Journey north with the Grey Cup

The Grey Cup spent eight days on the road, travelling through northern Manitoba to promote Grey Cup game in Winnipeg Nov. 29.

Ford cruises in giant slalom for 1st career World Cup win

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. - Tommy Ford cruised across the finish line, glanced up at the scoreboard and immediately pumped his right glove.

It was simply the start of the celebration as Ford earned his first career World Cup win.

The American racer glided through the fog and the falling snow to finish the Birds of Prey giant slalom in a combined time of 2 minutes, 31.25 seconds Sunday. Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway was second, 0.80 seconds back, while fellow Norwegian Leif Kristian Nestvold-Haugen took third.

Ford found himself in new territory — leading after the first run. He didn't show any hint of nerves before pushing out of the start gate for his final pass. He gazed down at the awaiting course for a moment, before attacking. He flowed through the gates with the home crowd urging him to the finish line.

Pointing a truer lens on nature

At first glance, Winnipeg-born producer Jesse Bochner’s seven-part series Animal Nation brings to mind docu-series such as Wild America, Planet Earth and Nature.

Much of its trailer is a slow-mo montage of caribou and bison galloping majestically through Prairie and Arctic landscapes. Interspersed are shots of northern predators such as wolves and bears, suggesting a Canada-centric take on the genre and its exciting, poignant nature dramas.

Then there are the figures glaringly absent from many other northern wildlife series: the rural and Indigenous people who live closest to these creatures, as they have traditionally for millennia.

“I’ve always loved nature documentaries, so getting to make a nature documentary about animals and all the beauty and wonderful stuff that you come to expect from a blue-chip type of documentary is in there,” says Bochner, who is Ojibwa.

Play ponders realities of interfaith marriages

Jordi Mand isn’t scared to talk about circumcision — she doesn’t bristle at the mention of a bris.

But the playwright born Jordan Mandlowitz understands that the importance of the rite of passage — a foundational covenant between God and the Jewish people — isn’t so cut and dry to the uninitiated.

And in interfaith marriages such as her own, the concept of brit mila isn’t as easily welcomed as lighting the Friday night candles to greet Shabbat.

“It was something that I knew growing up, that if you were Jewish, and if you were a boy, then you were circumcised,” says Mand, who was raised in a tight-knit Jewish community in Richmond Hill, Ont.