Calgary Journal May-June2019

IN SEXUA TH E S L MIS ERV CO ICE NDU IND CT UST RY May - June 2019

DEVIL OF A DIFFERENT KIND The Satantic Temple looks for a local chapter

MRU JOURNALISM Learn how to tell stories that matter in a digital world

Writing Photography Videography Graphic Design Audio

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Will the food of the future crawl its way onto your dinner plate? Read more on page 16.

Editors-in-Chief and City Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nathan Kunz & Colin Macgillivray Production and Design Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alec Warkentin Photo Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richie Nguyen & Alexandra Nicholson Front and Treaty 7 Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andi Endruhn A&E Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Bogda Special Projects Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Badria Abubaker Lifestyle Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aamara Khan Digital Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simran Sachar Voices Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emily Dixon Tech Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Curtis Larson Sports and Health Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shelby Dechant

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Faculty Supervisor/Managing Editor Archie McLean (403) 440-6115 damclean@mtroyal.ca Production Supervisor/Sales Brad Simm (403) 892-7424 bsimm@mtroyal.ca TABLE OF CONTENTS

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PHOTO: COLIN MACGILLIVRAY

Front of book: Best of online Playing devil’s advocate Server stories: Sexual misconduct continues to affect the service industry Calgary mysteries Northeast myths Buggin’ out on the future of food The creators and motivators of Calgary’s food scene The city from different perspectives Shot by shot: Texture Dining in the green Wanted: Female superheroes Why the healthcare system is failing Canadian children with PANDAS disease Fat-femme-queer-savage: How a Blackfoot man’s Drag persona taps into his traditional role as a two spirit person A league all their own: Looking at the burgeoning world of Calgary eSports The price and profit in playing fantasy sports The roadblocks of Canadian racing Exploring interior architecture

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ONLINE VISUALS

The Calgary Journal held a photo contest in March challenging our photojournalists on Instagram to submit some of their latest and greatest works. Here are some of our favourites.

(LEFT) PHOTO: MICHAELA NEUMAN (@equidem) Vanta Blaque is one of my favourite drag performers in Calgary, with a unique style of performing. I love this picture because of the composition, colours and shapes. One of my favourite aspects of this photo is how Vanta is looking up into the light, and how she is centered in the spotlight.

(RIGHT) PHOTO: OLIVIA BAYCHU (@oliveinfilm) I chose this image because I like doing portrait photography. I find people have a story to tell through the way they express themselves. I always try and find unique ways to bring out a person’s personality. My inspirations for my photography are photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, and Mario Testino.

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FRONT

(RIGHT) PHOTO: ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON (@alex.a.nicholson) I liked this shot because of all the textures and how the light hits the frozen lake.

It shows the raw beauty of a Canadian environment. There is something magical about snow, ice and mountains.

(LEFT) PHOTO: STEPHANIE BABYCH (@stephaniebabych) I’m obsessed with the moodiness of this photograph! You have the texture of the petals and stem, you’ve got the gentle lighting, it’s just so simple but so elegant.

(RIGHT) PHOTO: DAVID KIM (@davidjaesun) I decided to choose a shot with more meaning than technical prowess. I remember taking this on the first day I went out to try street photography. I got home, loaded it onto my computer and couldn’t quite articulate why I liked this shot. But looking at it now I can see it’s because this photo introduced me to a major appeal in street photography. It’s being conscious of how big even a single city really is, and that there are countless experiences that are separate from your own that flow dayin-and-day-out. Street photography would have you seek out split seconds in that current. And if you’re lucky you get to capture something beautiful from a story that is not your own.

FRONT

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PLAYING DEVIL’S

ADVOCATE

Tea Seremetkoski, a card carrying member of The Satanic Temple since 2015.

NATHAN KUNZ nkunz@cjournal.ca

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Mixing atheism and political protest The Satanic Temple are working to establish their own chapter within the city

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t would be easy to miss Tea Seremetkoski’s duplex in southwest Calgary among the row of residential homes if it weren’t for one distinctive decoration — the six-foot-high inverted cross on her front lawn.

Seremetkoski, who has been a card carrying member of The Satanic Temple since 2015, says she has never hid her association with the organization despite its inherent controversial nature.

“If you tell somebody you’re a Satanist, they’re scared,” explains Seremetkoski. “They think you’re worshipping some like, mystic demon that they’ve been told about or whatever the case is. “ “In actuality, we’re just getting up in the morning, brushing our teeth, combing our hair and living our life.”

Along with her husband Viktor, Seremetkoski embarked on establishing a chapter of The Satanic Temple in Calgary last July, creating a Facebook event for an “unofficial, official meeting,” in which they would discuss the early stages of setting up the organization in Calgary.

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Seremetkoski says she was inspired to organize after large fines were filed against her for unknowingly selling prohibited animal skulls through her art collective. Rather than pay the fines, Seremetkoski opted to spend four nights in jail.

After hearing similar stories from others, Seremetkoski says she felt inclined to host the meeting to find a way to push back together, all under the banner of The Satanic Temple.

“They were looking for a way to fight the system, because everybody’s told one person can’t do anything,” says Seremetkoski. “If the only way we can do stuff is through an organization, well, let’s try.”

Part political organization, part anti-religion and part spiritual community, the modern Satanic Temple is a far-cry from the perceptions that may immediately come to mind.

Established in 2013, the Temple is a religious organization based largely on social justice and political protest. Despite their name, the Temple’s website

explains they do not worship or even believe in the existence of Satan or the supernatural.

As put by Seremetkoski, they are “not into the ‘Sky-Daddy’ or the ‘Ground Troll’ worship.”

Instead, The Satanic Temple uses Satan, along with associated iconography like the pentagram and the goat-headed figure Baphomet, as symbols for protest and satire related to religious freedom, equality and separation of church and state.

In 2015, the organization made headlines for raising US$20,000 on crowdfunding site Indiegogo to erect a statue of Baphomet to be placed beside an existing Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma City capitol ground to advocate for separation of church and state.

Ultimately, the Oklahoma State Capitol opted to remove the Ten Commandments monument as a result.

According to Seremetkoski, the combination of political and spiritual aspects were what drew her to the organization.

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THE SEVEN TENETS OF THE

SATANIC TEMPLE

One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

Tracy Derynck, a religious studies lecturer at Mount Royal University, says the depiction of modern Satanists in popular culture is a far-cry from the reality of who practices the religion today.

PHOTO: NATHAN KUNZ “It is political in the sense that we are fighting because we don’t want religion in politics, we don’t want religion in schools, we want that totally separate, you know? But it’s also spiritual because it’s connecting people,” says Seremetkoski.

THE SEVEN TENETS OF THE SATANIC TEMPLE The Satanic Temple is based around seven principles, or tenets, dealing with social justice and personal freedoms.

“There’s just seven different things we apply to our basic lives, and it’s just human, you know? We don’t worship anything other than what we can see,” explains Seremetkoski. “Science prevails, justice should prevail, your body is yours. You know, very basic guidelines.”

While the title of the organization may seem radical to some, Seremetkoski says she’s found the tenets to be universal, explaining that many of the visitors to the Airbnb she hosts in the adjacent house agree with the printed-out tenets she’s left on the wall without context or title.

“We have them posted everywhere, but we don’t have it listed as The Satanic Temple — we just have it posted as tenets,” says Seremetkoski. “And everyone who reads them are like, ‘Wow, these are great.’”

“And I’m like, ‘Welcome to being a Satanist.’”

BUILDING THE SATANIC TEMPLE Since the initial meeting last July, which brought in around 20 people, Seremetkoski says establishing the chapter of the Temple has been slow moving.

While an early search regarding the availability of the organization’s name was approved, progress since has been difficult to make with Seremetkoski saying it has an uphill battle to get a response from both government and the Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Mass.

There are 16 official chapters of The Satanic Temple in cities throughout North America, with Ottawa being the only Canadian city to play host to one.

Though Seremetkoski says she is willing to host the initial meetings through the community art house she runs under the name Baba’s Art Haus, she says she has no ambitions to run the chapter following inception.

“We told everyone there that day if we’re going to do this, we have to run it as a team,” says Seremetkoski.

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“Not as a figure-head making decisions, but for all intents and purposes, a true democracy.”

“We have them posted everywhere, but we don’t have it listed as The Satanic Temple — we just have it posted as tenets and everyone who reads them are like, ‘Wow, these are great.’ And I’m like, ‘Welcome to being a Satanist.’”

— Tea Seremetkoski THE MANY SIDES OF SATANISM The Satanic Temple is just one of several denominations falling under the umbrella of Satanism.

Though The Satanic Temple and the Church of Satan are the most known sects, there are also off-shoots which deal more with occult-driven beliefs, such as the Temple of Set and Luciferianism, as well as the far more extreme and dangerous Order of the Nine Angles.

Tracy Derynck, a religious studies lecturer at Mount Royal University who teaches classes that touch on the topic of Satanism, says the commonalities of questioning authority, empowerment through knowledge and giving into earthly instincts tie the different denominations of Satanism together.

According to Derynck, a major appeal of Satanism as a whole is the rebellion against the status quo.

“When somebody gravitates towards Satanism, the number one thing is they’re trying to make a statement for themselves and about how they feel,” says Derynck. “It’s that thing of ‘your idea of good sucks so much I would rather go off with Satan.’”

Derynck says she finds herself describing the religion in classes far less intimidating than the immediate perception.

The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.

Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought.

The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

“I just make the point that this is just like humanism with spooky dress-up,” says Derynck.

“People think they eat babies and stuff. And it’s like, no, they really don’t. Don’t watch so many movies.”

A FEARFUL PERCEPTION? Both in personal life and through her efforts with the Temple, Seremetkoski has found ways to challenge the status quo.

Her one-year-old daughter, Mazikin, for example, was named after a character from the comic book Lucifer who, in turn, was inspired by a type of demon from Jewish mythology.

