Sporting Life, Ontario’s luxury sporting goods store (and $2,300 parka emporium), is considering a search for private investors and may even go public in an effort to keep up with growing competition. The retailer, which recently added 40 per cent more floor space to its Toronto flagship, has flourished alongside successful brands like Canada Goose, Salomon and North Face. Those same brands are now being offered by rivals like Holt Renfrew and Harry Rosen, and some have even opened stores of their own. Sporting Life is also under pressure from Sport Chek and could soon clash with U.S. retailers like Nordstrom that are considering forays north. Still, the upscale store isn’t out yet: its 2008 e-commerce launch gave it a name outside Ontario, and hey, the wealthy always have cash to spare, even in tough times. Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »
All stories by Kevin Hamilton
After that whole hunger strike/willing to die/ready for jail drama, we have to admit we were a little underwhelmed when we heard that Michael Schmidt merely filed for an appeal through proper channels on Monday. The ex–dairy farmer was initially found not guilty of 13 charges relating to the sale of unpasteurized milk products and operating a plant without a licence, but that acquittal was overturned earlier this year when the Crown won an appeal. He was fined $9,150 and given a year’s probation, though Schmidt has refused to pay. His lawyer is arguing that Justice Peter Tetley misinterpreted the law and ignored several Charter violations. Read the entire story [National Post] »
Hoping to attract Bay Street suits, Trump Tower announces new lobby bar named Suits (get it?)
Executives who appreciate the power of a good stiff drink will soon have a new second home in the Trump International Tower: the “elegant,” “dynamic” and yes, even “bespoke” Suits Lobby Lounge. The venue, which is described in a press release as a “sophisticated and welcoming destination for those après work or as an appetizer to the evening ahead,” will be opening alongside Stock restaurant and the rest of the hotel on January 31, 2012. Master sommelier John Szabo and the mixology team are promising a roster of “exceptional libations,” including a selection of super-luxe international labels—indeed, several wines, as well as a touted cherry blossom-infused vodka, will be unique to the Trump. For those who prefer their drinks standard luxe, Suits will also offer biodynamically produced wines and local craft beers, plus some antioxidant protein shakes for, say, the corporate brand consultant on the go.
Suits Lobby Lounge, 325 Bay St.
Reaction roundup: analysts on RIM and Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis’s $1 salaries
RIM CEO Jim Balsillie (Image: Nan Palmero)
Despite its frequent and public thrashings, Research in Motion still had to stand before investors to dish on its dismal third quarter and issue some tepid projections for the future. RIM shipped 14 million units in the third quarter and pulled in $5.2 billion (U.S.) in total revenue, but for the upcoming fourth quarter, RIM expects 11 to 12 million units shipped and total revenue in the range of $4.6 to $4.9 billion. Then the company announced that its best hope—new phones running the BlackBerry 10 OS (renamed from BBX after losing a trademark dispute)–will be delayed almost a full year. This on top of earlier news that, despite the recent PlayBook fire sale, RIM will end the year occupying less than 1 per cent of the global tablet market. Predictably, the company’s shares plunged after the announcement, falling 11.5 per cent to $14 U.S. We round up the righteous indignation reactions from analysts and experts after the jump.
Republican mayor Greg Davis outs himself at a Toronto gay sex shop
Republic mayor Greg Davis (Image: G W Bush)
While there’s no easy way for a family-values Republican to come out of the closet, getting caught spending taxpayer dollars on a trip to “Canada’s premier gay lifestyle store and sex shop” probably isn’t how most would want to do it. Mayor Greg Davis of Southaven, Mississippi, was forced to come clean Thursday after a Memphis newspaper confirmed that he charged the city for a whole slew of personal stuff, including $170,000 worth of liquor and expensive dinners and, yes, $67 for unnamed merchandise at Priape in Toronto’s Church-Wellesley Village.
