Canada’s hottest power couple

By Cathy Gulli and Charlie Gillis - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

The day began with a romantic walk on the beach. Nazanin Afshin-Jam and Peter MacKay ambled along white sand as waves crashed against dark rocks and pelicans dove around them. Eventually, they parted—it was, after all, their wedding day, Jan. 4, and in keeping with some level of tradition, they would get ready separately. The few dozen relatives and friends who had arrived in the last few days were now gathered inside the white chapel at the One & Only Palmilla resort in Los Cabos, Mexico. Afshin-Jam, an Iranian-Canadian human rights activist, model and singer, wrapped her arm around her father’s and they proceeded up the stone steps and down the aisle, where MacKay, Canada’s defence minister and, until that point, the country’s most eligible bachelor, awaited his bride. “I’ll never forget that moment,” Afshin-Jam, 32, recalls. “Peter looked so handsome. I saw a [glint] in his eyes.”

There were plenty of sentimental touches: on the altar, amid candles, were photos of their grandparents, all of whom have died, including Afshin-Jam’s maternal grandmother, who passed away recently; shoes she’d bought to wear to the wedding were tucked inside a pew. Their young nieces wore feathery angel wings. MacKay’s long-time pastor Glen Matheson from Nova Scotia performed the ceremony. “It was magical. There’s no other way to describe it,” says Matheson. “I’ve conducted more than 1,000 marriages in my career, but nothing compares.” The couple rode in a gold carriage, enjoyed an intimate oceanside reception under moonlight, and shared a first dance so personal they won’t reveal the song.

So secret were the details of this wedding, in fact, that the media and public only learned of it afterwards, when MacKay announced he had married “the most important person” in his life—never mind that his proposal to Afshin-Jam was not widely known. And what about that photo of the beaming newlyweds emerging from the chapel with white flower petals falling around them? It too was carefully released by MacKay days after the wedding, perhaps in an effort to quiet the frantic attempts online to piece together some information about—to make some sense of—this surprising turn of events.

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The end of the wait for the elevator

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Jessica darmanin

Professor Myron Hlynka’s office is on the ninth floor of a 10-storey building at the University of Windsor. Many nights, just as he’s in the elevator to go home, Hlynka realizes he’s forgotten something on his desk. Rushing back for the item is never quick: the elevators take what feels like an eternity to arrive, or they stop at nearly every floor along the way. So Hlynka has devised a system to compensate for the elevators’ sluggishness: “What I do is I push the ninth floor and the 10th floor buttons, and when I get off the elevator I push the down button. Then I run to my office,” he says. “Of course, after the elevator stops with me, it goes up even if nobody’s there, it opens the door, it shuts the door, it comes down a floor, it opens the door, and hopefully, by that time I’m there with whatever I’ve forgotten.” Hlynka’s system sounds complicated, but its aim is simple: “I try to cheat!” He suspects he’s not alone. “Everybody tries to cheat in some way.”

Elevators are a universal frustration, at least the slow, cramped and rickety ones, which are all too common. “Wait times and reliability are among the two topics that generate the most complaints” about elevators, says Andrew Wells, an engineer and general manager of KJA Consultants, which helps buildings across Canada implement “vertical transportation systems.” So while the other occupants of Hlynka’s building might not know about his strategy, they will surely empathize with his impatience, and perhaps envy his gumption. He is, after all, a probability researcher with a focus on “queue theory,” or the science of waiting. Most people, Hlynka says, “are always running a little behind. It’s like, if we could just get a bit of extra time—if that elevator would just come faster,” then daily life would be a lot easier, if not better.

Now it appears that the wait for elevators that don’t make us wait may finally be over: a growing number of companies are offering a design innovation that is as simple as it is genius. The floor buttons, typically housed inside the elevator, are increasingly being placed on the outside of the elevator instead of the usual up and down buttons. Known as “destination-oriented dispatching,” this system “gives the elevator all the information that it could possibly [need] in describing who’s moving where,” explains Wells. That one tweak equals major efficiency, with the elevator computer now capable of assigning each person to a certain elevator depending on their desired final stop. Individuals who are going to the same floor are grouped together in one elevator rather than clogging up several elevators, each making duplicate stops. “It’s fascinating,” says Hlynka. “It’s almost like preprocessing.”

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Advantage, working mothers

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Liam Norris/Getty Images

The Clash’s hit Should I Stay or Should I Go? was written in 1981, but it could serve as the anthem of mothers through the ages grappling with the eternal question of whether they and their children are better off with them returning to work or remaining at home. It ranks among the most polarizing and personal of choices—and everyone thinks their decision is best. And often, they have studies to prove it.