Regarding the fearful perception that comes along with the idea of The Satanic Temple, Seremetkoski says she welcomes the hesitation.

“People should be scared. I think it’s a good thing,” says Seremetkoski. “You should be scared of any religion. I think people should question everything.”

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SERVER STORIES

Despite the #MeToo movement, sexual misconduct continues to plague those in the service industry SARAH GREEN sgreen@cjournal.ca

CASEY RICHARDSON crichardson@cjournal.ca PHOTO: CURTIS LARSON

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t was just a regular shift for Andreena Hill, server in Calgary’s hospitality industry.

Yet this ‘regular’ shift consisted of continual sexual harassment from her male manager.

For months, Hill’s manager messaged her daily, pressuring her to sleep with him. Hill felt powerless because he would threaten to fire her if she didn’t comply.

“He used to offer me mornings off the next day if I came over to his house, spent the night, drank a bottle of wine, or smoked a joint with him. This was super unprofessional, especially as a young girl. He was in his late thirties at the time,” says Hill.

But Hill didn’t just experience sexual harassment from her manager. Now 23, Hill has worked in several restaurants where she has dealt with sexual advances from customers as well.

“I’ve had customers blatantly grab me or my butt — just really inappropriate. I really didn’t know what to do about it. I just went to my manager about it, and my manager was like ‘There’s nothing we can do, suck it up.’”

A PERVASIVE PROBLEM Hill is not alone. And whether harassment comes from management, coworkers or customers, servers tell the Calgary Journal they haven’t witnessed many improvements over time.

Ally Peddie, 30, has worked in the restaurant industry since she was 17. Peddie developed a thick skin over the years, but says sexual harassment still affects her.

“I had a male customer who was flirting with me all night. I kept saying, ‘No,’ and I kept being very aggressive [saying], ‘No, get away from me. You don’t have a chance. I’m bringing you your drinks and your food and that’s it.’ By the end of the night, he grabbed me by the throat,” says Peddie.

She says the customer was with a group of people who did nothing to intervene.

“It’s hard because in that situation, I’m working for a tip. I remember his bill was quite large, so even myself, I didn’t say anything …

I laugh it off now, but at the time it was very shocking. He thought [my behaviour] was flirtatious and my aggressiveness towards him in saying, ‘No,’ was me asking for it.”

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It’s not only women servers who are saying, ‘No.’ Joel, 23, who doesn’t want his last name used for fear of repercussions, has been bartending for five years. He recalls a situation where he says he was pressured sexually.

“A bunch of older women wanted me to take my shirt off when I was at work and I didn’t want to … I said ‘I can’t do it, I’m not allowed, it’s not that kind of the place,’” he says.

“I went to my manager about it, and my manager was like, ‘There’s nothing we can do, suck it up. That’s just how the restaurant goes.”

— Andreena Hill “They went to the management and the management said it was okay. So evidently I had no fallback at this point, because the manager didn’t back me up ... And I ended up having to take off my shirt.”

Joel, Peddie and Hill say while they discussed the incidents with higher-ups, their employers brushed off their experiences as “normal.”

AN INDUSTRY BREAKTHROUGH Despite the reality of normalized sexual misconduct, one Calgary restaurant emphasizes that any form of unwanted sexual contact is unacceptable. Bridgette Bar opened its doors a few years ago and has implemented a no-tolerance policy in its code of conduct.

The broad-ranging code of conduct covers multiple areas, including respect in the workplace, conflict of interest, a harassment-free workplace policy, violence, sexual harassment, discrimination and several other areas.

Amanda Jansen, general manager of Bridgette Bar, explains each employee is required to know the code completely.

“Based on reading through the code of conduct, [employees] have to answer a 12-page quiz on why this kind of treatment isn’t okay at work.”

Leah Aull works at Bridgette Bar as a serv-

er, where she says the management fully promotes awareness of workers’ rights and responsibilities.

“One of [Bridgette Bar’s] leading requirements is to be kind, which I think is just a basic [way] to treat each other in general.

[They] haven’t built an environment where we’re accommodating and prioritizing the needs of men. [They’re] making sure the message is sent that we’re treating each other as human beings,” Aull explains.

Aull points out the biggest difference she’s seen in her workplace is the trust that management places in their staff — there’s no finger pointing if there’s been an altercation.

“It’s promoted that there’s open dialogue, and if you’re being harassed by a guest, the restaurant is comfortable in asking them not to come back. They don’t tolerate abuse of their staff, and that’s really clear,” says Aull.

“We’ve had a few guests mistreat our staff for sure, or definitely say something, not so much physical [harassment] but definitely sexual harassment in terms of their language used. We’ve had to ask a couple people to leave the restaurant,” says Jansen.

Proportional representation of genders and identities within management is another defining factor of Bridgette Bar’s work environment — everything comes from the top down.

“We’ve got a woman running the show, which I think with being a female in the industry, it’s really important to see. Not just token representation, but real representation,” says Aull, adding “there’s no ‘bro’ mentality. It’s not rewarded, it’s not promoted and that’s in all aspects again — [from the] front of house and back of house.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE Despite some progress being made in the industry, Staff Sgt. Bruce Walker, head of the sex crimes unit at Calgary Police Service, recognizes sexual misconduct and violence are under-reported.

“We typically see a five per cent report rate with regards to sexual violence,” says Walker.

“You won’t see a lot of reporting for a multitude of reasons — it could involve friendships or people could be afraid to lose their job.”

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Peddie, Joel and Hill speak out on their personal experiences with sexual misconduct on the job.

According to Harvard Business Review, in North America, 90 per cent of women and 70 per cent of men reportedly experience some form of sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, which is more than any other professional industry.

Danielle Aubry, the CEO of Calgary Communities Against Sexual Assault (CCASA), calls the situation a great epidemic within the restaurant industry.

“If you ask me how many of our clients are assaulted or abused by people they know, I would say 85-90 per cent of the time,” Aubry explains.

“Typically these are scenarios where people know each other, and where there is a power and control dynamic.”

SERVERS STUCK IN PROFIT-DRIVEN HIERARCHY From her own experience, Peddie agrees this difference in power coerces servers into accepting this type of treatment.

“It just goes back to our whole societal hierarchy, where males have the power in any industry. So when [sexual misconduct] is normalized and when it comes from management, who are you supposed to go to? Who are you supposed to talk to? Especially if you’re the 17-year-old hostess and your manager is telling you, ‘This is what you need to do, this is how it is.’ They start them young.”

Aull points out the well-known mentality of “sex sells” is preventing other restaurants from cracking down on sexual misconduct.

“Sex shouldn’t be used to sell food. In an environment that doesn’t promote that sort of outdated service, bad behaviour CITY

PHOTOS: SARAH GREEN

and harassment of the staff sticks out like a sore thumb,” adds Aull.

“I find it easy to know when I’m in a restaurant that is sexually objectifying their staff. That sets the tone for what sort of behaviour they will tolerate.”

Joel agrees that sex is used too commonly as an excuse to further profit in the workplace.

“Just because a [server] is dressed revealingly, doesn’t give you the okay to degrade her, talk down to her and belittle her. She’s still a human being, she’s still a person, she still has a family,” says Joel.

and be able to implement clear policies that help counter workplace violence and harassment,” says Sarjoo.

Sarjoo believes fighting against the normalization of sexual misconduct in the industry comes from each restaurant taking their own initiative.

“It really is making sure that all employees know that sexual harassment and violence will not be condoned or addressed with apathy in the workplace. Survivors are safe to share their experiences and that they will be taken seriously.”

THE SILVER LINING CREATING A SAFE SPACE Jansen continues to create a space in Aubrey believes many servers who are Bridgette Bar where servers are able to experiencing sexual harassment should speak up for themselves, knowing there know any type of inappropriate behaviour won’t be repercussions for those who do isn’t acceptable — the customer isn’t come forward. always right.

“Your staff are your most important peo“The first thing [servers] need to know ple. They make your restaurant work, and is it’s not their fault, they haven’t done if they don’t feel respected or that there’s anything to bring this kind of behaviour trust in them, they’re not going to be the onto themselves. People who choose this best people they can be,” says Jansen. kind of behaviour are a hundred per cent “Seeing how important it is if we keep enresponsible for [their actions]. That is an couraging others and leading by example, important message.” there’s definitely a way that this [issue of Roberto Sarjoo is the director of marsexual harassment] can get better.” keting & communications at Restaurants Aubrey says that with more individuals Canada, a not-for-profit organization that standing up against sexual misconduct, provides each restaurant with a workthe narrative is changing. place health and safety guide, including “I think the strides we’ve seen in the violence and harassment. last couple of years, honestly, not to be “Overall, creating safe workplace envidramatic about it, [I thought] they would ronments is not only the right thing to do, not happen in my lifetime … I don’t but it’s essential for the health and sucknow how long it’s going to take, but I cess of our industry. Employers need to think we’re on a movement now and the understand the rules in [their] provinces ship is sailing.”

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CALGARY MYSTERIES A look at the city’s oddest occurances

CURTIS LARSON clarson@cjournal.ca

Every small town has a ghost story or a faded horror, but in the big city the stories get weirder and operate on a grander scale. In this issue of the Calgary Journal we look into the history of some of Calgary’s oddest stories.

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ccording to umours and blog posts, there are bootleg Chicago Deep Dish pizza restaurants operating around the city. Using the same menu and general logo, multiple phone numbers have been plastered on pamphlets and fridge magnets — none of which belong to the self-proclaimed original.

The social media account of Calgary’s oldest Chicago style deep dish chain, known for their catchy “531” phone number ads, commented on a Reddit thread in 2017 about the phenomenon. The account bolstered claims that non-official versions of their business exist. Not only that, but these bootleg versions would forward customer calls to their phone line when complaints or order issues would arise.

