Oh, tabarnak! The Habs lose tonight - On to Monday!
The video low-lights of Saturday's game arehere. I'm not posting the clip because I don't really want to watch it again.
This is a pretty good game review on the Raw NHL website, from Sabres writer Matthew Fairburn
Canadiens fans were ready to party on Saturday night. The holiday weekend brought even more people into the city. Thousands of fans were outside the Bell Centre watching the game, and the 20,962 fans filled the arena with ear-splitting noise before puck drop. Montreal police warned fans outside the building not to bring any pyrotechnics or fireworks, concerned about the kind of scene a Game 6 win would create in the city’s streets.
But the Sabres, who came into this game 4-1 on the road in the playoffs, scored seven unanswered goals to thwart that party and keep their season alive with another road win to bring the series back home for Game 7.
“Well we’re in the process of seeing if we can play here on Monday,” Ruff quipped.
...“It’s probably the worst game we’ve played, so we’re only going up,” Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki said. “It’s going to be important for guys to look themselves in the mirror and say that we’ve got an opportunity to win one game and move on to the third round. So we’ll take that any time.”...
Canada and Alberta Strike Landmark Implementation Agreement on Energy, Emissions, and Export Diversification
By Annie Koshy
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a landmark Implementation Agreement in Calgary today, delivering on the core commitments of the Canada-Alberta Memorandum of Understanding signed last November. The agreement moves on three fronts simultaneously: strengthening carbon markets, building clean electricity infrastructure, and opening a new pipeline corridor to Asian markets.
The carbon market framework carries the broadest national implications. Canada and Alberta have agreed to an effective carbon price of $115 per tonne by 2030, $130 by 2035, and $140 by 2040. Alberta commits to a minimum floor price for carbon credits beginning in 2030, preventing market collapse and providing investment certainty. Canada and Alberta will jointly issue 75 million tonnes of Carbon Contracts for Difference to support emissions reduction projects, with costs shared equally. The ambition extends beyond Alberta: a credible, high-price carbon market in Canada’s largest emitting province creates the foundation for a scalable national carbon credit market across provinces.
On electricity, both governments have committed to doubling Alberta’s grid by 2050 across nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, and lower-carbon generation. A joint Electricity Working Group will identify the investments required to achieve net-zero emissions in Alberta’s electricity sector by 2050. The federal government will add major high-voltage intra-provincial transmission to the Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit, directly addressing one of the most persistent bottlenecks in Alberta’s renewable buildout.
The pipeline commitment is the most politically consequential element. Alberta will submit a comprehensive proposal for a bitumen pipeline to Asian markets to the Major Projects Office by July 1. Canada will pursue its designation as a project of national interest by October 1, fully consistent with the duty to consult Indigenous peoples. The pipeline would transport at least one million barrels of low-emission Alberta bitumen per day and is contingent on the Pathways Project, the world’s largest carbon capture and storage initiative, targeting 16 million tonnes of annual emissions reductions and up to 43,000 jobs annually.
Both governments have concluded that the cost of continued regulatory conflict is higher than the cost of compromise. Alberta gets pipeline access, investment certainty, and jurisdictional control. Canada gets a credible carbon market foundation and a nation-building project that advances its export diversification agenda. Whether the pipeline can be approved by October 1 while fully meeting Indigenous consultation requirements will be the first real test of the timelines committed to today.
https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2026/05/15/canada-and-alberta-strike-agreement-diversify-our-exports-reduce
Some additional detail about that crucial decision to leave Dobeš in after the Sabres scored three on him, and about the goal coach who made it, is in this NHL article here.
Next two out of three
A crazy game and unfortunate loss, Sabres 3 to Canadiens 2:
At Sportsnet, Eric Engels writes:
In a game the Montreal Canadiens lost by one goal, it would be easy to suggest the puck bouncing off the stanchion by the Bell Centre’s Zamboni door before caroming off Jakub Dobes’ pad was the difference.
But there was more to why the Canadiens finished Tuesday night down 3-2 in the game and tied 2-2 in their series with the Buffalo Sabres, and they’ll have to properly evaluate that before the action resumes at KeyBank Center on Thursday.
