Inventiveness & integrity

Ferraro, Skinner getting lay of the land before training camp starts

They’ve both been around the NHL block a bit, but make no mistake, Stuart Skinner and Mario Ferraro are experiencing some “new kid at school” type jitters this week.

The pair were prized July 1 free agent signings by the Winnipeg Jets and are now quickly trying to get the lay of the land — from teammates and systems and structure to restaurants, schools and the best routes to the rink — in what is a frantic time on both a professional and personal level.

“It’s a big change, right?” Ferraro said Wednesday following a pre-training camp skate at the Hockey For All Centre.

“Like moving cities, getting settled somewhere else, with my family, my wife, my daughter, our two dogs. But I think it’s gone really well and smooth. We found a great place here, and we’re really happy with where we’re living.”

Inventiveness & integrity

'I don't want to see young artists of native ancestry paint themselves into a box in search for authenticity," Daphne Odjig writes in the catalogue for 7: Professional Native Indian Artists Inc. "It is within you."

Sound advice from an artist who's lived by example.

Odjig, 95 next month, and the six other like-minded artists who first convened at her Donald Street print shop in 1972 stand as models of inventiveness, integrity and self-determination. Supporting one another's work in an openly hostile climate, they rejected limiting ideas about what "Indian art" could be, asserting their place as equal players on the national cultural stage. With their work, they forged powerful new esthetic traditions that built on history while embracing contemporary indigenous experience and diverse artistic influences.

Dubbed "the Indian Group of Seven" (a moniker that stuck), PNIAI members would eventually join the Order of Canada and win Governor General's Awards, but 40 years ago, their accomplishments were more often met with indifference or worse. Closing at the WAG Monday after a four-month run, 7 assembles 84 works from the 1970s, a vital early period when ideas and styles were still in flux and many members were at their creative peak.

Closure of Nomads field massive upset for North End

The North Winnipeg Nomads have a flag on the field.

The long-standing minor football club was recently informed that its field is unfit to host games and that it would need to find a new home for its five youth and adult teams until repairs are made to the playing surface.

“Our board has made every effort to address the condition of our home field,” the club wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, following a professional assessment, the field has been determined to be unsafe and unstable for our athletes.”

All five of the club’s teams will play their 2026 season at Frank Whyte Field, part of the Northwood Community Centre, with no confirmed date for when they can play on their home field again.

Awareness is the first line of defence

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month in Canada. This proclamation helps focus public attention on the very important protective role that such awareness can play in reducing the death and suffering associated with this disease.

The underlying reason for that is simple. In its beginning, prostate cancer, as is true for all cancers, starts and grows silently and stealthily, giving no indication through pain or other symptoms of its presence and of the developing pathology. Everything appears normal to the unsuspecting host until the cancer has grown to an extent that it interferes with normal function. There might then be pain, bleeding or some other manifestation of the growing tumour.

Unfortunately, by that time the disease may have reached an advanced stage, which is much more difficult to treat, and less likely to have a favourable outcome. It is a general truth in dealing with all types of cancer that the earlier it is discovered and treated, the better the likelihood of a favourable outcome. Awareness can be a major determinant of whether such early discovery happens or not.

Discovery of the cancer during its period of silent, surreptitious growth creates the opportunity for early treatment. Fortunately, in the case of prostate cancer such detection is favoured by two factors.

The plane truth about a dangerous president

U.S. President Donald Trump has crossed firmly into cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face territory.