Contention window

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Earlier this week the Montreal Canadiens were knocked out of their first round playoff series by Washington, in five games. Years ago this would have felt like a dismal failure. This year, it felt like progress.

Since a disastrous season following their Cinderella run to the cup final in 2021, the Habs have been in a rebuild. Their objective to start the year was to be playing competitive games in March and April. Before the season began The Athletic gave them a 4% chance of making the playoffs; that prediction fell to 1% as late as Feb 10th. After the break, though, Montreal stormed back up the rankings, clinching the last playoff spot in the East in their final game of the season.

Gone are the days where any team can contend year in and year out — this is the new reality. You take some bad years, build through the draft and smart trades, and hope to get to a contention window for a few years. Now, a few years in, there’s a solid core in place (Lane Hutson is likely to win the Calder trophy; if he does, he’ll be the first Habs rookie to do it since Ken Dryden in 1972), with lots of upside still left to be realized. A playoff series like this against one of the best teams in the league is invaluable experience. They’ll be an exciting team to watch for a while, assuming they can avoid a Buffalo/Detroit-style backslide.

Can’t wait for September.

Revisiting a prediction

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Nearly five months ago, when Chrystia Freeland suddenly resigned her cabinet post, I guessed that this was actually a bit of Liberal party strategy. I guessed a few things would happen:

  1. PM Justin Trudeau would resign in the coming weeks. Trudeau resigned twenty days after I wrote this (and exactly three weeks after Freeland’s announcement.)
  2. Chrystia Freeland would win the Liberal party nomination. I was wrong about this. Carney ran as well, and won handily on the first ballot. I forgot about misogyny.
  3. Mark Carney would run in Sean Fraser’s just-vacated riding. He didn’t; he’s running in Nepean. It was a bit silly for me to think he’d run in a NS riding anyway. I got caught up in my own conspiracy theory.
  4. Mark Carney would be appointed Finance Minister. See above: he aimed higher. As an aside, good luck to whoever gets to keep the Finance file (I assume Champagne has the job temporarily, but maybe I’m wrong) under a guy who’s managed two central banks.
  5. With the Trudeau boogeyman gone, the Conservative platform would founder and polls would swing in the Liberals’ favour. Uh, have they ever:
Source: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

When I wrote that post in mid-December it seemed like a long shot that the Liberals might win the election, let alone take a majority of seats. But that now appears to be a real possibility.

I guess we’ll know in ~36 hours.

Gganbu

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The last week’s been pretty social: two days of work meetings downtown which included a Blue Jays win over the Atlanta Braves, coffee from three good spots: the Spadina Neo, the University Fahrenheit, and the Union Pilot, and drinks at The Chase to close it all off.

Friday was a holiday. We basically just binged Squid Game, which we somehow avoided when it came out.

Saturday our friend Upasana made us a delicious dinner, and we had such a lovely time chatting we barely noticed it was midnight. We left feeling fat and happy, as they say.

Sunday night we were the hosts, as Ricky and Olivia came over for dinner. We provided salad and a cheese board; they brought delicious Filipino comfort food. We poured a bunch of fun wine, and served ice cream.

I took Monday off, and kept it chill. Lots of leftovers. Quite a bit of catchup. More Squid Game. Playoff hockey for the first time in four years.

An RO in both places

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I spent last weekend in Nova Scotia, at the family farm, to celebrate my mom’s 75th birthday. Brother #1 & progeny drove down for the day as well. We had a big Chinese feast and chocolate cake and then we surprised mom with her birthday present (to come in a few months).

Saturday I re-lived my youth and went to a pancake breakfast down the road at the local fire hall / community centre. That day, and Sunday, I was able to help a tiny bit with the very end of maple season. [UPDATE: I have been informed that the season in fact continued all week. I’d swear it was wrapping up last Sunday, but what do I know? I’m a city boy now.]

