Studies tallying the cost of body checking in minor hockey are piled up now like, well, like little shinny players – eyes dopey or broken wrists cradled against tummies – in the emergency ward on any winter Saturday, wrote columnist Jim Coyle in the Toronto Star July 19. Not, of course, that any amount of such research seems to make much impression on the adults who make the rules. Earlier this year, Alison Macpherson, professor in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health, recommended that children should play in non-bodychecking leagues until at least age 14, after finding that from 1995 to 2002 young players in Ontario, where body checking was allowed, were twice as likely to suffer injuries that required hospital treatment as their counterparts in Quebec, where it wasn’t. Her research also found no support for the proposition frequently put forward by body checking advocates that starting younger keeps players safer when they are older and larger.
Matt Dusk studies his audiences’ reaction
York alumnus Matt Dusk (BFA ‘02) couldn’t have planned it better himself: four songs into his Club Soda set at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, a waiter arrived at the foot of the stage with a shot of Jack Daniels, courtesy of a fan, wrote the Toronto Star July 20. Clad in a milky linen suit, looking very much the wedding singer he once was, Dusk, 27, gleefully accepted in “wink, wink, see you after the show” fashion. A York University grad who cut his teeth in Toronto jazz clubs, Dusk was a 2005 Juno-nominee, appeared on the US reality show “The Casino” and recently completed a sold-out cross-Canada tour.
‘I eat, sleep and breathe’ dance says fine arts student
Though Ashley Burton is yearning to dance across the globe as a freelance choreographer, the Wahnapitae native is still a Northern Ontario girl at heart, reported the Sudbury Star July 20. The 21-year-old student in York’s Honours Program in Dance in the Faculty of Fine Arts, and self-admitted fan of fishing and camping, grew up balancing both hockey skates and slippers before committing to the artistry and grace of ballet and modern dance. Burton will be expressing herself next month on a grand level when her modern dance creation, Parts Arranged in Whorls, is staged at the Toronto International Dance Festival. The Aug. 8-19 event is set to take over the Distillery District on Lakeshore Boulevard in Toronto, featuring hundreds of different performances in both indoor and outdoor venues.
On air
- David Burrows