The user, who stated he was a family member of the businesses original creators and was now in charge, leveled claims that these other businesses negatively affect their own pizza franchise. By dumping bad calls or complaints to them, they were harming Chicago Deep Dish’s reputation and letting down customers.

VASELINE ALLEY

or the past few years, a phenomenon has been plaguing one of Calgary’s northeast neighborhoods — one so bizarre and so frequent that it has reached news and travel magazines across the continent. The Calgary Herald, CBC, Toronto Star and Atlas Obscura have all reported on the Vaseline Alley.

On a frequent but irregular schedule, someone has been dumping used containers of Vaseline along the road on 68th Street. Just off the Trans-Canada Highway, more than a dozen empty containers show up in the street. Completely devoid of any vaseline — dry as a bone.

A local said to CBC when they reported on the oddity in August of last year, “I’ve just gotten so used to it that now it doesn’t faze me. It’s just there.”

Any number of possible reasons have been posed, with users on Reddit suggesting the phenomenon might be ancient wizardry or the work of perverts. But no matter the why of it, no one has come forward to claim credit or offer explanation.

PIRATE RADIO

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he sounds of Jamaican style dancehall music is available to FM radio enthusiasts between 16th Aveune. and Glenmore Trail. But according to the Government of Canada’s Spectrum Management Service, no radio station is licensed to broadcast on 102.5 FM in the Calgary area.

Tuning your radio to the station on the east side of the city will deliver an endless playlist of dancehall music to your ears, unbroken by DJs or station callsigns.

The Calgary Journal sniffed out the station with an FM transceiver and found the clearest signal near Mayland Heights in the northeast. At the time of signal pickup the Buju Banton song “Set up the Mic” was playing.

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Spring is underway and summer is in-sight for Calgary. Those looking to get out to enjoy arts and culture under the sun will have plenty of opportunities. Here are our top picks for May and June.

FASHION Style savants and fashionistas have a couple nights to look forward May 24 and 25 when PARKSHOW hosts a collection of emerging fashion designers and artists. Attendees have the opportunity to catch a catwalk and shop new wares from Canadian talent, as well as engage with Calgary’s thriving cultural scene. Music and food are ensured also. Tickets are available at ourparkonline. com, but attendees must be 18 or older.

BOOTLEG PIZZA

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SPRING EVENTS

FILM Calgarians up for a spring trip to the mountains can catch a screening of Reel Injun at the Whyte Museum in Banff May 16. Neil Diamond, a Cree filmmaker from Quebec, explores the portrayal of Indigenous people in cinema over the course of the 20th century using archival footage on set and behind the scenes. It rolls at 7 p.m. and admission is $5.

WORKSHOP For this month’s National Music Centre Artist in Residence Workshop, Edmonton band nêhiyawak are taking charge. The indie-rock trio, now with a new member in Jason Borys, will be showcasing their new sound in an interactive workshop.

Show up for 1 p.m. at Studio Bell on May 18.

Attendance is included with admission.

THEATRE The Tony Award-winning musical, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder is on at Stage West from April 19 until June 23. It tells the story of Money Navarro, who finds himself last in line to receive his family fortune. He instead finds a murderous alternative to the wait in what critics have called a witty and silly hit. Tickets at stagewestcalgary.com.

FESTIVALS Calgary’s trademark spring event, the Lilac Festival, is returning to 4th Street on June 2. The one-day festival will have a host of local musicians on six stages to enjoy on top of food, patios and 500 vendors. The festival is all ages, so everyone will have something to do. It runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and is free. More information at lilacfestival.net.

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MYTHS FROM THE NORTHEAST

Northeast Calgary as the reputation of being dangerous, but how much holds up when put to the test?

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f someone were to utter the sentence “Hey I think we are in northeast Calgary,” would sweat suddenly start to trickle down your face? Would your body start to tremble? Would you suddenly find yourself clutching your personal belongings out of fear that some street kids will come at you with a knife? This might be an exaggeration to some, but unfortunately, it is the perception that many Calgarians have of the northeast, where I grew up and still live.

BADRIA ABUBAKER babubaker@cjournal.ca

It is undeniable that the northeast is considered the ghetto of Calgary. That reputation even gets applied to areas that aren’t technically in the quadrant, such as Forest Lawn and Dover in the southeast. Residents in both areas are used to getting asked dumb questions about whether they own a gun or have ever been shot. But day-to-day life in the city’s top right quadrant is not much different from the rest of Calgary. There are countless myths about the northeast, most of them untrue. In this article, we break-down a pair of commons ones to see if they can withstand scrutiny.

MYTH ONE: FOREST LAWN HIGH SCHOOL IS CALGARY’S ROUGHEST HIGH SCHOOL

WPHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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he infamous Forest Lawn High School has a reputation as one of the most gangster schools in Calgary, often assumed to be the breeding ground for thugs, teen-moms and dropouts. So If you graduated from Forest Lawn like I did, you were probably looked at as a flower that grew from the ghetto. But none of that is true.

Matt Fell is the principal at Forest Lawn High School and he has heard the stereotypes about the school being prone to gang activity. He explains that the rumors are ridiculous.

“We have a safe environment here at the school,” Fell says. “People tend to think that there is gang activity like graffiti tagging within the school and that is untrue. We don’t see anything of that nature here, we don’t see that type of culture within our building.”

Mark Anderson, who has been the

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assistant principal at Forest Lawn High School for the past four years, explains that the high school is not the threatening environment that people make it out to be.

“I have not seen any gang situations in our school whatsoever, in fact, I see less here than in other high schools I’ve worked at,” says Anderson. “We don’t experience any extreme forms of violence, there have never been shootings at the school period or any other dangerous weapons that could hurt anybody. We have never had to send students away for a medical situation because of a weapon.”

Both Anderson and Fell note that drug activity and criminal behaviour is far lower in Forest Lawn compared to other high schools they’ve worked at. The only lockdowns they’ve experienced were practice drills, never having to call a real

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Matt Fell, principal at Forest Lawn High School, says he doesn’t feel the school has earned the notorious reputation it’s been given.

PHOTO: BADRIA ABUBAKER lockdown in the time they’ve worked at the high school.

“People see a police car outside the high school and make assumptions of the safety of the high school,” says Anderson. “What they don’t know is that it’s just the school resource officer that is a part of our staff. In reality, he is a teacher that helps coaches the kids. Most high schools in Calgary have one or at least share one.”

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I

n 2016, the Fraser Institute gave Forest Lawn High School a 3.6 out of 10, making it the lowest-ranked high school in Calgary. But both Anderson and Fell say that this number is not an accurate reflection of the students’ success rate.

The Fraser Institute measures at the three-year completion rate, and since the Forest Lawn High School receives a fair amount of English as a Second Language (ESL) students, they often finish at a four-to-five year completion rate.

“One-hundred-eighty students come to the school with no English skills whatsoever, they don’t even speak the language,” says Anderson.

“So we often will spend three years of intensive study in the language, and once those have met the minimum requirement for language develop-

CITY ment, then they progress into their math, science, social [and] english core areas, and do end up receiving their diploma.”

Fell also adds that The Fraser Institute does not measure some of the success seen in the school.

“We run a skills competition and it is a provincial competition,” says Fell. “We send a huge number of students to that competition where they are very successful in, and those successes are not measured. Where our students start and where they end up are not measurable within that specific report.”

Anderson and Fell describe their students as passionate, kind and hardworking, adding that high school is filled with so much diversity and positive energy that there is no room for delinquency.

MYTH TWO: THE NORTHEAST IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT IS INFESTED WITH CRIMINALS I

f I told you that I felt safer in the northeast than I do in the southwest would you believe me? Probably not, but it is true. The perception that the northeast is prone to more criminal activity is false. You are just as likely to get stabbed in the chest in the southwest and definitely more likely to get murdered in the Beltline area then you would in the northeast.

Consider the following crimes: social disorder, theft from vehicle, physical disorder, theft of vehicle, residential break and enter, commercial break and enter, assault (non-domestic) violence other (non-domestic) street robbery and commercial robbery.

According to the Calgary Police 2018 criminal activity statistics report, you are more likely to fall a victim to these offenses in Shawnessy in the southwest, which has 130 incidents of these crimes compared to 70 reported incidents in Marlborough Park.

You would be safer in Franklin, which only has 64 reported incidents compared to 92 in the southwest communities of Killarney and Glengarry.

Forest Heights, for example, only has 51 reported incidents, while the Downtown Commercial core has a whopping 633 counts.

All in all, the message here is that criminal activity is not exclusive to the northeast.

You are just as likely, if not more likely, to be a victim to these offenses just about anywhere in the city.

Community liaison officer Raul Espinosa is a diversity officer who works closely with different communities throughout the city to better understand how they work and to observe crime trends within the communities. He explains that crime within Calgary is relatively the same all throughout the city and the northeast should not be singled out.

“I think people fall victim to what is mainstream, whether it be a conversation on TV or a newscast, because they see something on and try to echo to others without really knowing what they are saying,” says Espinosa. “I have heard some nasty comments about the northeast and the funny thing is I get disturbance calls from 14th Street between 1 and 2 and I would have to to be monitoring that all night long or all day long but does that make the media? Not really.”

Espinosa also adds the importance of not buying into false assumptions.

“One of the biggest things to remember is to always keep your bias in check.”

Espinosa urges people to think twice before buying into false rumors about the northeast.

When you stick a whole lot of diversity at one end of the city, you’ll end up with what people call a ghetto. The stigma held against the northeast is one that is rooted in racism because of the demographic being predominantly people of color.

When we think of the negative implications of the northeast, it is a good old fashioned example of “us” versus “them.”The northeast is “othered” because it is the only part of the city that has the most diverse set of people. I mean, why else would these stereotypes exist if criminal activity is virtually the same throughout the entire city

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Mark Anderson the assistant principal at Forest Lawn High School says the students at the high school are passionate and hardworking.