Witness the latest evidence for re-entering the labour force post-baby: researchers at the department of human development and family studies at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro compared non-employed mothers to those working full- and part-time, and the effects on maternal health, couple intimacy, work-family conflicts, housework and child care. The article, in the latest Journal of Family Psychology, found that in most cases, employed moms are at an advantage.

“Work offers mothers some pretty important opportunities and resources that may promote parenting and a sense of well-being,” says co-author Cheryl Buehler. “It minimizes social isolation, and helps develop and refine skills like problem-solving, dealing with diverse sets of people and working as a team.” Those abilities lend themselves to motherhood, explains Buehler, because they “provide children with the kinds of environments and experiences that they need to do well in the world.”

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Allyn Robert Parker

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Jack Dylanw

Allyn Robert Parker was born on March 11, 1946, in Vancouver. His father George was a plasterer nicknamed “Shorty” for never growing taller than five feet after getting rheumatic fever at 11. His mother Hazel was a homemaker who also bore three older children, Don, Davina and Georgina, and enjoyed reading: she chose her youngest son’s name from a romance novel about a Welsh forester.

Allyn was never bookish. He preferred adventure: commandeering his bicycle 45 km from home to Fort Langley, B.C., or target shooting. His travels provided fodder for his budding obsession with photography. He had his own darkroom, worked on the high school yearbook and played the bongos. The one subject he excelled at was technical drawing.

That skill landed him a job with the Vancouver park board, despite not having graduated from high school because he was short an English credit. For two years, Allyn helped survey and plot parts of Stanley Park, which he referred to as “his.” Around then he met Sandra, an aunt’s foster child, and they married in 1967. Eventually the couple moved to Port Alberni, B.C., where Allyn worked as a municipal draftsman. He and Sandy were married 12 years and had three children, Vikki, Dawn and Allyn Dean, before splitting up.

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A brain injury library online

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 5:33 PM - 0 Comments

http://www.sportconcussionlibrary.com/

After all the attention paid to Sidney Crosby and his concussion this year, countless questions remain about the injury, and countless more athletes will succumb to it yet. For these reasons, Dr. Paul Echlin, a sports physician and concussion researcher in London, Ont., has just launched a website devoted to sharing information about the injury.

The Sport Concussion Library, launched today, features a collection of scientific studies, documentaries, as well as federal and provincial legislation pertaining to brain injuries. General information is tailored to parents, coaches, players, teachers and first responders, while education modules allow users to gauge and improve their knowledge of concussions. Even the SCAT2, the diagnostic test used by medical professionals to diagnose concussions, is explained, and first responders and health workers can register to use it online.

Perhaps most interesting of all on the website are the various lengthy and candid testimonials from individuals who have experienced concussion firsthand, including hockey and football players, cyclists, and a wrestler, plus parents of injured athletes.

“I know how easy it is to tell yourself you don’t have a concussion when you really do; I told myself that a few times,” says one former hockey player in his testimonial. “Doing serious damage to your brain is not worth playing that extra game or those few extra shifts. Concussions can lead to so many other serious problems that I personally experienced and would not wish upon anybody. A concussion is a very serious injury and should be treated that way.”

This is one more step towards making that happen.

Mergers: And they all lived happily ever after

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Jackson Lee / Splash News

Shania Twain and Frédéric Thiébaud

It’s the stuff of classic country songs: a two-timing man cheats on his wife with her best friend. The wife finds out, confronts them both, and finds comfort in the arms of the equally heartbroken best friend’s husband. That’s how Shania Twain and Frédéric Thiébaud fell in love and came to be married on a beach in Puerto Rico last New Year’s Day. Now that’s a new beginning.

Lincoln Alexander and Marni Beal

Yes, he’s nearly 90, and she’s in her 60s. But Lincoln Alexander, the first black lieutenant-governor of Ontario, and Marni Beal, a sales rep at the Hamilton Spectator, are as in love as two high-school kids. Still, Alexander was nervous to propose: “An old codger like me marrying a girl 30 years his junior?” He asked her anyway, and she accepted. “I became his driver, caregiver, administrator … bodyguard with first aid/CPR training and life partner,” says Beal. “And he became mine.”

CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MACLEANS’ OTHER NEWSMAKERS OF 2011

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Building a better city

By Cathy Gulli - Monday, November 28, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Roger Lemoyne; ENVAC

Deep beneath the streets of Montreal’s entertainment district, running alongside the usual water, sewage and gas pipes that lie underground in every community across the country, something entirely unique is buried: 1.5 km of carbon steel tubes that will eventually funnel the neighbourhood’s garbage, recycling and organic waste into a massive subterranean container with a capacity of up to 10 tonnes. The trash will be sucked through the pipes and into the container by four fans with a combined power of 440 kilowatts, and later trucked to a landfill or another destination.

Once up and running in 2014, the Envac system will be Canada’s first municipal automated vacuum waste collection program—a stark contrast to the weekly curbside pickup most people are used to, which is labour-intensive and inefficient. “Today we are collecting waste like we did hundreds of years ago,” says Sean Monclús of Envac, who has been working with the city of Montreal to set up the system, which is costing $8.2 million. That makes no sense, he says: “If we have waste water underground, why not the waste?”

Perhaps most surprising about the implementation of this innovative program is the fact that it’s being done in Quebec, which has become the poster child for aging infrastructure, and the perils of failing to manage municipal services in a progressive way. In Laval in 2006, five people were killed, including a pregnant woman, when the neglected Concorde overpass crashed onto cars below. Parts of the Champlain Bridge corridor, which crosses the St. Lawrence, have been deemed “mediocre to deficient,” according to an annual inspection obtained by the Montreal Gazette. And in July, a 25-tonne concrete beam collapsed from Montreal’s Ville Marie tunnel onto an expressway travelled by 100,000 vehicles every weekday (no one was hurt). “But it’s not just a Montreal problem,” said Mayor Gérald Tremblay then. “When I talk to my colleagues in other big Canadian cities it’s the same issue.”

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Is MMA as dangerous as it looks?

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 12:10 PM - 0 Comments

Felipe Dana/AP

Horseback riding and mixed martial arts have little in common, except to Dr. Chad Ball. A few years ago, he conducted a study revealing how injured Canadian riders are different from those described by researchers in places such as New Zealand and Australia, where the typical patient is a young, inexperienced female practising English-style riding. In Canada, it is a man in his 40s with decades of western-style experience and a veteran horse. “Cowboys,” says Ball, a Calgary trauma surgeon. “They’re all over.”

So too are mixed martial arts fighters: Alberta has several promoters and leagues devoted to the full-contact combat sport, which combines boxing, wrestling and martial arts. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), which promotes MMA internationally, drew more than 55,000 fans to Toronto in April for a series of bloody matches. Knowing the sport’s popularity, and recalling how his equestrian study presented a different reality than previous research, Ball was skeptical when the Canadian Medical Association proposed banning MMA last year. Is this sport “savage and brutal,” like the CMA claims, or is it just perceived that way because the matches are gory? Is it really more dangerous than other sports, wondered Ball?

With this in mind, he and fellow surgeon Dr. Elijah Dixon wrote a response to the CMA published in the Canadian Journal of Surgery in February. They argue the proposal is based on “emotion, not evidence,” and note the dearth of long-term studies. The best data shows fighters get concussions in three per cent of matches, and a quarter of matches are stopped for head shots. At Foothills Medical Centre, where Ball and Dixon work, none of the eight trauma surgeons have admitted an MMA fighter—despite seeing 1,100 severely injured patients a year.

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The remains of that day

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 2 Comments

David Handschuh/Getty Images

In a parking lot near the office of the chief medical examiner of New York City, 9,006 unidentified human remains recovered from the ruins of the World Trade Center are stored inside temperature-controlled containers. Many are too small or too damaged for DNA analysis­—the force of the towers’ collapse on Sept. 11, 2001, created a mishmash of genetic information “like a ball of knotted strings that cannot be unwound,” as anthropologist and 9/11 expert Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh wrote in the June issue of Anthropology Today.

Since the holding station, known as Memorial Park, was set up under a white tent in 2002, many relatives of the 2,753 people killed at Ground Zero have grieved in a makeshift chapel beside the storage units. Many of them have never received the bodies, or even body parts, of their loved ones. For these families, the anonymous bone and tissue fragments are the closest they can get to those they have lost. “I pray to God that he’s with them. I want him there,” says Monica Iken, whose husband, Michael, 37, died in the south tower where he worked as a bond trader. “That is so important to me. Whether he’s identified or not, he’s still in a sacred place.”

