Author Archives: Gavin Lopez-Smith

‘Squid Game’ and Why It’s Becoming Netflix’s Newest Hit Show

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From The Queen’s Gambit to Tiger King, there’s not exactly a certain recipe for what makes a Netflix Mega-Hit, but Squid Game, the streaming platform’s newest star show, still seems like an unlikely candidate.

The South Korean 9-episode Drama series, which was released on September 17, is on track to becoming not only the platform’s most popular non-english show ever, but their most popular show ever period. While specific viewer stats haven’t been released regarding the show, it’s undeniable to see the way that it’s overtaken social media and the collective consciousness of TV enthusiasts.

The series follows a large group of people in debt, who have all followed an invitation to compete in a series of children’s games for the chance to win the money they need. However, things quickly turn more dark and deadly as the games carry on, making it a fight for both money and their own survival as well.

The series is directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, who is most well known for his 2017 film The Fortress. However, this series is reaching a whole new scale of audience as the popularity of the show continues to grow.

While the overwhelming popularity of Squid Game seemingly came from nowhere, there’s a bit of precedent for Korean media finding its way into the global mainstream in the last few years. Parasite, a South Korean film, won Best picture at the Oscars in 2020, and Netflix themselves hosts a variety of Korean dramas on their platform such as Sweet Home and Extra Curricular. 

While none of these shows have reached the same widespread popularity as Squid Game, maybe this could be the breakthrough moment for global audiences to get further into media from South Korea.

The Birds are Back in Town

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The winter might not seem like the prime time for bird watching, but in south BC, early fall and winter bring home an array of migratory birds, and with the leaves falling from the trees, many of them also become easier to see during this time. Here’s a short look at a few of the types of feathered friends you may come across in the next few months when you head out into the great outdoors:

Snow Geese: These snow-white color geese can be found around Richmond and Delta starting in October. At places like Iona Beach in Richmond, you may be able to catch a glimpse of a large flock of hundreds of these geese in the peak of the migration season.

image – pixabay

Buffleheads: these little guys are actually hard to miss if you’re looking out for them on a walk. The black and white patterned water-loving creatures can be found around most ponds, lakes or by the ocean around where ducks and geese usually tend to hang out. They have a tendency to duck themselves underwater and come up somewhere else though, so keep a keen eye out.

Surf Scoters: a trip down to the southern lower mainland around White Rock or Delta will likely result in one finding a group of Surf Scoters. These black birds with a sharp orange and white beak hang out near the ocean but will sometimes be too far out to see in the low tide. They also are known to dive for their food and will sometimes spend a long time down under the surf.

Other birds to keep an eye out for are American Widgeons, Common Goldeneyes, Ring Necked Ducks, American Coots, as well as various species of Sparrows.

First National Day for Truth and Reconciliation this Thursday

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This Thursday marks the first ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada. The Statutory holiday was created this June and acts as a day to honor and remember the victims of residential schools, their families and communities that still feel and live the impacts of them.

The Day for Truth and Reconciliation takes place on September 30, what’s been known nationally as ‘Orange Shirt Day’ in Canada for the better part of a decade. Orange Shirt Day was started by author and residential school survivor Phyllis Webstad. The story of the orange shirt goes back to when Webstad first was sent to a residential school as a child and had an orange shirt given to her by her grandmother taken from her on her first day there.

The day is a response to one of the 94 calls to action made by the truth and reconciliation commission in 2015. Of these calls to action stated in the commission’s final report, only 14 have been completed, with most others in some form of progress. The day had been passed in a bill before but died in the senate according to the official website for orange shirt day.

The last residential school was closed in 1998, making it only 23 years ago. This year, searches of five residential schools brought findings of over 1500 unmarked graves of indigenous youth. Over the course of the residential school system, there were 140 operating.

To view the Truth and reconciliation Commission’s calls to action you can see them all here. For more information on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, you can visit https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/national-day-truth-reconciliation.html

2022 NHL Draft to Take Place in Montreal

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The 2022 NHL draft has been scheduled to take place in Montreal, Quebec this July according to a statement from the NHL on Friday.

This comes after the city was supposed to host the event both this year and in 2020, but it was moved to a online & virtual format due to the COVID-19 Pandemic for both years. The last in-person draft was held in Vancouver in 2019.

According to the NHL, the event will be held over two days in the city, on July 7 and 8, with spectators and media both allowed access in for the first time in two years. Next years’ draft will mark the 27th time that Montreal has hosted the event, with the last time they hosted being in 2009.

“Montreal, the site of the first NHL Draft in 1963, is a wonderful place to bring the NHL family together and to focus on the future of our game as our Clubs call the names of top prospects from around the world,” said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in a press release on Friday. “We also thank Geoff Molson and the entire Canadiens organization for their cooperation and support while we needed to conduct the Draft remotely the past two years.”

Next year’s draft will see several young players trying for their shot at the major leagues, but this time up close and in person at one of the NHL’s most covered annual events.

Tickets and other details are to be announced at a later date, but if you’ve missed out for the last few years and want to see the NHL’s next star players for the first time yourself, you might want to mark the date in your calendar.

For more information about the draft and past drafts, you can visit https://records.nhl.com/draft/

Residential School Survivors to be Honored at BC Lions Game

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While any BC Lions Game sees the color orange in the stands, their game next Friday will see fans of both teams sporting the color in remembrance and honor of indigenous survivors of residential schools.