I worked in Moncton Monday and Tuesday, dosing my co-workers with maple sugar, then flew home early Wednesday morning. It was a few days of all-out sprint for us both, but we had enough in the tank to eat a delicious meal last night at Ricky + Olivia:

  • Cocktails
    • White Negroni (Dillon’s gin, Elora elderflower liqueur, gentian)
    • Mr. Christie’s Old Fashioned (Brown butter washed rye, Dillon’s chocolate liqueur, sea salt, vanilla, orange bitters, chocolate chip cookie)
  • Food
    • Grilled kofta of chicken + duck w/ rhubarb, yoghurt sauce, goat feta, endive, fingerling chips
    • Turnip cakes w/ purple daikon, chilli crisp, marinated tofu, mushrooms, black radish
    • Perth pork shank w/ daikon “pineapple” rings, Niagara cherry, maple + mustard
    • Special: spicy carrots, bacon, and burrata
    • Bottle of Big Head RAW Malbec
  • Dessert
    • Chicken liver mousse w/ Parallel Brothers’ beet tahini, Rosewood Estates wildflower honey, VQA red wine gummies, sour cream bundt cake doughnuts (seriously)
    • Glasses of Paradise Grapevine fortified Gewurztraminer and Southbrook The Anniversary

It was all fantastic, but the pork shank and chickenduck were the showstoppers for me. How lucky are we to have that place in our neighbourhood?

Adolescence

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Well, Adolescence (imdb | rotten tomatoes) wasn’t an easy watch, but it was so good. I decided to put on episode 1 while Lindsay was out with a friend, not knowing if I’d even like it. Four hours later I’d killed the entire thing.

Stephen Graham was as great as usual, but my goodness, Owen Cooper. He may have been older than his character’s age, but still…what a performance. And the fact that every episode was a single shot, with the 1st, 2nd, and 4th being kinetic feats and the 3rd a pressure cooker — outstanding stuff. A feat, to be sure.

And now I never want to watch it again. 😐

Yorkies

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Thursday evening I met up with old friends BC and CBJ at The York Club, where BC is a member. I’d never been — obviously, given my utter lack of poshness — but I’d had a look at their wine list and was intrigued.

It was great to catch up over a drink at the bar, dinner (short ribs all around, plus a 2007 Hidden Bench Terroir Caché), dessert (I eschewed the beignets and had a glass of beerenauslese instead), and a Highland Park by the fireplace.

No pictures of the wine bottle, for fear I’d get scolded by the staff. No phones in the dining room, you see…a rule which, I admit, I do not hate at all.

Cold Harbor

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I/we’ve been burning through a lot of TV so far this year (season 2 of Patriot, Tsunami: Race Against Time, Say Nothing, season 4 of Slow Horses, The Penguin, Zero Day, Vietnam: The War That Changed America, and season 1 of The Night Agent) but lately we’ve really found ourselves at the nexus of a bunch of big shows, specifically new seasons of Abbott Elementary, Mythic Quest, Yellowjackets, White Lotus, and Severance. Season 2 of Severance (imdb) wrapped up a couple nights ago, and has been the subject of much discussion in our home.

I have a little more patience for the show’s tendency to leave more loose threads than it ties up, but my patience is wearing thin. Hopefully it doesn’t take another three years to see what season 3 reveals.

Also: fuck yeah, Brienne of Tarth.

Yellowjackets and White Lotus should be wrapping up in the coming weeks, just in time for The Studio and the second season of The Last Of Us, so the blitz continues.

Kirstrisma

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It’d been a while since we hung out with Kirsten, so we met for dinner last night at Carisma. I’d gotten up early (3:45 EDT) to catch a flight home, and Lindsay wasn’t feeling well, so we thought it would be an early night. We ended up closing the joint, though.

Here’s what we had:

  • Appetizers
    • Burratina w/ shaved truffle
    • Carpaccio di Manzo
      • A Negroni; glasses of Gavi Di Gavi & Falanghina
  • Mains
    • Pasta del giorno: agnolotti stuffed w/ ricotta
    • Pappardelle w/ wild board ragu
      • Bottles of 2018 Antinori Pian Delle Vigne and Tolaini Valdisanti Toscana
  • Dessert
    • Affogato
    • Classic Italian cheesecake w/ strawberry compote
    • Warm molten chocolate w/ house-made chocolate gelato
      • Glasses of Vinsanto & Reccioto

Elbow mists

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m in Moncton this week. A&D drove over for dinner this evening, which was the perfect excuse to finally try Les Brumes du Coude. It’s a lovely casual vibe inside, and the food was wonderful. We shared everything (except that glass of Pineau).

  • round one
    • house ciabatta
    • fromage: Alfred le Fermier
  • round two
    • steak tartare, all dressed w/ rosemary crackers
    • fancy stuffed pie of mushy peas, house bacon, lettuce chiffonade, and Fundy scallops
    • seared salt cod fish cake, boiled market vegetables in salt pork broth
      • bottle of Pouilly-Fumé
  • dessert
    • Carmélita
      • Pineau des Charentes