PHOTO: BADRIA ABUBAKER

Can’t think of an answer? Me neither. I think we can all safely say that the northeast is not this scary place where the wicked live. Real people that have real lives and families live there too. These false assumptions categorize all these people into one thing that they are not. So next time you are in the northeast, loosen up a little and leave your taser at home.

Despite sterotypes of high crime rates in the northeast, Calgary Police community liaison officer Raul Espinosa says that crime throughout the city is relatively the same. PHOTO: MITCHELL SMITH CALGARYJOURNAL.CA

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PROFILES

Buggin’ out on the future of food

LIFE

How the idea of consuming crickets will likely crawl its way onto your dinner plate COLIN MACGILLIVRAY cmacgillivray@cjournal.ca

PHOTO: COLIN MACGILLIVRAY 14

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LIFESTYLE

Based in Vancouver, Coast Protein specializes in powders, bars and recipes in which crickets are the predominant ingredient.

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t’s a Stampede tradition: chowing-down on “daredevil foods” like scrumptious scorpion pizza, crunchy cricket grilled cheese or doughnut holes filled with candy-coated mealworms for dessert.

For most, dining on these insects is about adventure or bragging rights, but for Dylan Jones, the founder and CEO of Coast Protein, it’s about the future of sustainable food.

“I’ve done a lot of Olympic lifting and back-country skiing, so protein has always been a really high requirement for me,” says Jones. “I’m lactose intolerant so I can’t eat whey and a lot of the vegan options that existed at the time were terrible, so I started making my own plant-based protein products, but I was always looking for a better source of protein. “ “That’s where crickets came into the picture.”

With an MBA in entrepreneurship and sustainable business, Jones took his hobby and transformed it into a cricket-fuelled company based in Vancouver in 2015. Coast makes powders, energy bars and recipes in which crickets are the predominant ingredient.

Although cooking with insects might still be a novelty in Canada, 80 per cent of the world’s countries practice entomophagy — eating insects in some way, shape or form. Clinical trials have linked cricket consumption to improved gastrointestinal health and a decrease in cancer-causing inflammatory proteins.

As crickets contain high levels of iron, calcium and protein, Jones explains their nutritional value, coupled with their low impact on the environment, made the idea of starting a cricket-based food company a nobrainer.

“Crickets use less land per weight, they use less water per weight and people start to get on board when they learn that you can grow the same amount of cricket protein compared to beef protein, in approximately one hundredth of the land,” he says.

“They grow quickly and efficiently, produce minimal greenhouse gasses and unlike a lot of alternative protein sources, crickets contain all nine amino acids required to make it a complete protein.”

Despite the initial benefits, however, Jones explains that there is obviously some apprehension when it comes to people making the switch to crickets.

LIFESTYLE

“The initial idea of eating crickets might be out there for some people,” Jones says. “But once we introduce sustainability and the nutritional aspects, we don’t typically see too much of a pushback when it comes to introducing cricket protein into the diet.”

“Lobsters went from these disgusting sea bugs to one of the most luxury and expensive foods in the world ... Insects as food can be normalized.”

— Dylan Jones

Normalizing insect consumption is paramount for Jones, with Coast Protein creating dozens of everyday recipes like banana bread and chocolate waffles that just so happen to be filled with cricket dust in hopes that people will see food as a constantly changing landscape.

“Sushi wasn’t on every menu 50 years ago, kombucha was nowhere to be seen 50 years ago, these just weren’t ‘normal’ things to eat,” says Jones.

“We’re looking at crickets the same way, and when we look ahead 15 years from now, crickets definitely have a place in that same landscape.”

Although the western world may be more receptive to a California roll than cricket pasta sauce, Jones explains that we’ve been willingly eating bugs for years, even serving lobsters in prisons 100 years ago.

“Now imagine being served lobster in prison in 2019,” says Jones. “Lobsters went from these disgusting sea bugs to one of the most luxury and expensive foods in the world. By no means am I saying that insects are going to become this luxury food … but there is a definite possibility that insects as food can be normalized.”

PHOTO: COLIN MACGILLIVRAY While the future of insect-based protein is inevitable for Jones, he explains there are obvious, generational challenges and preconceived notions about insects that are prohibiting them from jumping out of the midway and onto our plates.

“I can’t just say people are going to suddenly start eating insects,” says Jones. “But, I think it will move away from being a novelty food item with a generational change where we’ll need to start looking at alternative, sustainable protein sources.”

With “sustainable” being a frequent buzzword in the food industry, Jones explains although there is a perceived movement towards environmentally conscious nutrition, it’s not the driving factor when it comes to eating.

“I couldn’t care less about what anyone says about eating more sustainably,” says Jones. “I know from talking to thousands of people over the past couple of years that nutrition and eating habits are 100 per cent internal. We’ve really tried to develop our messaging around how eating cricket protein feels good, it’s actually healthy, it has nutritional merit. The nice side benefit is that it is better for the environment.”

The shift from a novelty or potentially taboo food source to kitchen table mainstay is decades away, but Jones sees crickets as a jumping off point when it comes to looking at our eating habits in the future.

“If people start thinking more consciously about their food and how things are always changing, they might start to make better food choices to begin with,” says Jones. “Even if you don’t want to jump into eating insects, in the same way that some people don’t want to eat chicken or fish, we’re trying to encourage people to make better choices either way.”

Ultimately, while “daredevil foods” will likely make an appearance at this year’s Stampede as another midway oddity, Jones says the likelihood of crickets ending up on some of our dinner plates is unavoidable.

“There’s so many important questions about the future of food that have yet to be answered,” says Jones. “But, there is definitely a future to insectbased protein.”

CALGARYJOURNAL.CA MAY/JUNE 2019 15

Innovators in Calgary’s food scene

Duncan Ly talks about his love for culinary arts, making restaurants great and winning awards

AAMARA KHAN akhan@cjournal.ca

“The food scene has become a lot more casual and casual doesn’t mean not good quality. People expect high quality, great service but in an a lot more relaxed kind of environment now.”

— Duncan Ly

Duncan Ly (left), owner and chef of Foreign Concept and Jinhee Lee (right), contestant on Top Chef Canada.

PHOTOS: DUNCAN LY

L

ike so many others in the culinary business, Duncan Ly — the owner of Foreign Concept restaurant and one of Calgary’s best-known chefs — got his start as a dishwasher. Originally from Lethbridge, he worked his way up in the industry and eventually moved to Calgary in 2002 to start work as chef de cuisine at Catch restaurant on Stephen Avenue.

He went on to compete in cooking competitions, including Gold Medal Plates Calgary, which he won in 2014. Ly has also been awarded the Karl Schier Award as Vancouver’s top apprentice and also represented Canada at the Bocuse d’Or, an international competition in France.

Roughly a decade ago, Ly began working with Jinhee Lee, a graduate of SAIT’s Professional Cooking program. Lee, Ly’s prodigee, is now the executive chef at Foreign Concept and perhaps best known as a Top Chef Canada finalist last year in season six.

The Calgary Journal sat down with Ly to discuss the ever-changing world of Calgary food.

What was your position at Catch?

I did a bunch of things there but by the time I left I was the dining room chef, also referred to as a chef de cuisine. Basically you become responsible for the operations of the kitchen, you’re involved in creating the menus and really upholding the standards that are held by the executive chef.

What started your passion culinary arts?

I always enjoyed food and I didn’t necessarily always know that I wanted to be a chef for food. I actually started working as a dishwasher in the industry and really fell in love with the whole industry.

You won first place at Gold Medal Plates in 2014.

Tell us more about that.

It was an Olympic fundraiser for Olympic athlete celebrating the Canadian excellence and included numerous categories. It initially starts off as a regional competition and they select the best chefs in the area. Once the chefs are selected, they all compete against each other. Each individual chef represents one of the 12 different cities across Canada. They compete on a national level and all the funds raised go towards the Olympic athletes to help them train.

What was one of the first restaurants you worked for?

Funny enough, I was in Vancouver and I left the west coast to come help open up a seafood restaurant in Calgary called Catch.

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Was Catch seen as quite popular?

I think for its time, it was one of the top restaurants.

We won best new restaurant by enRoute, this was the first time they had ever did it. It was definitely quite a hot spot when it first opened.

When did you start receiving recognition for your culinary efforts?

I think the first recognition I was awarded the prestigious Karl Schier Award as Vancouver’s Top Apprentice. It was then that I developed a passion for competitions and competing and I have been lucky gaining other recognitions along the way.

When did you start working with Jinhee Lee? Jinhee and I started working together around 2008 to 2009, so we’ve been working together for about ten years.

What was Jinhee’s vision for the food scene in Calgary?

Jinhee came from Korea so when she started with me, she was only an apprentice at the time. She has worked with me for a long time. She really wants to showcase her training in Canada but also highlight her Korean heritage and her Korean flavours as well.

Do you feel you both can combine your efforts and create something new and amazing?

Yeah absolutely. We have worked together for quite a long time so we really understand each other’s thoughts and we can explain our vision for a dish. We can both understand that vision quite easily but we both have different strengths and weaknesses so together we complement each other quite well.

What was it like seeing her participate in Top Chef Canada?

It was amazing, I think anytime when you can watch someone that not only you know, but know very well and work together and watch them do really well on national television, you always feel good. I’m really proud of her.

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PHOTO: FOREIGN CONCEPT

What do you rate the food scene now — with restaurants like Modern Steak, Foreign Concept, Shokunin — compared to when you first started at Catch?

Catch was a restaurant way ahead of its time. It was very progressive but the food scene in Calgary has definitely changed a lot over the last 10 years. It’s a lot more progressive. It’s not just meat and potatoes anymore and if it is meat and potatoes, it’s more local and very well done. I think people are starting to embrace more of Alberta and Calgary than just the meat.

We have so much more to offer, even local fish farms.

You’ve got the trout farms, the sea bass farms and even great vegetable farms that a lot of chefs are embracing more now. It’s definitely changed.