With the remains eliciting such personal and emotional attachment, where to put them permanently has ignited a dramatic debate between factions of 9/11 families, bureaucrats, anthropologists, architects and curators. The plan has long been to return them to Ground Zero and place them in a repository where the medical examiner can continue DNA analysis and relatives can visit privately. But the location of that repository—above ground or below—and how the remains should be incorporated into the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is where the consensus disintegrates. (Requests to speak with the memorial and museum president Joe Daniels and director Alice Greenwald were declined.)

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Sidney Crosby and the NHL’s biggest headache

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 4:22 PM - 6 Comments

After months of intense speculation about whether or not Sidney Crosby will return to play when the NHL season resumes on Oct. 6, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain broke his silence on Wedensday—but failed to quell the questions about how much longer this concussion will haunt him.

In a meeting space that smelled like a hockey locker room inside the Consol Energy Center, Crosby, his two concussion specialists, and Penguins GM Ray Shero faced more than 60 reporters and a dozen cameras to emphasize yet again that there is no fixed date for when the superstar will get back in the game. Continue…

Inside the fight of Jack Layton’s life

By Aaron Wherry, Cathy Gulli, and Martin Patriquin - Monday, August 8, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 132 Comments

Rene Johnston/Toronto Star

Jack Layton died after a months-long battle with cancer in the early morning hours of August 22, 2011. He was 61. Below is Maclean’s cover story on the charismatic NDP leader, originally published on August 4, 2011. To read Maclean’s definitive profile of Jack Layton’s life in politics, click here.

He had started complaining of pain and stiffness in late June. He was perspiring a lot, and found it hard to stand for long periods of time. His chief of staff, Anne McGrath, who first worked with Jack Layton when he ran for the NDP leadership nine years ago, thought maybe he’d over-compensated for his surgically repaired left hip and injured the right one. She wanted him to take the summer off anyway. It would have been a deserved respite after a remarkable 18 months that began with a diagnosis of prostate cancer and climaxed with him hobbling to an unprecedented election result.

Tests were scheduled. But then he also started losing weight. McGrath prepared herself to find out what was happening on July 25, when a significant test was to take place, but that test was moved up five days. With those results came a diagnosis and on the evening of Wednesday, July 20, two days after his 61st birthday, Layton called McGrath to tell her it was cancer. “He’s so upbeat,” she says. “He really is. It’s so funny. I don’t get it sometimes myself.”

He told her to tell him that she was going to keep working. “ ‘We started this journey together…and look at how far we’ve come and look what we’ve done,’ ” she recalls him saying. “And he starts going through the things that we’ve been through and everything. He says, ‘And we’ve got more to do.’ He was talking to me about fundraising, about increasing the party’s membership. This is on Wednesday night, you know?”

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A smooth sale

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

Ratcliffe/Getty Images

“Not on the silk sheets!” screams one father to another while changing a diaper in the 1987 comedy Three Men and a Baby. That the best pop culture reference for this bedding goes back so far is telling: in the minds of many, silk sheets are a dated, laughable indulgence not fit for real life.

But to hear Toronto entrepreneur Samantha Maker describe Cilque, her new line of silk sheets, is to enter a universe in which the luxury linens are actually practical. “Silk is a really durable fabric. It’s long-lasting. It can be machine washed. It’s drier-friendly,” she says. “It’s hypoallergenic—unlike cotton, which is an absorbing fabric. It’s also room-temperature adjustable: cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”

Maker, who imports her silk from southeastern China, launched the company after learning that many celebrities sleep on the fabric because of its “nourishing” properties: silk is “less abrasive on skin and hair” than other materials, says Maker, who points to high-end salons that sell silk pillowcases because they’re a “beauty secret.”

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Concussions: they're not just for men anymore

By Cathy Gulli - Friday, June 17, 2011 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Strong/Reuters; Adrian Wyld/CP; Todd Korol/Reuters

If all you ever heard about concussions was what turned up in the sports news or highlight reels, you’d be justified in thinking that they mostly only happen to elite male athletes­, especially NHL players. A couple of weeks ago, Nathan Horton of the Boston Bruins was rocked by a hit so hard it knocked him out of the Stanley Cup finals. In May, Derek Boogaard of the New York Rangers, who’d been battling concussion symptoms since before Christmas, accidentally overdosed on alcohol and painkillers. In March, scientists announced that the late Bob Probert, a famous brawler, had brain degeneration. Days later, Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens had a head-on collision with a thick metal stanchion. And, of course, superstar Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is still recovering from back-to-back blows he received in January.

