Said China’s foreign ministry of the Australian diplomatic boycott: ‘Whether they come or not, nobody cares’
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OTTAWA – Canada will not be sending diplomats to the Beijing Olympics in early February, effectively joining a diplomatic boycott with the United States, United Kingdom and Australia denouncing China’s alleged human rights violations.
“As many partners around the world, we are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Wednesday, flanked by Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly and Minister of Sport Pascale St-Onge, as well as MP and former Olympian Adam Van Koeverden.
As the boycott only involves diplomatic staff and government officials, Canadian athletes will still compete at the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic games beginning next February. The foreign minister argued that Canada’s decision sends a “strong signal” to China without unfairly affecting athletes working to compete in Beijing.
Joly and St-Onge said their top priority for the country’s athletes competing in China was their safety, and that the RCMP would be working with the Canadian Olympic Committee to ensure they are properly protected during the games.
But neither minister was able to provide details of what that meant.
“There are already agents that have been hired to ensure the security of the athletes and we’re still in discussion with the RCMP with (Public Safety Minister) Marco Mendicino. Everything will be in place to make sure that the athletes are safe,” St-Onge said.
China is facing strong and increasing international criticism over what many countries, including Canada, have called the “genocide” of its Uyghur minority, as well as its recent strongarm tactics to increase its control over Hong King by cracking down on democracy and civil liberties via a security law enacted during the pandemic.
China also recently released two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who were detained for over three years due to what Canada described as “hostage diplomacy.”
Federal opposition parties criticized the Trudeau government for taking so much time to decide to boycott the Games and not acting sooner to push for them to either be postponed for one year or even relocated to another country.
According to former Canadian ambassador to China Guy St-Jacques, delaying the games for one year to allow an international investigation into human rights abuse allegations in China would have been the clearest and most effective message Canada could have sent.
But a widespread diplomatic boycott is the second-best option at this point and will still send a strong message to Chinese President Xi Jinping without requiring Canadian athletes to suffer the consequences of a full boycott, he said.
“It will have an impact because this will result in a loss of face for President Xi Jinping. We know that he wanted to use the Olympics to showcase that China’s a modern country, a superpower that knows how to organize things,” said the former ambassador.
It will have an impact because this will result in a loss of face for President Xi Jinping
“He was hoping that having foreign leaders there would confirm that, in fact, China has become so powerful that nobody would dare to criticize it,” he continued, adding he expects many more if not all members of the European Union to join the boycott.
The U.S. was the first country to formally announce that they would send no diplomatic envoys or staff with their athletes to the upcoming winter games during a press conference on Monday, citing China’s “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang” against the Uyghur people.
“U.S. diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the [People’s Republic of China]’s egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang, and we simply can’t do that,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said during a briefing.
Two other Canadian allies, Australia and then the U.K., followed suit on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, each denouncing China’s repressive actions and human rights violations against its own people.
Joly said that she has used every opportunity possible to discuss the Olympics with Canada’s allies in the G7 and NATO, likely to exhort them to follow suit in the diplomatic boycott.
“There are still many countries studying the question but clearly, I want to make sure as I’m heading to the G7 … that I raise this issue and I want to make sure that more countries in the world send a strong signal,” Joly said.
The decision is likely to aggravate Canada’s already strained relationship with Beijing, notably as the Trudeau government is also expected to announce a formal decision on whether Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei will be allowed to participate in Canada’s 5G network.
In an interview with National Post last week, China’s ambassador to Canada Cong Peiwu warned that such boycotts are not in line with the values of the Olympic Games.
“It is for the people. It is for humanity. It is not for politicians,” Cong said. “It is against the spirit of the Olympic Games to politicize these issues.”
China has denied any wrongdoing in Xinjiang and said abuse allegations are fabricated.
Its foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing in Beijing that Australian politicians were engaged in “political posturing.”
“Whether they come or not, nobody cares,” he added.
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It’s hard to say when, exactly, Alexandar Georgiev truly began to win some hearts and change some minds on Tuesday night.
Maybe it was in the back half of the second period; that was when the Colorado Avalanche, for the first time in their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Winnipeg Jets, actually managed to hold a lead for more than, oh, two minutes or thereabouts. Maybe it was when the Avs walked into the locker room up 4-2 with 20 minutes to play.
Maybe it was midway through the third, when a series of saves by the Avalanche’s beleaguered starting goaltender helped preserve their two-goal buffer. Maybe it was when the buzzer sounded after their 5-2 win. Maybe it didn’t happen until the Avs made it into their locker room at Canada Life Centre, tied 1-1 with the Jets and headed for Denver.