Do you think events like YYC Food and Drink Experience will help shape more food events in the food scene?

Absolutely, I think the more things that start to happen in the city the better. The more events, the more stuff

that happens and the more people get out there. Especially when you give people a reason to just to go out for dinner and come out, it helps to create that culture of dining and helps build a food scene in Calgary.

What do you feel the future of food will look like?

A lot of chefs are cooking a lot from their culture. It goes with the trend of being local and sustainable, cooking is going to head towards that way. You’re going to see a lot of more vegetarians in cooking nowadays. People are always looking for more sustainable products — a lot of chefs are heading in that direction whether it be local seafood, local meats, eating more vegetarian dishes. Now the food scene has become a lot more casual and casual doesn’t mean not good quality. People expect high quality, great service but in an a lot more relaxed kind of environment now.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Charcuterie is among the menu pieces available at Foreign Concept Restaurant.

PHOTO: FOREIGN CONCEPT

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK LOOK FOR OUR SALES 50-90% ph: 587-223-5865 email: inquires@junktrunk.ca www.junkintrunk.ca LIFE

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A bird’s-eye-view view of transit and pedestrian traffic near city hall.

Looking down the stairs of Riddell Library and Learning Centre at Mount Royal University.

An old desk pinned to the ceiling at the Glenbow Museum as part of their “Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta” exhibit.

The city from different perspectives A look at different spaces through unique angles

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ur day-to-day life in a busy city like Calgary can sometimes seem like a narrow tunnel of ordinary. But by looking up or down you can often find new ways of seeing the world. Here we present photographs of familiar shots from unfamiliar vantage points. They might turn your world upside-down.

ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON anicholson@cjournal.ca

PHOTOS: ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON

People working from a top angle at the Calgary Central Library.

CALGARY-

The perspective of feet on a sunny train.

PHOTO: ARIANNA KORBETT

PHOTO: SAM NAR

Calgary Journal photographers set upon the city to take photos of the best textures they could find. The photos offer new perspectives on the things you see every day. From the eye of a loveable pet to the condensation on a soda can, here are some of our best shots.

Shot by Shot: Texture 20

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PHOTO: OLIVIA BAYCHU

LENS

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DINING IN THE GREEN

Calgary restaurant The Coup is setting the standard for sustainability

KAELIEGH ALLAN kallan@cjournal.ca

The Coup on 17th Avenue is one of the restaurants leading the charge towards an environmentally sustainable future in Calgary.

PHOTO: KAELIEGH ALLAN

T

he Coup, one of 17 Alberta restaurants certified by Canadian non-profit organization is taking the lead on sustainability. Located on17th Avenue.

S.W., the vegetarian restaurant is not only confronting its plastic waste but also its food, water and energy waste.

LEAF (Leaders in Environmentally Accountable Foodservice) considers 10 areas of sustainability when certifying Canadian restaurants, ranking them with a points system. The Coup is level three certified, the highest ranking possible.

Only four other restaurants in the country have this certification as of now — another being Calgary’s River Café.

Katie Gallupe, general manager of The Coup, says that nearly 15 years ago when the restaurant opened, “the two owners felt a serious lack of vegetarian options in a city that is so well known for Alberta beef.”

Restaurants acknowledged by LEAF undergo an extensive process of auditing, filling out applications and they typically have a few back-andforth exchanges with the organization before they receive certification.

The Coup gained most of its points for being completely vegetarian, while exceeding industry standards by ensuring they hit all 10 sustainability categories.

Not only are the managerial staff concerned with upholding LEAF’s sustainability practices, but the kitchen and front of house staff as well.

“We have plenty of policies in place to ensure we are always being mindful of waste and energy use,” says Gallupe.

SUSTAINABILITY: TREND OR BUSINESS TACTIC? It’s hard to know whether a business or restaurant is green or not – even when they claim to be.

LIFESTYLE

“That’s the whole point of certification. How do you know a restaurant is really green or sustainable unless somebody’s gone in there and looked at the back of house?” says LEAF president Janine Windsor.

“Unless somebody’s going and looking at the invoices and looking at if they have energy efficient equipment, then you don’t really know.”

There are three benefits to being a LEAF certified restaurant — environmental, marketing and cost-saving.

From an environmental standpoint, reducing waste means a smaller environmental footprint and less harm to the planet.

Certification also makes for easier marketing. Plastic Free YYC’s cofounder, Briana Loughlin, says restaurants want to be part of a “cultural movement that’s sweeping our world.”

More value is being placed on businesses that have reduced their waste.

“You’re really opening your doors to a whole segment of the population that really does care [about the environment],” says Loughlin.

Certification can also translate into cost savings.

Swapping out cheap plastics such as Styrofoam and replacing them with compostable materials is more expensive at first, but in the long run, pays off. For example, a restaurant can reduce the cost of buying disposable napkins by giving only one napkin to each customer instead of putting a stack of them in the middle of the table. Other ways to save money involve checking for leaks, monitoring the weather stripping and auditing waste Loughlin believes that the time has come for entrepreneurs to take the plunge.

“It’s going to be the way of the future if you look at the way cities are going right now. So, my advice is to stay abreast with understanding your waste and understanding how to mitigate it.”

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WANTED: Female superheroes

EMILY DIXON edixon@cjournal.ca

Despite a growing female audience for comics and movies, still a long way to go before seeing dynamic female heroes

GRAPHIC: EMILY DIXON

I

n the past graphic novels always had a specific narrative regarding females, in part because they were primarily marketed to male audiences. But that marketing has changed. With a recent significant rise in female readership, female superheroes have begun gracing more and more front covers and movie posters.

There isn’t much doubt that the readership for comic books for the vast majority from the 1960s onwards were young men,” says Lee Easton, an English professor at Mount Royal University. The comic book industry has purposively cultivated a young male audience over the years. As those boys grew into adulthood, that audience base remained loyal. ”People like me grew up with them and didn’t stop reading them,” says Easton.

Alex Link, a professor at Alberta University of the Arts and co-author of some titles for Image Comics, says that in the past there “was a lot of difficulty capturing a female market.”

This difficulty may be lessening according to demographic data collected by Facebook and published on Graphic Policy, which shows the female comic book audience outnumbers the male audience as of October 2018.

The original narratives of many female superhero comic books reflected problems women in their time period faced.

“There is this general rule with earlier heroes, that male superheroes win or become superheroes on their own. Whereas female superheroes have to get permission one way or another,” says Link.

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“Supergirl is constantly told to stay out of Superman’s way.

She is always told to keep her powers a secret and try not to mess things up,” says Link. “In the early 50s she was constantly subjected to this double standard. She gets punished for her failings and Superman, who makes the same kinds of mistakes, doesn’t. She is stuck in this position of constantly having to win his approval with no guarantee she will ever get it.”

In the past, female superheroes were merely an add-on to a male superhero franchise. A visual representation of this can be seen in how the female superheroes take on their male counterparts naming scheme, for example Supergirl, Batwoman and Ms. Marvel.

Roberta Lexier, a general education professor at

Mount Royal University, is an avid comic book enthusiast. Lexier has noticed that female heroes can often be portrayed as lesbians if they haven’t been directly linked to a man already. Female heroes, it seems, simply aren’t allowed to be single.

This fact seems to be especially true if the female superhero in question is very physically powerful or not portrayed as classically feminine.

“I think it’s relatively common, though not necessarily always the case. But strong, powerful women are often portrayed as, or assumed to be, lesbians,” says Lexier. ”Often, female characters are also the partners of male colleagues, perhaps just to prove they aren’t lesbians.”

Easton says there is a long history of the female superhero being a secondary support character to a male.

“I think the biggest change is that superhero women no longer have to be designed to appeal to a male gaze.”

Part of the reason why the comic book superhero genre historically created two-dimensional female superhero characters is because of the lack of females involved in the industry.

“You have way more female creators now and a growing female audience, which makes it easier to take some risks,” says Link.

A big reason why women even got invited to the table though was simply because the industry could not remain profitable without them, Easton explains.

Lee Easton pictured at his Mount Royal office, “Heroes like Wonder Woman are a reminder that you can take back your power when it’s been stolen.”

PHOTO: EMILY DIXON

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Roberta Lexier loves comics but wishes for more dynamic female heroes, “I like the strong, independent female characters that can achieve things on their own.”

“Where you really see that is the reinvention of Ms. Marvel. Suddenly they see there is a way to bring young women into reading the genre,” says Easton. “It’s at that point you see more women creators. Now there is this place for women that wasn’t there before,” Easton credits the 2008 film Iron Man for increasing genre visibility in the broader culture.

“The movie’s fame brought a lot of interest and exposure to the superhero genre,” says Easton.

It’s likely that a lot of younger of comic book enthusiasts credit their interest in the medium to the Ironman movies. It wasn’t just men coming out to the theaters — it was women as well, despite a lack of a female superhero.

Easton estimates that the franchise made producers and creators aware that there was money to be made if they produced content aimed at a female audience.

Moving forward, younger audiences have more nuanced versions of female superheroes to look up to. Now the women in comic portrayals can kick ass and lead groups on their own. 2017’s Wonder Woman made more money than Iron Man, and Captain Marvel is the first female superhero movie to gross $1 billion worldwide — a feat that many movies are unable to do.

Despite this, it’s clear audiences are still hoping to see more relatable female depictions on the big screen. BBC America and the Women’s Media Center conducted a study which found that 65 per cent of girls expressed that there weren’t enough relatable characters of their gender and not enough strong characters of their gender.

VOICES

PHOTO: EMILY DIXON

GRAPHIC: EMILY DIXON CALGARYJOURNAL.CA

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Why the healthcare system is failing Canadian children with PANDAS disease SARAH GREEN sgreen@cjournal.ca

The PANDAS Network estimates that 1 in 200 children have PANDAS in the U.S. alone. However, the true lifetime prevalence is unknown.