Despite such evidence to suggest that men are the main victims of concussion, an unsettling body of scientific research reveals that the rates of concussion among female athletes are significantly higher than for male athletes. “What we know right now is that females are about two to three times more likely to have a concussion than males,” says Dave Ellemberg, a professor at the Université de Montréal, who has a grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study the effect of gender on concussion outcomes. There are also early indications that females might take longer to recover, and that their symptoms might be different from, or worse than, those experienced by males.

The problem is widespread: high rates of concussion in females are occurring at both the youth and adult levels, and across the sports spectrum. Recent studies have found that in gender-comparable sports such as soccer and basketball, which have the same rules and equipment for both sexes, females are far more likely to receive a concussion per number of “athlete exposures” (one player participating in one game or practice). Dawn Comstock, a principle investigator at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, runs the national sports surveillance study, which collects detailed injury data from 200 high schools across the U.S. on a weekly basis. Between 2005-2010, female high school soccer players received on average three concussions per 10,000 exposures compared to 1.98 among boys. In basketball, girls sustained 2.01 concussions versus just one among boys per 10,000 exposures.

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Concussions: the untold story

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 15 Comments

Photograph by George Widman/AP

Before there was Sidney Crosby, there was Eric Lindros. Both were hockey prodigies as young teenagers. Both were drafted first overall into the NHL. Both won the league MVP in their early 20s, both were captain of Team Canada at the Olympics, and both were hailed as the next Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux. And then, in a fraction of a second, both fell victim to devastating concussions. The toll on Crosby, who has been sidelined since January, remains to be seen. But most fans know that Lindros was never the same after a series of blows to the head—at least eight by the time he retired in 2007. What few know, however—what he’s never talked about publicly before—is the psychological and emotional toll of those concussions.

That a Herculean hockey legend such as Lindros (he is six foot four and 255 lb.) is speaking out with disarming candour about the panic and desolation that he has endured is unprecedented. “You’re in a pretty rough-and-tumble environment with this sport. Talking about these things—you don’t talk about these things,” says Lindros. So while he was playing in the NHL, Lindros mostly kept his game face on. “You got to understand, you want to wake up in the morning and you want to look at yourself and say, ‘I’ve got the perfect engine to accomplish what I need to in this game tonight.’ You are not going to look in the mirror and say, ‘Boy, I’m depressed.’ ”

But there were signs that the concussions had transformed him, both as a man and a hockey player, for the worse. “I was extremely sarcastic. I was real short. I didn’t have patience for people,” says Lindros, 38. That rudeness mutated once he stepped on the ice into fear that the next concussion was just one hit away. “That’s why I played wing my last few years,” he explains of changing positions late in his career. “I hated cutting through the middle. I was avoiding parting the Red Sea.” Off the ice, Lindros developed a paralyzing sense of dread at the very thought of public speaking or of being in a crowd—once routine activities for the sports superstar. “I hated, absolutely hated, that. I’d avoid those scenarios. I didn’t like airports. I didn’t like galas. It would stress me out.”

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Keeping Denmark's door shut

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 5 Comments

Marc Mueller/EPA/Keystone Press

A recent Danish report has provoked an uncomfortable debate about the economics of immigration. The report, based on data from five Danish ministries, indicates that the country saved $9.5 billion in housing and social assistance over the last decade by restricting immigrants from non-Western nations. By contrast, immigrants from Western countries were found to have contributed to the economy.

Denmark’s right-wing government and its allied parties have seized on the new information as validation of their anti-immigration agendas. Some politicians have suggested that the savings are, in fact, greater, once health and police expenditures are taken into account. And there are even calls to further clamp down on newcomers who “one can suspect will be a burden on Denmark,” as Søren Pind, the centre-right liberal integration minister, put it in a Danish newspaper.

But the country’s opposition parties see it differently: they say that the six per cent of Denmark’s population who are immigrants from outside the EU (totalling approximately 320,000 people) are being used as the “whipping boys” for Denmark’s $8.7-billion deficit. Marianne Jelved, spokesperson for the centre-left Social-Liberal Party, has called classifying people “depending on their value to the economy” nothing short of “degrading” and undemocratic.

The man in uniform

By Cathy Gulli - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Prince William had his back turned to Catherine Middleton as she walked with her father down the aisle at Westminster Abbey. It was an old-fashioned, austere moment: the demure, veiled bride escorted to her stoic bridegroom, who stared ahead at the altar. To William’s right stood Prince Harry, who also accompanied him from Clarence House to the abbey in a state Bentley, while crowds exclaimed, “We want Wills!” Harry has, in fact, always been at his big brother’s side to provide comic relief and encouragement. Now was no different: Harry broke form by looking over his shoulder and, smiling, advised William, “Right, here she is now.”

