea-son the team lost at the World Ju-niors. The majority of the problem lies in the new taboo on physicality, and a general shift away from con-tact in young age groups. The shift is a result of attempts to increase awareness of concussions and head injuries resulting from hard hits. The problem is that junior leagues, the NHL, and its affiliates all play with contact.

KYLE KUCZYNSKI

EBI AGBEYEGBE

Raptors continued on page 11 Hockey continued on page 11

Taking a closer look at Canada’s medal drought at the World Juniors

“We need to be picking the best players

available, regardlessof what league theyplay in. We can’t beskipping out on NHL

first-rounders.”—Mark Runciman

01.13.2014 THE MEDIUM SPORTS» 11

Raptors control Atlantic Division

The Raptors have won against top teams in the league, including the Dallas Mavericks, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Indiana Pac-ers, who are currently on top of the Eastern Conference division.

“I don’t know what it is. I’m an avid Raptors fan and I watch the games when I can, but these days when I watch the games it’s like something’s different,” says James Tseroni, a third-year linguistics major. “Our shots are falling and the players seem to be playing with increased energy, and overall they just seem happy to be playing, which is something I haven’t seen in a while from them.”

The Raptors’ shift seems to have happened overnight, but it’s actu-ally been brought about by the ef-forts of head coach Dwane Casey, who took the position last season. Casey, who was part of Dallas Mavericks’ championship-winning team in 2011, is a strong defensive-minded coach who preaches a team game concept. His intensity on the sidelines is one of the reasons the Raptors have improved so drasti-cally. His coaching style won Casey the NBA Coach of the Month title for December, making him only the second coach in the Raptors’ his-tory to do so.

Since Gay’s departure, the team has improved their game both of-fensively and defensively. Gay spe-cializes in post-up and isolation plays, which meant that there was little ball movement and little re-turn on offence if he didn’t shoot a good percentage from the field. Since Gay’s trade, the Raptors haven’t had to rely on just one play-

er to make things happen—they win games through teamwork.

Demar DeRozan has improved his scoring and is now averaging 21.2 points per game this season, the first time he has averaged over 20 points in his career. Throughout the winning streak, Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry has taken a star-ring role in the team’s successes, av-eraging over nine assists per game and keeping offence running more efficiently than it has all season. Second-year guard Terrence Ross, known for his dunking abilities, has also stepped up this season by im-proving his shooting and becoming more reliable on the defensive end, which has led to him being given more playing time.

The Raptors are slowly finding their identity in an Eastern Confer-ence with few competitive teams. Four teams in current playoff spots have a less-than-winning record, which says a lot about the compe-tition in the East. The Raptors are currently on top of the Atlantic division and sit fourth in the East-ern Conference. For a team that hasn’t been to the playoffs since the 2007/08 season, where they lost in the first round, their chances of making the playoffs this season are better than they have been in a long time.

If the team manages to sustain their recent performance, they may have a chance not only to reach the playoffs but also to make some noise in the Eastern Conference post-season. Even if the Raptors don’t make the playoffs, they’ve at least brought some new life and ex-citement to a Toronto sports scene that’s been itching for something to cheer for.

Hockey bureaucraciesThe physicality of the Canadian game has always been an asset. What comes to mind is the 1976 exhibi-tion game between the Philadelphia Flyers, a team on which all by two players were Canadian, and the So-viet Union, whose players skated off the ice during the game because they couldn’t deal with the level of Ca-nadian physicality. The game is los-ing a powerful asset, and this year’s Canadian World Junior team was a good example of this. If we want our players to be better, they must learn to play with contact at a young age.

Young players can avoid injuries if they’re taught to properly give and receive a check. Rory Bourgeois, a fourth-year political science major, says, “We wonby playing the Cana-dian game, which is highly physical. We can’t beat [European teams] by playing Euro-style hockey.”

The GTHL has produced many amazing hockey players. The active players from the 1992 age group include Jeff Skinner of the Carolina Hurricanes, Tyler Toffoli of the Los Angeles Kings, Tyler Seguin of the Dallas Stars, and Devante Smith-Pel-ley of the Anaheim Ducks. From this age group, there were four top teams for which these players played: the Toronto Junior Canadians, the To-ronto Marlboros, the Toronto Red Wings, and the Toronto Young Na-tionals. All of these teams managed to win big because of the style of hockey they played. It brought a new level of competitiveness to the game and allowed them to be dominant forces in the Metro Junior A Hockey League.

Scouts often cite the problem of finding good defencemen in the GTHL due to a lack of real competi-tion; they instead look to draft play-ers in the NCAA, AHL, and ECHL

to the big leagues, which makes it hard for players in the GTHL to pursue hockey careers. Many GTHL players have invested thousands of dollars into a hockey career and at-tended practice as if it were more important than doing homework, only to be forced out of competitive hockey without a scholarship.

Meanwhile, Triple A hockey is getting too expensive for a lot of players. The Toronto Star reports that there are many teams in AAA leagues that cost over $8,000 a year to join, in addition to the weekly $7 skate sharpening, $300 hockey sticks that need monthly replacement, and other expensive equipment, along with the gym membership, personal training expenses, and many other expenses associated with playing the sport.

With Canadian consumer debt levels rising 21% in 2013 alone, to take a single figure, it’s safe to say that these costs are a burden to the majority of families in the GTHL. There are very few success stories, such as the Staal and Subban broth-ers, who have gone through the On-tario hockey system and ended up in the NHL. In fact, it’s reported that the chances of a Canadian making the NHL are one in 6,000 and that in the 2012/13 NHL season, 3.7% of

all NHL rosters were composed of GTHL alumni, while the top Swed-ish minor hockey league’s alumni, with substantially fewer hockey players, composed 6.4% of NHL ros-ters.

Apart from the ridiculous team budgets in AAA, which average $110,000, another problem riddling the GTHL is the level of bribery within these selective teams. That, at least, is the phenomenon as cited by many players who don’t make it to the NHL. The picture they paint is that coaches want to make a profit while coaching, and wealthy parents can pay. When the coach’s salary isn’t written directly into the team’s op-erating budget, the players’ parents will pay the coach’s salary to award their child a spot on the team. The CBC reports that the average salary of a coach in 2008 was $25,000, al-though there are many coaches with some integrity who receive these payments as an offer of simple gra-tuity, with no strings attached. More often than not, players either can’t afford to pay a coach or don’t be-lieve it’s morally acceptable to do so to earn a spot on a team or more ice time, preferring to earn these based on merit.

“AA hockey is not treated as a business, unlike AAA,” says Mat-thew Emanuele, a fourth-year politi-cal science major and assistant coach for the AA Streetsville Tigers. “Our budgets are highly affordable, and it’s rare to see a coach turn a profit from budgets or wealthy parents. Talent is not concentrated within the top four teams. It’s unfortunate, because there are many players on my team who are talented enough to play AAA, but either cannot afford to or don’t want to deal with all of the politics. Something needs to be done.”

Raptors continued from page 10

Hockey continued from page 10

“There are many players on my team who

are talented enough to play AAA, but either

cannot afford to or don’t want to deal with all of the politics. Something

needs to be done.”—Matthew Emanuele