M

arnie Deschenes remembers the exact day when her life changed. It was June 15, 2013. Overnight, her son went from a healthy child to someone she barely recognized.

“He was like a caged animal. For a solid two months, he was gone from me. He became mute and he could not dress himself. He was stuck. He would go into public places and he would just stand there, completely stiff,” Deschenes recalls.

Nadya Sandy shares a similar story. Last April, a sudden onset of bizarre symptoms overtook her seven-yearold daughter, including the need to urinate every five minutes.

“She was distraught about it … she also started having symptoms of OCD where she felt like she always had to shower after every time she used the washroom,” says Sandy. “My daughter’s symptoms kept getting worse and she kept telling us, ‘I can’t handle feeling like this. I want to die.’”

“I believe that if what happened to my daughter happened 200 years ago, I would be calling a priest for an exorcism.”

After various medical visits, Sandy realized that getting an official diagnosis for her daughter was not easy. The turning point came at an after-hours clinic in Calgary.

“The doctor said to me, ‘She hasn’t had a strep infection recently, has she?’ I said, ‘No.’ And the doctor said, ‘Well, there is this thing called PANDAS disease but I don’t think that’s what it is because she hasn’t had a strep infection.’”

As soon as she got home, Sandy googled PANDAS disease. For the first time, her daughter’s symptoms made sense.

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WHAT IS PANDAS?

Sandy discovered that PANDAS, or pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with strep infection, hijacks a child’s immune system. The disease occurs when antibodies attack a child’s brain cells, thinking it’s strep bacteria.

Sandy immediately took her daughter to the emergency room at Alberta Children’s Hospital and demanded she get tested for strep.

The test came back positive.

“Before I got that positive test result back, [the doctors] were very reluctant to consider the possibility of PANDAS. The psychiatrist said, ‘You know, I’ve never seen a case of it, I don’t think that is what this is.’”

For Deschenes, it was her son’s school nurse who first mentioned the possibility of PANDAS disease.

Over three and a half years, she saw eight medical professionals before getting an official PANDAS diagnosis.

Dr. Marvin Fritzler recognizes the severe lack of knowledge many healthcare professionals have about the disease.

“If you say ‘PANDAS’ to a group of doctors, they either think you are from outer space or they think you have a disease yourself, just because of the lack of awareness,” says Fritzler.

“PANDAS, unfortunately, is in an emerging area [of medicine] and because of that, a lot of doctors and healthcare providers don’t know what to do or say if you bring it up.”

A FLAWED SYSTEM

While PANDAS has been recognized since the 1990s, it’s still called the, ‘invisible disease’. Treatments

PHOTO: STOLEN CHILDHOOD FILM

include antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication, and IVIG treatment, yet they vary depending on each child’s condition.

In Sandy’s case, her daughter was hospitalized for two weeks, followed by four months of intense recovery at home. She implores medical professionals to develop an open mind when it comes to making a diagnosis.

“A lot of children with PANDAS have severe symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. That has traditionally been treated as a mental health issue.

And now, doctors have to think, ‘Could this have an infectious cause?’”

THE SILVER LINING

The pervasive lack of awareness inspired Christina Magnoli, a Canadian director, to produce Stolen Childhood, a film documenting Canadian families’ experiences with PANDAS disease.

“It’s tragic what children go through. The pain and suffering that you can’t really see both for the child and the parent. I just wanted to tell their stories,” says Magnoli, whose documentary screened in Calgary on March 16.

“Parents know their child so well. It made me realize that you have to listen to the parent. They see their child almost 24/7, so when they bring them to a doctor, the doctor is not going to see what the parent is seeing. It’s an invisible disease,” Magnoli explains.

Sandy and Deschenes organized the local screening and invited Dr. Fritzler to speak in a panel discussion.

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HEALTH

Nadya Sandy’s daughter is one of the few children who received a fairly quick PANDAS diagnosis.

PHOTO: NADYA SANDY

Marnie Deschenes, pictured with her two sons who have PANDAS, believes all parents need to go with their gut when seeking a diagnosis.

PHOTO: MARNIE DESCHENES

Fritzler, a professor of medicine at the University of Calgary, is working on a diagnostic testing system that will better inform doctors when diagnosing a patient.“We’ve done a number of studies using the blood from patients with PANDAS to see if we can identify a unique problem in their blood that can be used then in a diagnostic test,” Frizler explains.

“We can do a test on a single finger-prick of blood and get up to 50-60 results at one time. If a patient has a certain symptom or problem, then we offer tests that will help the doctor come to an early and accurate diagnosis.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Other signs of progress include a motion passed in March 2018, calling for the Ontario government to form a PANDAS Advisory Council. Also, in January 2018, the Canadian Medical Association released an article highlighting the growing body of evidence showing a link between strep and OCD. Sandy and Deschenes view such developments as encouraging.

The women believe increased awareness, coupled with parents’ unwavering advocacy, should result in long-term solutions.

“You know your child best,” says Sandy. “Always keep researching, asking questions and searching for the doctor that is going to understand.”

HEALTH

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, PANDAS symptoms are usually dramatic, happen “overnight and out of the blue,” and can include motor and/or vocal tics, obsessions, and/or compulsions. In addition to these symptoms, children may also become moody or irritable, experience anxiety attacks, or show concerns about separating from parents PHOTO: STOLEN CHILDHOOD FILM or loved ones.

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TREATY 7

FAT

FEMME

QUEER

SAVAGE

How a Blackfoot man’s Drag Queen persona taps into his traditional role as a two spirit person TAWNYA PLAIN EAGLE tplaineagle@cjournal.ca

Marshall Vielle uses hairspray to set his makeup once it is completed. He says this trick controls his oil better than regular setting spray.

PHOTO: TAWNYA PLAIN EAGLE

M

arshall Vielle was sitting in his bedroom last month, vanity full of makeup, about to start preparing for his drag show at a local Forest Lawn pub.

Since graduating from the University of Lethbridge’s Fine Arts department in 2017, Vielle has been working with Trickster Theatre and Making Treaty 7 while performing at local drag shows in Calgary.

His drag queen persona, Mavis Vontrese, was born out of silly conversations between Vielle and his grandma when he was a teenager.

“I like to refer to her as a granny-chic supermodel of the world,” Vielle says.

Growing up on the Kainai Nation in southern Alberta, Vielle says there wasn’t much opportunity for him to explore his interest in theatre.

Vielle remembers the majority of his childhood dancing and singing to his favourite “female divas,” such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga and Whitney Houston.

“It was always something that was under the table. It was something that I did but was afraid to show others because it could have be seen as wrong,” he says.

As a two-spirit person, an Indigenous person who has

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Vielle concentrating as he applies eyeliner through a magnifying mirror.

PHOTO: TAWNYA PLAIN EAGLE

TREATY 7

“It was always something that was under the table. It was something I did but was afraid to show others because it could be seen as wrong.”

— Marshall Vielle Marshall Vielle adding a highlight to the inner part of his lipstick. He adds a total of three different shades in preparation for a performance.

PHOTO: TAWNYA PLAIN EAGLE both feminine and masculine qualities, Vielle had to do a lot of coming to terms with his gender identity.

“In our traditional teachings, it was [two-spirit peoples’] job to raise a lot of the young children or help pass on teachings,” he says.

“They were people who had significant roles in our communities that allowed them to fulfill the roles of both traditional masculine and feminine roles.”

He adds that being a two-spirit person was a gift from the ancestors that were put on Earth to help connect traits of both masculine and feminine people.

Vielle says that his creation of Mavis is a way for him to express himself in a more feminine way.

“I think that is why I latched onto it, because of years of allowing others to see myself in a feminine way would be looked down upon by others,” he says.

Bringing forward his inner Mavis was a pivotal moment for Vielle.

It has been three years since Vielle started performing drag for different festivals and shows in Alberta.

One of his favourite numbers he performs is a rendition of Cher’s “Half Breed.” From Vielle’s perspective, she is talking about what it was like to be raised in two different worlds and feeling like you don’t belong in either one.

“I allow myself to tap into this world,” he says.

One way he does that is by referring to himself as a “fat-femme-queer-savage.”

“If it seems like it is a very in-your-face term, that’s because it is. I am somebody who fits into so many different intersections [inside that term].”

When he steps on stage with Making Treaty 7 or as Mavis Vontrese, Vielle allows himself to be seen as a “fat-femme-queer-savage” who is willing to share ideas that may be uncomfortable to people.

One of the many ways he gets this message across is by wearing his natural hair as opposed to wearing a wig.

The decision not to wear wigs comes from the residential school era, when many Indigenous peoples’ hair was cut.

“In our own Blackfoot culture we are taught that our

TREATY 7

hair is very sacred. It gives us strength,” he says.

As he continues to grow as a drag queen and a theatre performer, he hopes he can find more ways to incorporate his Blackfoot culture into his performances. He is currently working on a play titled Where the Two Spirit Lives which is about the revitalization of the two-spirit and explores Vielle’s connection to it.

Where the Two Spirit Lives will be premiering in Lethbridge during the cities pride festival on June 14-18.

Marshall Vielle performs at Johnny 5’s pub in Forest Lawn as his drag queen persona Mavis Vontrese, on March 23.

PHOTO: TAWNYA PLAIN EAGLE

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A LEAGUE ALL THEIR OWN Inside the burgeoning world of Calgary eSports ALEC WARKENTIN awarkentin@cjournal.ca

TECH

(LEFT) PHOTOS COURTESY OF WES NELSON / CALGARY ESPORTS LEAGUE

From wired-up basements to wide-scale event centres, Calgary’s gaming community is bursting into the mainstream.

But what will it look like?

U

p until the late-2000s, being a competitive gamer generally meant possessing just enough skill to dominate small pockets of friends — usually in one of their basements — over first-person shooters and multiplayer platformers such as Halo or Super Smash Bros., everyone hopped up on caffeine, fingers sticky with the dust from too many bags of snacks.