Throughout the formal 75-minute service, William remained the picture of regal restraint: he wore the red uniform of the Irish Guards; he was appointed the regiment’s honorary royal colonel by the Queen in February. His blue sash was that of the oldest and highest order of chivalry in Britain. He recited his vows in a quiet voice; he knelt and sang with his head bowed. When William and Kate strode down the aisle, she beamed, chin up, and surveyed the guests; he gave the same shy smiles, slight nods and sideways glances that his late mother Diana was known for.

Also like his mother, William appeared most comfortable during the less formal times. That’s when his charming, even coy, nature revealed itself: he blew kisses to his aunts before the service began. He joked with Kate and her father, “We were supposed to have just a small family affair!” To Kate, he gushed, “You look beautiful.” During the sermon, when the couple was urged to “persevere in prayer,” he initiated a warm exchange of grins between them. Once out of the solemn abbey (where Diana’s funeral was held in 1997) and among the cheering fans, William waved and laughed heartily. By then, he had put on his military cap, which is adorned with the regiment’s motto. Translated from Latin, it reads, “Who shall separate us?”

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Where the real wedding party's at

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, April 28, 2011 at 5:20 PM - 0 Comments

Patti Renihan and her best friends have always watched the British royal weddings together: when Prince Charles married Diana Spencer in 1981, and when Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in 1986, the women huddled around a tiny TV inside a screened porch at a family cottage in northern Ontario. They had a similar plan for when Prince William marries Kate Middleton. But when other friends heard about the early-morning gathering, they wanted to join them. “It’s ballooned to 14 people,” laughs Renihan, 65, who made gold invitations that match the official ones—“except instead of HRH we put my initials” and instead of “Westminster Abbey” they wrote “the abbey” at Renihan’s home address in Toronto. Upon arrival, each guest will be introduced by her new name: duchess or lady of the area where she lives. “This party has snowballed,” Renihan admits. “It gets grander by the day.”

The spectacle of a British royal wedding has inspired many Canadians, especially women, to host their own extravagant receptions. No detail will be overlooked: food, drink, flowers, party favours and attire have been planned in celebration of this rare event. And despite the time difference (Will and Kate exchange vows at 11 a.m. British time, and media coverage begins three hours earlier), or perhaps because of it, people like Renihan and Jane Francis of Mississauga will welcome guests to their houses in the middle of the night—starting at 3 a.m.

“I got a new big TV for my birthday, and I was going to watch the wedding regardless,” says Francis, 64, before her friend Marg Shaver, chimes in. “And we were going to be lonely in our basements,” Shaver explains, adding that she had British-flag bunting and serviettes that were crying out to be used for such an occasion. “So we decided to get some others in!” finishes Francis. Over the last few weeks, the self-described “mature, fun-loving women” have traded scores of emails and calls in preparation for the big day. The latest news: “The fine jewels from China have arrived,” exclaims Shaver, who turns 61 the day after the wedding. “Blue sapphire engagement ring replicas for everybody!”

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How much will the royal wedding cost?

By Cathy Gulli - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 12:50 PM - 5 Comments

Illustration by Taylor Shute

For rich and royal individuals like William and Kate, the idea of setting a wedding budget seems contrived. But the couple say they want to balance the extravagance expected of them with a sensitivity to the troubled economy affecting Brits. It’s a sweet sentiment—and an unlikely reality. Estimates put the cost of the April 29 festivities at between $15 million and $68 million, a far cry from the $20,000 that a typical Canadian wedding costs. Most of Will and Kate’s wedding bill will be covered by the royal family, but the Middletons have insisted on paying for certain items, though nobody is saying what. At minimum, the two clans will pick up the tab for the church service, music, flowers, decor, reception and honeymoon. There is, however, one thing taxpayers will foot the bill for: security and street cleaning. The upshot? The big day should boost the British economy by $1 billion through tourism and merchandise. Now that’s a wedding favour.

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What really happened to Max Pacioretty?

By Cathy Gulli - Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 5 Comments

Shaun Best/Reuters; Andrew Post/Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory/University of Ottawa

By now, the stomach-churning footage of Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens slamming headfirst into a post during an NHL game on March 8 is well-known. The hit, delivered by Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins, happened in less than a second, but it took several unnerving minutes for medical personnel and teammates to carry an unconscious Pacioretty off the ice. Doctors later diagnosed him with a concussion and a fractured vertebra, from which he is still recovering. Considering the powerful collision, it’s stunning that the 22-year-old wasn’t hurt worse or even killed, as many fans and players feared that night.

