NHL both wrapping and amping up

Playoffs start in mere days, and everybody’s got eyes on the draft pick this year

sophia stevens s&h writer

The last National Hockey League (NHL) hockey game of the season is scheduled for Friday, April 14, with the playoffs scheduled to begin on Monday, April 17. In the Central Division, the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, and the Minnesota Wild have all secured playoff spots in the Western Conference. The current playoff picture has the Avalanche playing the Kraken and the Stars playing against the Wild.

In the Pacific Division, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the Edmonton Oilers, and the Los Angeles Kings have all secured playoff spots. The current standings show the Golden Knights playing the Jets and the Oilers and Kings playing each other. In the Atlantic Division, the Boston Bruins, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Tampa Bay Lightning have all secured a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. It appears that the Bruins will be playing the Islanders and the Leafs will be playing the Lightning.

In the Metropolitan Division, the Carolina Hurricanes, the

New Jersey Devils, and the New York Rangers have secured playoff spots in the Eastern Conference. The playoff picture shows the Hurricane playing the Panthers with the Devils playing the Rangers. The wildcard spots have not officially been secured. However, the New York Islanders, the Seattle Kraken, the Florida Panthers, and the Winnipeg Jets are currently favoured in the standing to obtain a playoff spot with the Pittsburgh Penguins close behind.

The Boston Bruins are a favourite going into the playoffs, as they have 127 points compared to the second-place team in the whole league, the Carolina Hurricanes, who have only 109 points. FOX Bet currently has the Boston Bruins as the favourite, with the

We can’t self-assess without info

Colorado Avalanche and the Toronto Maple Leafs being in second and third places respectively.

The NHL is also experiencing a race to the bottom this season. This is due to teams wanting to obtain the first pick in the 2023 NHL draft in order to draft Connor Bedard first overall. Many teams see Bedard as being a key player in helping to rebuild their team. Bedard finished his Western Hockey League regular season with 71 goals and 72 assists in 57 games for the Regina Pats.

When Sidney Crosby was asked about Bedard, all he had to say was “No weaknesses,” which showcases the potential that one of the best in the hockey world sees in Bedard. It will be interesting to see how Bedard transitions into the NHL, and how effective he will be with the team he is playing on. Bedard is considered a once-in-a-generation player, which is no small feat. If Bedard is able to translate his success from the Western Hockey League and the World Juniors without letting the pressure get to him, he’ll have one heck of a career in the NHL.

The first-round draft pick normally goes to the team with the worst record in the league. However, this season, the Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, and the Columbus Blue Jackets all currently have 56 points with four games left in the regular season as of the time of writing. It will be interesting to see which team wins the draft lottery set to be held May 8 and has the opportunity to draft a standout like Connor Bedard.

How can people be expected to monitor themselves when what they monitor has been misconstrued?

holly funk editor-in-chief

If you head to the government of Saskatchewan’s current website page for COVID-19 information and care, it is clear from the language alone that the government is taking a hands-off approach; it’s everybody for themselves.

To start, the COVID-19 homepage has the word “self” listed 10 separate times. Self-testing, self-monitoring, and self-management are positioned as the triage trinity for mitigation of this pandemic in our fourth year. From that page you can navigate to “Living with COVID,” another page which continues to inform people how to assess their own risks and recommends – but does not require – self-isolation if you test positive for the virus.

In January, I wrote a piece for the Carillon titled “We should treat COVID more like an STI” wherein I talked about the effectiveness of proactive measures, and I’d like to return to that sentiment from a slightly different angle. Catherine Demoliou, Christos Papaneophytou, and Vicky Nicolaidou published an article in the International Journal of Medical Sciences last October looking at the similarities between the impact of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) and HIV. Demoliou, Papaneophytou, and Nicolaidou note that even though the way these viruses spread and the symptoms they can cause are very different, the way they attack a person’s immune system is very similar, as are the long-term effects of each.

T-cells are a type of white blood cell that our bodies use to fight infections, and they are essential to the way our immune system is able to adapt and find new ways to fight new viruses, diseases, and infections throughout our lifetime. The problem is that, in both people with HIV and people who have had COVID, the amount of T-cells is lower than normal. That means individuals are more vulnerable to infections, more likely to catch a virus or flu than before, and that it will take more time and effort for their body to adapt and fight off infections.

To expand on that, there is a growing area of research dedicated to COVID’s impact on the brain and its functioning, which has been steadily increasing with higher reports of ‘brain fog’ postCOVID infections. National Geographic, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Frontiers in Psychology, the National Center for Biotechnology Information, and the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease are just a handful of publications that have published studies on the similarities between COVID and Alzheimer’s impacts on the brain. While none have stated that COVID is some sub-type of Alzheimer’s or that it can lead to its early onset, some brains of those who have died from COVID show similar types of damage in similar areas when compared to brains of people with Alzheimer’s.

For all these reasons and more, I am immensely distressed by our province’s choice to remove the very last of masking mandates that applied to health- care facilities. I am frustrated by the government’s continued positioning of COVID as nothing more than a mild flu or respiratory infection. I’m angry that the information released on COVID infections and outbreaks in the province are not reported independently and in depth, but rather they have been put in the community respiratory illness surveillance program (CRISP) reports.

What the provincial government fails to realize in their consistent pull-back of policies is that their policies impact how people self-assess their risk. They encourage residents to monitor themselves, to test themselves, and to keep themselves safe, but are not clear on exactly what people are to be keeping themselves safe from. Of course hardly anyone here is masking, of course we have some of the highest COVID hospitalization and death rates in the country at the moment, because the government’s decisions do not show residents that this virus is any sort of big deal.

Let’s say you asked me if it was safe to cross the street. If I told you to be careful, to wait until the lights at the intersection turn green, and to look both ways, but I didn’t tell you there was a piano falling from above that crushes you as soon as you step into the street, would you believe that I had given you all the information you needed to assess your risk properly? If the government expects us all to watch out for ourselves, the literal least they could do would be making sure we have the information necessary to gauge that risk. Anything less is negligence at best.