Nearly a decade on, and with that will to both conquer and master amplified many times over, competitive gaming — formally known as eSports — is exploding into a billion dollar industry.

Gaming companies now offer multimillion dollar franchise spots to prospective buyers, dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money for players and service an audience of over 400 million viewers. With services like Twitch, gamers can even livestream themselves playing nearly any game to thousands of people easily and simultaneously.

For Wes Nelson, founder of Calgary eSports League (CEL) it was time to bring some of that pageantry and competition to Calgary.

“I wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore gamer,” Nelson, 41, explains. “I play a little bit of League of Legends at the moment, and I got kind of sucked into the world championships last year … I felt like I was watching pro-wrestling. I just got sucked into the drama. They did a really good job presenting it.”

Nelson, who designs and builds exhibits for Calgary’s TELUS Spark (including a world record-holding

functional Rubik’s Cube) noticed how many of the science centre’s multimedia facilities sat dormant during the week, and began exploring them as a potential hub for hosting eSports tournaments.

“It’s just my personality — when I see something that can exist, or should exist, it must exist. It’s kind of the attitude that I take in CEL as well,” says Nelson.

“This is something that needs to happen. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened in Calgary yet, but we’re just a little bit behind, and that was kind of the motivation behind trying to make something happen.”

AN “OVERWHELMING” FIRST EVENT

Nelson, along with his small team of volunteers, held CEL’s first event at TELUS Spark on January 15 hosting just five games — League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Tekken 7 and Super Smash Bros. Melee.

The event drew more than 400 people.

“You go into your first one, and you’re kind of familiar with the gaming community and stuff like that, and you know, stuff is going to go wrong, and they’re gamers, and they’re going to be jerks about every little thing,” says Nelson. “What actually happened was … everybody was fantastic. I was pleasantly surprised, and I had a big smile on my face the entire time.”

However, that first event was not without its hiccups.

“We had a situation where we had people plugged into too many computers into the same circuit, and

Calgary eSports League’s founder Wes Nelson (right) shakes hands with a participant at a CEL event. Their first event, which took place in January 2019, saw over 400 people attend.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WES NELSON / CEL

TECH

that circuit also had one of our main networking switches in it, and basically all of Overwatch just shut down,” Nelson explains. “Everyone got kicked out of their games and it just completely shut down.”

“Everybody just calmly sat back, and we went over and re-routed the power, distributed the power better, put the switch back on, got everything going.

People just went right back into their games.”

Since then, CEL has hosted another three events, but Nelson says that it’s not enough to meet the demand.

“Doing events once a month is not enough,” says Nelson. “We’re trying to make sure that we support everyone else’s events to make sure that everyone gets out and plays as much as possible, and then also trying to find other venues that can support Calgary’s eSports leagues.”

DIY TOURNAMENTS & AN INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY

While TELUS Spark may support much of the infrastructure to run eSports competitions, including power and internet needs, Nelson explains that many of the set-ups, including computers and consoles, are bring-your-own.

Similarly, the set-up usually finds Nelson and his team getting ready on Monday evenings for Tuesday events, then staying until 2 a.m. to take down everything for Wednesday morning, all of which can be taxing for the volunteer-based CEL. “We were trying to figure out why we were so exhausted, and we stepped back, and we’ve all got our day jobs and we’re doing this stuff on the side … we were supposed to have [an event] this month, but we pushed it off to April because we weren’t seeing our families enough.”

However, the main goal for Nelson is to continue to grow and promote inclusivity among Calgary’s gaming community, including featuring as many games — new and old — as possible.

“I wish we could do more events, and I wish we could cover more games at some of our events.

I want to have Tetris up there. And I don’t care.

Frogger. We’ll do Frogger,” says Nelson. “I don’t care.

There’s people that are playing it. And whether you’re good or not, that’s the point that we’re at, just focusing on the fun, because the state of eSports in Calgary right now has to remain as inclusive as possible, because it’s just kind of a nascent thing.”

“That’s kind of one of the things that we’re really struggling against, that each gaming community is its own separate thing, and it’s not a huge amount of crossover. It’s difficult to contact everyone …

We can’t reach critical mass with a finite number of games until people are willing to come out and support other stuff that maybe they don’t feel competitive in — and you know, that’s tough.”

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While many of CEL’s events have been bring-your-own hardware, they require a comprehensive set-up, done by Nelson and his small team of volunteers at Telus SPARK.

BRIDGING THE GAP

As CEL looks for new places to host their tournaments, and as the need grows, Nelson hopes that eSports in Calgary continues to break into the mainstream, bringing in both young and old players and investors.

“People have struggled to get this mainstream because they do have to go and interact with grown adults that don’t necessarily understand, well, they don’t understand eSports,” says Nelson.

“Being lectured by an early-20-something when you’re a 60-year-old guy in charge of making decisions about your organization, and what they want to sponsor, and stuff like that. It’s difficult. You’ve got too much of a generation gap. I feel like that is one of the advantages we have … one of our missions is to bring the two generations together.”

TWITCH: THE NEW BASEMENT

Far from the pageantry of large-scale eSports outfits, however, competitive gaming has also found a home through live-streaming communities such as Twitch — a platform that sees 100 million monthly viewers — where gamers can set-up in their bedrooms and basements and showcase their skills to thousands simultaneously.

While streaming in Calgary may be on the upswing, Lazarowych notes that it does take work to build a solid viewership — more than simply playing video games.

“There’s a special type of energy that people need in front of the camera, I feel, and you know, some people are just very charismatic and have that. Other people have to work towards it.”

Lazarowych also notes the toxicity of gamers online that streamers and professional gamers have to deal with.

“There’s a steamer — her name is Annemunition — what she did is she recorded herself playing Rainbow 6, and the toxicity around her as a female which was just disgusting,” Lazarowych explains.

“And she’s a big streamer — she’s a pro-streamer, pro-gamer — competes, makes money.”

“The fact that she continues to play, and the ability to brush it off, blows my mind. So, the toxicity behind that is huge — huge and disgusting — and it’s something I’d love to see gone.”

Overall, however, Lazarowych says the Calgary streaming community is “very nice and very genuine,” but notes that more needs to be done to increase its presence and prominence in the city.

“I’d like to see it grow,” says Lazarowych. “I think it’s going to be awhile. I’m trying to connect with people that have more investable capital to get more in Calgary, but we’ll see … as we’re working towards that, it’s a time thing.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Nelson, whose work with CEL may see them move away from TELUS Spark to accommodate a larger audience.

“We’re trying to not change the fact that eSports re relegated to hotel conference rooms, or community centres, or something like that,” says Nelson, who does admit that the DIY, quasi-grassroots style of Calgary eSports competitions may be a hindrance to professionalizing the activity.

“It would be nice if we had the high-tech ambiance, and all the services we need right there so we don’t have power cables draped all over the floor, and we don’t have a tangle of network cables that we had to ad-hoc together. Little switches and routers taped to the wall. It would be nice if we could work towards eSports legitimacy.”

“I think it’s a little harder with eSports because you’ve got some people that are still [like], ‘Why are you watching somebody play video games?’” says Steven “Zewind” Lazarowych, founder of Twitch Calgary and a former streamer himself.

“There’s a comic out there, and it’s literally this guy saying, ‘Oh, what’re you watching?’ ‘I’m watching somebody play Minecraft,’ or some eSports thing. ‘Well, that’s just silly!’ and then he goes and watches TV, and he’s watching football.”

Twitch Calgary, one of Canada’s first official Twitch-partnered meet-up groups, started in 2016, and held their first event in the summer of that year. Their most recent was in late-March at Calgary’s Prairie Dog brewery and drew more than 200 people interested in growing the city’s livestream community.

“For some, I feel it’s the community or the straight interaction that they’ll get from watching,” Lazarowych explains. “With the way social media came out, the actual ability to get a reply, or at least think you’re getting a reply from the person, I think does a lot for the fans, if you will, or the audience.”

“For streaming, you can see people’s reactions for whatever you do … a lot of people really enjoy that.”

Steven “Zewind” Lazarowych (second from left) at a Twitch Calgary meet-up. Lazarowych founded Twitch Calgary in 2016.

PHOTO: KOJI SHIMANO 30 MAY/JUNE 2019 CALGARYJOURNAL.CA

PHOTO COURTESY OF WES NELSON

TECH

SPORTS

The price and profit in playing fantasy sports The economics of fantasy sports has created a billion-dollar market

Fantasy football was the first known fantasy sports league that started in 1962.

P

articipating in fantasy sports is an increasingly popular way to spend and make money without breaking a sweat. Players go online and use real sports statistics to win money and other prizes in their own online leagues. (All dollar amounts below are listed in United States currency).

GENERAL PLAYER COSTS According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) players used to spend, on average, $5 per year in 2012 on fantasy sports. That increased to $318 per year in 2016 on daily fantasy sports, with another $556 per player on other fantasy league related costs.

Some of these costs include: • • • • • •

Magazines (both fantasy and regular sports) Draft boards and labels Software Phone apps Cheat sheets and reference guides Draft kits

An estimated $1 billion is spent on other things such as pizza, draft parties, sports memorabilia and alcoholic beverages. Around 57 per cent spend money on or at league-wide events such as events at bars, renting areas to play sports and taking trips for fantasy sport events.

Even though it costs to play, some players win big.

INVESTING IN YOUR LEAGUE There are many ways to win, but a more common goal is to break even on what you spend on some leagues. Participants love the thrill of a lucrative win, but more often than not, players don’t win enough to break even, making it especially hard for individuals playing with cash to do it without monetary gain.

“Once you throw money into it, it’s kind of hard to go back to [free leagues],” says Cody Woodman, a fantasy sports player and former athlete.

