Crowd sails away with Styx during greatest-hits set

New Jets show promise despite loss to experienced Oilers

Preseason hockey games are always more about the process than the result, and that’s especially true when the opposing rosters appear to be a major mismatch on paper.

So a 5-2 loss by an inexperienced group of Winnipeg Jets skaters against a star-studded Edmonton Oilers squad on Saturday night in the Alberta capital was neither surprising nor alarming.

There was, however, plenty to like from the visitors’ perspective despite the outcome.

Let’s break it down.

National Black Canadians Summit celebrates culture, combats racism

Despite the event’s name — the National Black Canadians Summit — Bruce Miller felt he should attend.

He booked a ticket. And so, this weekend, the Indigenous Manitoban joined roughly 1,500 people flocking to the RBC Convention Centre.

It’s a full schedule — addresses from a former Canadian governor general, sessions on Black mental health and anti-Black racism.

The annual event draws politicians, artists and other professionals from across the country.

Cabernet Sauvignon star of wine festival

The Winnipeg Wine Festival will celebrate the king of red wine grapes next weekend — the theme of this year’s festival, which takes place Sept. 25 and 26 at the RBC Convention Centre, is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cab Sauv, as it’s also known, is the world’s most widely planted wine grape of any colour, first coming to prominence in the 1800s in France’s Bordeaux region, where the grape is still popular. Rather than single-variety wines, Bordeaux reds tend to be blends, with those coming from the left bank of the Gironde estuary being Cabernet-dominant, while right-bank wines are Merlot-dominant, with Cabernet Sauvignon playing a supporting role. Cabernet and Merlot work well together and many other countries have followed suit in blending the two.

A team at University of California Davis put Cabernet Sauvignon through a DNA test in 1996 and discovered its parent grapes are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc — it’s likely that at some point the two varieties, planted next to each other in some vineyard, crossed and mutated and became the grape we know today. (Someone growing grapes in the 19th century must have had an inkling of what was up, as the grape has been called Cabernet Sauvignon since long before the DNA test.)

Flavour-wise, most Cabernet Sauvignon wines are big and bold, with a core of deep dark berry flavours, some graphite and spice notes and relatively bright acidity. It’s a grape that is well-suited to barrel aging, with most examples seeing at least some time in wood.

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

When Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton moved into the 55-plus apartment building on Stradbrook Avenue last year, she came across as “timid, soft-spoken and sensitive,” said building manager Tanya Owen.

Little did Owen know the meek-looking 58-year-old woman would soon turn her life and the lives of many of her tenants upside down and threaten her career and family.

“She was looking to destroy me for a simple tenant disagreement,” Owen said Thursday.

Court records show Ciochon-Newton was arrested earlier this month and charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel.

Serious crash at West Kildonan intersection known for collisions

Residents in West Kildonan say an intersection that was the site of a serious car crash Sunday morning is notoriously dangerous.

Rob Lick heard a loud bang around 7 a.m. and rushed out of his home on Leila to see what the commotion was. He saw two crushed SUVs, a white and black one, in the intersection. Police vehicles arrived shortly after.

“It sounded like when (garbage trucks) drop a big dumpster,” he said. “I heard somebody crying or wailing, they were standing by the vehicle so I don’t know who exactly it was or if someone was injured.”

The sound of sirens followed shortly after when emergency crews came to the scene. The intersection was immediately blocked off.

Crowd sails away with Styx during greatest-hits set

A river of vintage power ballads and synthy keyboards ran through Winnipeg on Tuesday night. Styx, the Chicago rock band responsible for some of the most highly recognizable songs of the 1970s and ‘80s, played to a small, but eager weeknight crowd at Canada Life Centre.