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Back in October, Mississauga beat Toronto to the punch in banning the sale of shark fins, and on Wednesday, it beat Toronto to the punch in repealing that ban. According to a bylaw passed by council, the ban is no longer in force “until June 30, 2012” so that officials can meet with the federal government and allow business owners to adjust. “It gives us time to do our homework,” Pat Mullin, the ban’s biggest champion on council, told the Toronto Star. However, she wasn’t sure whether the bylaw would apply immediately in June or whether it would require a new vote. Stephen Chu, president of the Mississauga Chinese Business Association, believes the delay it is the first step toward a permanent repeal. “They listened to us,” he said. Toronto banned fin products just two weeks after Mississauga; hopefully for the sharks, a repeal isn’t already in the works here, too. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
Ryan Gosling faces some handsome competition for two Golden Globes
We do hate to admit it, but we don’t actually have a monopoly on Ryan Gosling gushing here at The Hype. This morning, Gerard Butler, Woody Harrelson, Rashida Jones and Sofia Vergara announced the 69th Golden Globe nominations, which revealed that the Almighty Goz could have two shiny statuettes coming his way next month. He’s received a nod for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical for Crazy Stupid Love, competing with Jean Dujardin in The Artist, Brendan Gleeson in The Guard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in 50/50 and Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris. For Best Actor in a Drama, Goz is up for The Ides of March against some of the biggest boys in Hollywood: George Clooney in The Descendants, Leonardo DiCaprio in J. Edgar, Brad Pitt in Moneyball and Michael Fassbender’s penis in Shame. The big award of the night, Best Picture, sees Ides up against The Descendants, The Help, Hugo, Moneyball and War Horse—in short, everything is coming up Goz. Does the Almighty Goz deserve this much attention? Click on to cast your ballot in our Goz versus the World polls—who will achieve Golden Globe supremacy?
POLL: Who deserves Best Picture? Click on to cast your vote »
Q&A with the home cook who won Recipe to Riches and took home $250,000
(Image: Food Network Canada)
Last night, as thousands of Canadians looked on from their living rooms, Recipe to Riches came full circle when Glo McNeill, winner of episode one’s sweet puddings and pies challenge, took home the $250,000 prize. The vivacious grandma from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, impressed the country with her Luscious Lemon Pudding Cakes, beating out John Grass and his Chicken Grenades in the final elimination round. The cakes weren’t the office favourite, but we have to respect such a simple recipe trouncing the competition. We caught up with her just after the taping to discuss her toughest rivals, web presence and what she plans to do with all that cash. Read our Q&A with the one and only G-Lo from Lunenberg, after the jump.
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Recipe to Riches: and the winner is…
The finalists await their fate (Image: Food Network Canada)
The six remaining home cooks from across the country were all dressed in their Sunday best for the season finale of Recipe to Riches. The drama was suitably amped up, given the $250,000 at stake: gold envelopes containing the identities of the winners were kept on a pedestal under a glass lid, always in plain view (we attended the taping in person this week and got to see a few off-camera hijinks, like judges Laura Calder and Tony Chapman having a mock slap fight). Host Jesse Palmer called up two contestants at a time, Noah’s ark style, for a one-on-one elimination (notably, this structure was only possible with Smart Cookie creator Sonya Walos’s absence; she never came up). Before each matchup, a standard reality TV video recap of each contestant’s “Recipe to Riches journey” was played. Then, the usually cheerful Palmer turned suddenly grave before revealing which contestant would be going home. Read the rest of this entry »
Woman gets “DRAKE” tattooed on her forehead because, let’s face it, she’s an idiot
Drake tattoo (Image: Norm from Will Rise tattoo parlour)
In one of those “so sad you have to laugh” stories, a Los Angeles woman has had the name of Toronto rapper Drake inked across her forehead. We quickly disproved any relation to the hotel, coffee cake, pirate or winged reptiles; rather, she appears to have gotten her inspiration from some not-so-subliminal messages in Drake’s song “Free Spirit.” From the song: “Tat my name on you, so I know it’s real/ Tat my fuckin’ name on you, so I know it’s real/ I know it hurts, but I ain’t trying to hear it/ ’Cause when I’m not around, I still be there in spirit.” It’s certainly one of the more idiotic tattoos we’ve seen, and there’s quite a bit of competition. The hooligans at Vice managed to track down the man responsible: Kevin Campbell from the parlour Will Rise. He revealed that while “her attitude changed pretty drastically once the tattoo was finished” (surprise, surprise), the idea was totally premeditated—she had even picked out the font. The whole story makes us cringe, but at least it proves the Toronto artist is having an impact internationally, right? Not according to Campbell. “The funny thing is, I didn’t know who Drake was. I figured it was her hood or some shit, not some goofnugget R & B dude,” he said. “I guess I feel bad that this dumb-ass got the name of the softest motherfucker in hip-hop tattooed on her forehead.”