SPORTS

ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON anicholson@cjournal.ca

PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK According to Jordan Johnston, another fantasy sports enthusiast, there are people that are in it just for the money, rather than a passion for following sports.

“A lot of people just like to gamble,” Johnston says.

It is different than betting on sports teams because you pick specific players and utilize their stats to your advantage in order to win.

Johnston says he would still play fantasy sports if there wasn’t money involved but he wouldn’t care as much because money “is an incentive.”

INDUSTRY PROFIT On average, fantasy sports giants such as FanDual and Draftkings dish out over $4 billion combined to players winning in their leagues, making their own profit by taking a percentage of any money players dish out. FanDual, for example, takes 10 per cent of cost to play.

The industry itself generates around $7.22 billion, with $335 million generated strictly on daily fantasy sports — a type of fantasy sports that follow a daily league instead of a seasonal league.

There are many leagues for sports with different requirements, but one of the larger and more profitable sports is fantasy football, due to the popularity of the National Football League (NFL) in the United States.

The NFL is a $14 billion entertainment industry with millions of viewers each year.

A good portion of these viewers play or are involved in some form of fantasy sports.

Some commentators often talk about their fantasy football league on air.

PRIZES FOR LOSERS Not all the money spent on fantasy sports is directly related to website host giants or purchasing materials to play.

Participants can spend generously on “loser prizes” for those unlucky in the draft, such as buying a toilet bowl trophy or funding a tattoo. Such loser prizes give participants something to look forward to, and the best might cost nothing at all, such as requiring the loser of their draft to stand naked on the street.

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The roadblocks of Canadian stock car racing One driver struggles to keep his NASCAR dream on the track

Cameron Hayley poses next to his NASCAR truck in 2015 at Martinsville Speedway located Ridgeway, Virginia.

C

ameron Hayley, 22, was on the right track to be a NASCAR driver but on his way to achieving his goals, he lost major sponsorships and ultimately, his ride.

Born and raised in Calgary, Hayley was introduced to racing at a young age. As a boy, his father and godfather would take him to see races at Race City Motorsport Park.

He got his first go-kart at five, began racing at seven and was racing in small versions of stock cars by the time he was 11. He knew NASCAR was where he wanted to end up.

“You’d think being in go-karts is the natural progression for going into road racing or something along that line, but NASCAR was always the passion for where I wanted to go.”

Hayley also grew up idolizing four-time Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon, whom he would later get to know personally.

Hayley raced across Alberta and nearby tracks in the U.S. By the time he was 14, he was racing in fullsize stock cars. It was at this time he caught the eye of American Bill McAnally, who owns a team in the NASCAR K&N West Series.

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JACKSON REED jreed@cjournal.ca

CATCHING THE BIG BREAK

“His contact there got me into NASCAR,” Hayley says, adding that getting into NASCAR requires major networking.

“I actually became the youngest driver ever to start in a NASCAR-sanctioned race.”

— Cameron Hayley “It’s really just about talking to the right people.”

Hayley joined McAnally’s team for the end of the 2011 K&N West season. The rule change that season allowed Hayley to race at 15 years old instead of 16. “I actually became the youngest driver ever to start in a NASCAR-sanctioned race.”

In his K&N West debut at Montana Raceway Park in Kalispell Montana, Hayley finished second.

In 2012, Hayley ran the full K&N West schedule for McAnally, finishing seventh in the final championship standings. By this time, he was beginning to make a name for himself in the NASCAR world.

Named one of nine drivers on NASCAR Next, a list picked by NASCAR showcasing the next great drivers, Hayley’s name appeared alongside drivers like Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott, Daniel Suarez and Darrell Wallace Jr, all of whom are now racing full-time in the Monster Energy Cup Series.

“We went on different media tours, we got trained on how to deal with the media, we got taught a bunch of different things about how to represent yourself,” he says.

“That was basically NASCAR putting their efforts to help us get to that top level.”

The next year in the K&N West series, he would move to Gene Price Motorsports. Hayley earned his first and so far, only career victory in a NASCAR series at All American Speedway in Roseville, California. Hayley also finished second in the final championship standings.

SPORTS

“You’re stalling for the next opportunity, you’re stalling for sponsorship, you’re stalling for something else. “ — Cameron Hayley Cameron Hayley on the track at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in 2015. His family’s business, Cabinets by Hayley, helped sponsor him to run full-time in NASCAR in 2015 and 2016.

PHOTO: CAMERON HAYLEY

MOVING UP THE NASCAR LADDER

In 2014, Hayley moved to the K&N East Series, driving for Turner Scott Motorsports. In addition to running a full-time schedule in the K&N East, the team gave him his first opportunity to race in one of the top NASCAR series.

Hayley debuted at the Camping World Truck Series, the third highest level of NASCAR racing in the world now called Gander Outdoor Truck Series. He finished 11th at the event held in Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.

He would make two more starts in the Truck Series that season.

At the end of the year, Turner Scott Motorsports was shut down due to financial difficulties, leaving Hayley looking for a new ride.

Working with a marketing company, Hayley approached several teams about joining up as a driver.

From there, Hayley got in touch with Duke Thorson, the owner of ThorSport Racing.

“He’s the type of person that likes to find young talent like me. They actually approached me about potentially doing something with them. I flew out to their shop over the off-season and we were able to put a deal together.”

Hayley drove the number 13 Toyota Tundra truck, with sponsorship from the Carolina Nut Company and Cabinets by Hayley, his family’s business. Hayley had a solid rookie season, finishing the year sixth in the championship standings, with 13 top-ten finishes. He was also second in voting for the Rookie of the Year award.

But going into 2016, Hayley once again had no sponsorship lined up.

However, before the season, he landed a spot with RIDE TV and had the help of his family’s business. He had 11 top-ten and two second-place finishes, but he also endured some sub-par results.

SPORTS

MORE HURDLES

Hayley finished 11th in the final standings. Unable to secure sponsorships in 2017, he had to review all his options.

“At the end of that year, I had an opportunity to go back and race, but it was equipment that I couldn’t win in.”

“At that point, you’re basically stalling. You’re stalling for the next opportunity, you’re stalling for sponsorship, you’re stalling for something else. But you can also get yourself trapped into an endless loop of never getting back to the top,” Hayley explains.

Instead of stalling, Hayley returned home to Calgary and has since not been able to find a ride in NASCAR.

THE BIG SPONSORSHIP PROBLEM

Finding sponsorship is the biggest challenge in racing.

It costs millions of dollars to run a NASCAR team.

Hayley said Canadian drivers are at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to sponsors.

“This is one problem in racing in Canada. Why would a Canadian sponsor, who is Canadian-based, who sells their product in Canada, want their name on a TV show that only airs in the U.S.?”

Another challenge is the fact that Canadian drivers are often not the first choice when a sponsor is looking for a driver.

“A U.S. company … isn’t going to sponsor a Canadian driver. So that’s the biggest problem and that’s the reason why most Canadians don’t make it.”

DJ Kennington is one of the most successful Canadian NASCAR drivers, a two-time champion in the Pinty’s Series, NASCAR’s only series based in Canada.

He’s also made his way into the top three series of NASCAR, making 77 combined starts in the Cup, Xfinity and Truck Series.

In 2013, Kennington had Hayley run two races in the Pinty’s Series for the team he owns, DJK Racing

after becoming friends. Kennington says he knows how tough it can be for drivers like Hayley.

“It’s unfortunate because there are probably people [in the U.S.] that he’s more talented than, but he doesn’t have the support. People don’t understand the cost it takes and the money it takes to do NASCAR in the U.S.,” Kennington says.

“Canadians can go down there and do it, there’s nothing stopping us except for finding the right opportunity, but it’s very hard to find the right opportunity.”

Kennington highlights what is possible when Canadian drivers get the right opportunities to run races in the top series of NASCAR. “I’ve just been very fortunate to be put in situations with the right people.”

Hayley adds that there aren’t as many companies looking to sponsor race teams as there were five to 10 years ago due to high costs and time on television becoming less valuable for companies to gain exposure.

LOOKING AHEAD

Hayley raced in a late-model stock car last fall in Las Vegas.

His old crew chief from his K&N Series days, Jeff Jefferson, now a team owner, needed a last-minute replacement driver. Hayley jumped at the opportunity — it was his first time back in a race car in two years.

Hayley had a solid night for himself.

“I ran top-three all race, had the chance to win. I felt that rush again that I hadn’t felt in two years.”

While he continues searching for a ride and sponsorship, Hayley hopes to see more local race tracks in Canada.

“Nobody’s gonna drive three hours to the track, day in and day out, to be able to race and that’s what we really need here in Canada.”

In the meantime, Hayley is keeping busy, working at his family’s cabinet business.

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LENS Calgarians spend a lot of time indoors, especially during the winter. Before we say goodbye to spring and dive into summer, the Calgary Journal wanted to celebrate some of Calgary’s most unique and beautiful inside spaces.

Exploring interior architecture Deep and diverse, the indoor architecture in Calgary helps define the city’s unique identity Resting between the CORE Shopping Centre and Brookfield Place is this beautiful glass bridge, with it’s shining granite flooring and glass on both sides.

PHOTO: RICHIE NGUYEN

Nestled in a corner deep in the Eighth Avenue Place building, this shining interior offers natural light that is hard to capture anywhere else.

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At the top of the calgary tower, visitors get the chance to see the whole city from a bird’s eye view.

PHOTO: RICHIE NGUYEN

At the very top of the CORE shopping centre lies the Devonian Gardens, full of floral gardens that offer a rich environment.

PHOTO: ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON

The Chinese Cultural Centre has been around for decades. On the ceiling is a beautiful ornate dragon that faces down towards the establishment.

PHOTO: RICHIE NGUYEN

The Riddell Library and Learning Centre at Mount Royal University is full of knowledge and quiet spaces for students hard at work.

PHOTO: ALEXANDRA NICHOLSON CALGARYJOURNAL.CA

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