But to truly marvel at the dangerous blow that Pacioretty survived, one must watch a precise five-second black and white video just created by scientists at the University of Ottawa. Led by Blaine Hoshizaki, director of the elite Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, researchers have reconstructed a hit similar to the Pacioretty-Chara one. The footage shows a dummy head wearing a helmet similar to the one Pacioretty uses. A metal rod covered in two-inch foam mimics the padded stanchion that Pacioretty struck. An air compressor unleashes the rod on the head form, which is pummelled at the exact same speed and location as when Pacioretty rammed into the post. The impact launches the dummy into a sideways extension—the neck stretches until it’s perpendicular to the rod, before the head form snaps back and slightly rotates.

WATCH THE RECONSTRUCTION

Witnessing the hit recreated in the isolation of a lab makes it all the more disturbing to watch. But for Hoshizaki, the goal is scientific. His team is determined to understand the relationship between brain injuries such as concussions, helmet performance, and the risky hits that hockey players give and take during a game—and to find out whether equipment should be improved or whether certain hits should be banned in the future.

YOUTUBE; Andrew Post/Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory/University of Ottawa

The Pacioretty-Chara reconstruction confirms that hockey helmets excel at preventing catastrophic brain injuries such as skull fractures and subdural hematomas, which are caused by “linear acceleration” (which happens when players fall and hit the ice or receive an impact directly through their centre of mass). On the other hand, it also demonstrates that helmets are not built to prevent mild traumatic brain injuries such as concussions, which are caused primarily by “angular acceleration” (a rotational impact such as when a boxer throws a hook punch to the side of an opponent’s head).

What’s more, this reconstruction explains why Pacioretty will probably recover from his concussion faster than superstar Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who has been sidelined since Jan. 5. As Maclean’s recently reported, Hoshizaki’s team has reconstructed the first of two hits to the head that preceded Crosby’s concussion diagnosis. That hit occurred on New Year’s Day, when David Steckel (then of the Washington Capitals, now playing for the New Jersey Devils) collided with Crosby—shoulder to the left side of the head—and sent him flipping through the air and crashing onto the ice.

By comparing the two reconstructions, especially the 3-D brain models generated by sensors inside the dummy, Hoshizaki’s team can see the different risk of brain tissue damage each player might have experienced. The results are as fascinating as they are perplexing: the brain model from the Crosby reconstruction shows a rainbow of tissue stress, while the brain model from the Pacioretty reconstruction is mostly blue, representing less risk of tissue damage.

Hoshizaki suggests that although the Pacioretty-Chara hit happened at a higher speed than the Crosby-Steckel one (36 km/h versus 27 km/h), and even though Pacioretty was knocked out, the angular acceleration lasted longer in the case of Crosby than Pacioretty (20 milliseconds compared to seven milliseconds, respectively). Since angular acceleration is so closely connected to the risk of concussion, that might explain why the brain model generated by the Crosby-Steckel reconstruction indicates so much more tissue stress. As well, the researchers hypothesize that the location of the impact on each player’s head may explain why the tissue damage varies. Hoshizaki says that the front of the brain, such as where Pacioretty was hit, may be more robust than the sides, which is where Crosby was struck.

Going forward, Hoshizaki’s team are working toward mapping which parts of the brain are most vulnerable to hits to the head. Meanwhile, fans await the return of Pacioretty and Crosby—whenever that might be.

Facing off over tourism

By Cathy Gulli - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 1 Comment

There’s an amusing controversy brewing in Nova Scotia, where Minister of Tourism Percy Paris devised a creative way of promoting the province: by starring in a $1.4-million TV ad. During the one-minute spot, the NDP MLA says, “My Nova Scotia is all about wonderful people, warm welcomes and friendly smiles.”

But since the commercial first aired last week, opposition MLAs have criticized Paris for flagrant self-promotion. “This is about the politician, this is about the NDP,” said Chris d’Entre­mont, the Conservative house leader, in the Chronicle-Herald. “This is not about promoting Nova Scotia tourism.” And Tory MLA Allan MacMaster announced plans to introduce legislation banning politicians from appearing in government ads.

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Reconstructing the head shot that knocked out Max Pacioretty

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 6:22 PM - 3 Comments

Scientists at the University of Ottawa have reconstructed a hit similar to the one sustained by Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens during a game on March 8.

That’s when Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins slammed him headfirst into a stanchion—knocking him unconscious, breaking a vertebrae and causing a debilitating concussion from which he has yet to recover.