• The Story Behind Drake’s Best Headline Yet [Vice]
[UPDATE] Check out Zac Efron’s Drake tattoo »
The Toronto Star dropped a cheeky “Ride the Rocket” joke; BlogTO played on the “mile-high club;” Newstalk 1010 spoke of “bunnies” and “knickers;” OpenFile succinctly stated “What? How? For the love God, why?” And the Toronto Sun did this—on its front page. Bless.
Drunk, unruly RIM executives were tied up on an Air Canada flight—and then chewed through their restraints
The basic story reported two weeks ago was amusing enough—two Research in Motion executives get in a drunken row on a plane to Beijing, force it to land and then get sacked—but court documents and eyewitness accounts have revealed just how desperate the situation really was (we’re talking plastic handcuffs, packing tape and temper tantrum desperate here).
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Quoted: an eyewitness tells the tale of two RIM executives’ drunken rampage
That’s not something you see in an airplane. It was totally crazy. I had a split-second panic, like “Al Qaeda?!” but then remembered about the two drunk guys.
That was Bernie Lee, a Toronto-based basketball agent who witnessed two wasted Research in Motion executives going berserk on an Air Canada flight. The rest of the story he told Canadian Business is no less colourful.
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New study confirms eating cookie dough is bad for you, ruins the holidays for everyone
Separated at birth? E. coli and raw cookie dough
It’s probably a given that raw cookie dough consumption will only increase as the holidays draw near, despite maternal warnings that the delicious paste is potentially poisonous. Now there’s new evidence that mom was right all along—however, it’s not salmonella that’s to blame, it’s Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli. A Centers for Disease Control study published Friday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases examined an outbreak in 2009 that missed Canada but hospitalized 35 in the United States. The report found store-bought cookie dough to be the most likely suspect, with 33 of the patients (that’s 94 per cent) admitting to a prior raw indulgence. Specifically, the flour in one brand wasn’t put through heat treatment (a bacteria “kill step”) like other ingredients were. One other interesting factoid: 71 per cent were under age 19. Sometimes the stereotypes ring true. Read the entire story [CBC] »
Seems no one likes overpaying for booze. Following last week’s auditor general report, which brought the LCBO’s unusual pricing policies to light, the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association has registered its displeasure, too. In an open letter to Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan, the CFRA is demanding that restaurant and bar owners be allowed to negotiate wholesale prices with the board. At present, restaurateurs only receive an HST credit, but otherwise pay just as much if not more than consumers would for a given bottle. “We urge you to follow the AG’s lead and undertake a comprehensive review of the antiquated and unfair policies of the LCBO monopoly,” wrote Ron Reaman, vice-president of the Ontario branch. Under the LCBO’s “fixed-pricing” structure, the agency doesn’t haggle with its suppliers, which sometimes means it deliberately pays more than a supplier’s initial offer (confused? See our primer on how it all works). Likewise, it won’t haggle with bulk purchasers, either. For consumers, it’s not much of a choice: overpay at the store or over-overpay at the bar. (In its defense, the agency does claim to offer the lowest retail prices in Canada.) Read the entire story [The Globe and Mail] »