For a team that prides itself on honest self-assessment, a reality check awaits in the video room.
The Canadiens had seven power plays but scored on only one. And even if Cole Caufield, who scored that goal and said afterward that he and his teammates broke down the Sabres “a bunch” and were only thwarted by great saves Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, they mismanaged the puck enough to squander those other six opportunities....
I think I need to start a regular feature about the comments and cartoons I see on our opposition leader Pierre Poilievre. I must admit, I seldom actually follow much of what he talks about, so I rely on these social media zingers to keep up with what he is doing. Enjoy!
Black Cloud Six on the Iran War
A great piece here from Black Cloud Six, on how the American way of war is failing again. This is how he begins:
....Generally speaking, American employment of military power is characterized by a number of traits that can trace themselves back to the Second World War: unparalleled industrial capability, incredible logistics, the use of airpower as a panacea, allies as a tool rather than a partner, cultural isolation, technological solutionism, firepower as the first solution to tactical problems, and not a little amount of hubris and exceptionalism. We see all these being applied now during Trump’s war against Iran, but their threads run through most US military actions since 1945, including during “my” war in Afghanistan. In many ways, the United States is still attempting to apply the lessons learned during World War II to conflicts that are dramatically different in nature or scale....
The whole piece is well worth reading, but I particularly appreciated this part:
...We see all of this in full display right now, with Trump’s war with Iran. The United States launched extensive airstrikes against Iranian infrastructure and decapitation strikes against its leadership. Conventional Iranian military capabilities were wiped out and Trump himself was quick to claim a resounding victory. Yet the enemy has a vote and the American way of war was ill-suited to bring Iran to heel without an extensive, risky, and potentially expensive ground operation. Hubris and exceptionalism, personified by a strutting Pete Hegseth, waded in and failed to account for the Iranian regime’s resilience and ability to conduct unconventional warfare. Consequences and second- and third-order effects were obviously disregarded as Trump watched video of airstrike after airstrike. Today, though, “victory” seems far off.
This is because US strategy cannot work. Bombing alone has rarely, if ever, produced the clean political surrender American planners seem to expect from it, and the United States seems to have developed few other options. Iran has become the master at creating unintended consequences, both with its drone and missile strikes and with small-scale operations in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has alienated its usual allies — allies that possess minesweeping capabilities beyond those possessed by the US Navy — and is left virtually alone confronting Iran....
The Montreal Canadiens are set to start their series against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. To win this series, the Habs will need Cole Caufield to step up and be an X-factor.
thesickpodcast.com/habs-round-2...
TL,DW: DRM News reports "Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney addresses the European Political Community Summit in Armenia, highlighting Canada-Europe strategic ties, support for Ukraine, and a shifting global order. He emphasizes “strategic autonomy,” critical minerals, and defense cooperation, while warning that the international system is being reshaped by geopolitical and economic disruptions."
Now that Carney has a majority, the Liberals were able to take control of Parliamentary Committees for the first time in seven years. And they immediately took away a platform for opposition grandstanding by moving the Ethics committee and the Health committee to closed-door sessions. From the reaction of opposition parties, you would think the sky had fallen:
Chantal Hébert on Liberals moving to go in camera in four committees: "Of all of the things you can think that were smart to do this week, getting a majority and using it to do this is probably one of the dumbest moves that one has seen in a long long time."
In Routine Proceedings, journalist Dale Smith writes:
....the two committees in question have been in the throes of attempted witch hunt studies that the Conservatives have been trying to orchestrate (with the gleeful assistance of the Bloc, who are happy to embarrass the government any day of the week)...
...Suffice to say, I’m not convinced that moving procedural wrangling in camera is a sign that democracy is under threat, and there was a whole lot of this very same thing when the Conservatives had a majority on committees (and they turned those committees into branch plants of ministers’ offices). They may try to cast themselves as heroes for inventing scandals, but I remain unconvinced that this is a danger to parliamentary democracy just yet.