The impact occurred at a speed of 36 km per hour—nine kilometres faster than the hit Sidney Crosby took on New Year’s Day. He hasn’t returned to play since being diagnosed with a concussion on January 5.

The reconstruction was conducted by Blaine Hoshizaki, director of the Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, and his team.

Maclean’s will have more on what science can tell us about the Pacioretty hit and concussions in hockey…

Video provided by Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, University of Ottawa

Hit to the head: a similar one to Sidney Crosby’s (reconstruction)

By Cathy Gulli - Wednesday, February 16, 2011 at 10:30 PM - 5 Comments

This video displays a reconstruction of a hit similar to the one Pittsburgh Penguin Sidney Crosby experienced during a game on Jan. 1 from David Steckel of the Washington Capitals, as conducted at the Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, University of Ottawa.

Scientists led by Blaine Hoshizaki replicated the speed, angle and location of the impact to understand the relationship between head trauma, helmet performance and concussions.

Source for black/white footage: Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, University of Ottawa.
Source for colour footage: Cathy Gulli, Maclean’s

Read about Sidney Crosby’s concussion in ‘Hits to the head: Scientists explain Sidney Crosby’s concussion’, in the February 28 issue of Maclean’s

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Reporter Cathy Gulli explains the seriousness of concussions in sports (VIDEO)
The damage done by concussions

The damage done by concussions

By Cathy Gulli - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 105 Comments

Brian Babineau / NHL / Getty Images

Until a month ago, there was nothing typical about Sidney Crosby. At 23, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain had already won the Stanley Cup, an Olympic gold medal, and the praise of Wayne Gretzky, who raved in December: “He’s the real deal. He’s the best player in the game.” Crosby had been on a 25-game scoring streak, amassing goals at a faster rate than ever before in his career—and the longest run since Mats Sundin’s 30-game tear almost 20 years ago.

Crosby’s streak came to a crashing end, however, when he was diagnosed with a concussion in early January—having endured two massive blows only a few days apart. The first time, Crosby took the cold, hard shoulder of Washington Capitals winger David Steckel to the side of his head. The velocity of the hit snapped his neck back, and spun him in the air for a full rotation. His 200-lb. body thudded onto the ice, and as Crosby hunched over, his mouthguard slipped out. Eventually, he skated to the bench, bent over. Despite a sore neck, Crosby shrugged off the pain, and played in the next game.

That’s when a crushing check by Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning slammed Crosby’s head against the boards. The collision happened so fast that startled fans on the other side of the Plexiglas jerked back in their seats as if Crosby might come hurtling right into their laps. Instead, he melted onto the ice and doubled over. When his face was finally visible, the grimace said it all. ‘Sid the Kid’ was done. Suddenly and spectacularly, Sidney Crosby went from being the golden boy of hockey to just one more pro athlete incapacitated with a concussion.

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Eat, sleep, move

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 10:00 AM - 1 Comment

Photography by Jessica Darmanin

Around this time every winter, Canadians desperate for sun flock to warm destinations where drinks are served with umbrella swizzle sticks, and flip-flops and swimsuits are the prevailing fashion. Getting away from the snow and daily slog sounds like the perfect pick-me-up. But there can be a downside to trips across time zones, as Dr. Elaine Chin has discovered among some of her patients. Sleep patterns are disrupted. Food choices are poor—who can resist the all-you-can-eat buffet? And physical activity amounts to shuffling from the pool to the pagoda. Then there are those who stay home so they can buckle down at work to get the year off to a productive start, says Chin, chief medical officer of Scienta Health in Toronto. They clock long hours, book back-to-back business trips, and sacrifice going to the gym and eating balanced meals.

No matter what category you fall into, the medical warning is the same. To be at our best, we must faithfully observe the holy trinity of health: sleep just enough, eat well, including breakfast, and exercise as much as you can. And yet, most of us don’t.

Unfortunately, we’re not getting away with it. Since last May, nearly 25,000 people have taken the Q-GAP test at macleans.ca/howhealthy. It’s an online questionnaire developed by Scienta, a private clinic specializing in personalized medicine, that allows individuals to determine which of more than 150 symptoms they exhibit that may indicate underlying or future medical problems. Those findings will form the basis of the seventh annual “How Healthy Are You?” series, which will be published in the spring. But early data reveals a stark portrait about the well-being of many Canadians: those of us who skip breakfast, avoid physical activity and sleep poorly (either too much or too little) have the worst Q-GAP scores, and by extension, the most symptoms—and the worst overall health status.

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