In an announcement on Thursday, Phyllis Webstad, the founder of Orange Shirt Day, spoke about how it was a dream of hers for “survivors and their families to go to one of these football games and be honored there, and they could know about what happened to us[.]”

https://twitter.com/BCLions/status/1438648077380767746?s=20

As well as wearing to the color Orange, the BC Lions will give 350 tickets to residential school survivors and their families to attend the game on Friday, as well as a $20,000 donation to the Orange Shirt Society. There will also be a commemorative shirt for the event, with a logo designed by indigenous artist Corrine Hunt.

Orange Shirt Day was started in 2013 by Webstad as a way to “commemorate the residential school experience, to witness and honour the healing journey of the survivors and their families, and to commit to the ongoing process of reconciliation.” The orange shirt itself comes from a story of Webstad’s, where on her first day at a residential school, an orange shirt given to her by her grandmother was taken from her.

In the last year, significant attention has been brought to the tragedies that occurred in the residential school system, with over 1500 unmarked graves of indigenous children being found at five schools across the country. There were 139 residential schools, the vast majority of which remain unsearched still. The last of these was closed in 1996.

The game is scheduled to take place on Friday, Sept 24, at 7:30PM at BC Place.  All people in attendance must have proof of COVID-19 vaccination. For more information on the event, or Orange Shirt Day, you can visit www.bclions.com or www.orangeshirtday.org.

Beijing 2022 Olympics to Begin This February with Strong COVID-19 Precautions

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With the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics approaching quickly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Friday that the events will go forward with strong COVID-19 countermeasures

In an open letter, IOC president Thomas Bach stated that like the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the Beijing 2022 Olympics will also have a vaccine programme, which makes vaccinations accessible and encouraged to all participants and athletes. Regarding this and other countermeasures being put in place, Bach said “we are sparing no effort to make these Olympic Winter Games safe and secure for everyone.”

The Beijing Games are scheduled to begin in February, just months after the delayed Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics ended this August. This summer’s games went forward after considerable pushback from the medical community in Japan, with the Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association recommending the games’ cancellation in the months before they opened, worried about a shortage of medical staff and worsening case counts in the country. Following the summer games, over 500 cases were reported in staff, media, contractors and athletes, despite most athletes and participants being vaccinated.

“The Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 come at an important moment to bring the world together in the Olympic spirit of peace, solidarity and unity,” said Bach. “It will once again be the athletes of these Olympic Games that will send this message of the unifying power of sport to the world.”

For team Canada, next year’s games means the first time that many of the NHL’s heavy hitters will get a chance to skate on Olympic ice since the League opted out of the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in favor of the World Cup of Hockey Instead.

According to Bach, the first edition of the games’ Playbooks, which will cover the detailed COVID-19 protocols, is scheduled to be published in October.

TGS Esports Centre Opens Its Doors Once Again

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TGS Esports recently re-opened its Richmond facility last week after being closed since March of 2020.

TGS, which stand for The Gaming Stadium, is a company setting out to build Esports community through hosting tournaments, events and creating a space for people to play, watch and get involved in competitive Esports. Since reopening, they have said they will be hosting events live four days a week at their Richmond location, featuring a series of competitive games including Magic the Gathering, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Valorant.

Through the last year and a half, TGS has hosted online events streaming through Discord, and hosted other giveaways, but has not been open to the public until last week’s grand re-opening.

https://twitter.com/GamingStadiumCS/status/1435286822473457668?s=20

The center is equipped with 60 PCs, twelve of which are on a main stage area that TGS uses for tournaments and live competitive events, with a spectator area for people to watch as well. As well, the center allows people outside of scheduled tournament times to use their resources for streaming games.

Competitive Esports have seen a rise in popularity in the last few years in Vancouver, with both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University having competitive Esports associations that are home to several teams across many different video games. As well, The Vancouver Titans are the city’s competitive Overwatch team, which is owned by Canucks Sports and Entertainment and have made total earnings of nearly a million CDN since their formation in 2018.

For more information about TGS, or getting into competitive Esports nearby, visit https://www.thegamingstadium.com.

How a Delayed Phase 4 May Impact Sporting Events, Concerts, and other Public Events

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As of this week, proof of vaccination is officially required for entrance into large events in BC. Across the province, spectators and participants must present vaccine cards at any sporting events for people 22 years or older, as well as at youth sporting events with gatherings of more than fifty people and arts gatherings, such as live theater and concerts.

However, because of COVID-19 case counts rising in the last month especially, the transition to Phase 4 has been pushed back, meaning an uncertain fate for events planned in the optimism that we would already be back to ‘normal’. And with Phase 3 meaning a cap at half-capacity with most large events, it may have repercussions for events planned in the next few months.

For sports gatherings, guidelines are set out by the stadiums and teams hosting, nearly all of which nationally have set out plans as sports seasons begin to resume this year. However, rules are different between provinces. While many have already applied a passport system like BC that they are introducing this month, many others, such as Alberta and New Brunswick have looser guidelines and recommendations.

For concerts however, especially for touring acts from the USA or elsewhere internationally, dates in Canada seem uncertain, especially with acts selling tickets for a higher capacity that they expect venues will be able to accommodate at their scheduled dates. Despite vaccine cards being mandatory now at indoor public gatherings, it’s not certain whether tour date cancellations may be a reality soon if case counts don’t start to fall soon in the province.

Since the beginning of Sept., case counts in BC have begun to hit a plateau, albeit one that hovers around 500 to 800 new cases per day, but the next few weeks will show the effectiveness of vaccine cards and if a return to normal may be before us soon.