At some point, though, it should’ve happened. If you were watching, you should’ve realized that Colorado — after a 7-6 Game 1 loss that had us all talking not just about all those goals, but at least one of the guys who’d allowed them — had squared things up, thanks in part to … well, that same guy.
Georgiev, indeed, was the story of Game 2, stopping 28 of 30 shots, improving as the game progressed and providing a lesson on how quickly things can change in the playoffs — series to series, game to game, period to period, moment to moment. The narrative doesn’t always hold. Facts don’t always cooperate. Alexandar Georgiev, for one night and counting, was not a problem for the Colorado Avalanche. He was, in direct opposition to the way he played in Game 1, a solution. How could we view him as anything else?
He had a few big-moment saves, and most of them came midway through the third period with his team up 4-2. There he was with 12:44 remaining, stopping a puck that had awkwardly rolled off Nino Niederreiter’s stick; two missed posts by the Avs at the other end had helped spring Niederreiter for a breakaway. Game 1 Georgiev doesn’t make that save.
There he was, stopping Nikolaj Ehlers from the circle a few minutes later. There wasn’t an Avs defender within five feet, and there was nothing awkward about the puck Ehlers fired at his shoulder. Game 1 Georgiev gets scored on twice.
(That one might’ve been poetic justice. It was Ehlers who’d put the first puck of the night on Georgiev — a chip from center ice that he stopped, and that the crowd in Winnipeg greeted with the ol’ mock cheer. Whoops.)
By the end of it all, Georgiev had stared down Connor Hellebuyck and won, saving nearly 0.5 goals more than expected according to Natural Stat Trick, giving the Avalanche precisely what they needed and looking almost nothing like the guy we’d seen a couple days before. Conventional wisdom coming into this series was twofold: That the Avs have firepower, high-end talent and an overall edge — slight as it may be — on Winnipeg, and that Georgiev is shaky enough to nuke the whole thing.
That wasn’t without merit, either. Georgiev’s .897 save percentage in the regular season was six percentage points below the league average, and he hadn’t broken even in expected goals allowed (minus-0.21). He’d been even worse down the stretch, putting up an .856 save percentage in his final eight appearances, and worse still in Game 1, allowing seven goals on 23 shots and more than five goals more than expected. That’s not bad; that’s an oil spill. Writing him off would’ve been understandable. Writing off Jared Bednar for rolling him out there in Game 2 would’ve been understandable. Writing the Avs off — for all of Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar’s greatness — would’ve been understandable.
It just wouldn’t have been correct.
The fact that this all went down now, four days into a two-month ordeal, is a gift — because the postseason thus far has been short on surprises, almost as a rule. The Rangers and Oilers are overwhelming the Capitals and Kings. The Hurricanes are halfway done with the Islanders. The Canucks are struggling with the Predators. Panthers–Lightning is tight, but one team is clearly better than the other. Bruins–Maple Leafs is a close matchup featuring psychic baggage that we don’t have time to unpack. In Golden Knights–Stars, Mark Stone came back and scored a huge goal.
None of that should shock you. None of that should make you blink.
Georgiev being good enough for Colorado, though? After what we saw in Game 1? Strange, surprising and completely true. For now.
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The LA Kings tried every trick in the book to get the Edmonton Oilers off their game last night.
Hacks after the whistle, punches to the face, and interference with line changes were just some of the things that the Oilers had to endure, and throughout it all, there was not an ounce of retaliation.
All that badgering by the Kings resulted in at least two penalties against them and fuelled a red-hot Oilers power play that made them pay with three goals on four chances. That was by design for Edmonton, who knew that LA was going to try to pester them as much as they could.
That may have worked on past Oilers teams, but not this one.
“We’ve been in a series now for the third year in a row with these guys,” Kane said after practice this morning. “We know them, they know us… it’s one of those things where maybe it makes it a little easier to kind of laugh it off, walk away, or take a shot.
“That type of stuff isn’t gonna affect us.”
EDM LAK G1. April 22, 2024. Pierre-Luc Dubois interference penalty on Connor McDavid. 🎥: Sportsnet | NHL pic.twitter.com/15zrQX3D6Q
— Nation Network Media (@NationNMedia) April 23, 2024
Once upon a time, this type of play would get under the Oilers’ skin and result in retaliatory penalties. Yet, with a few hard-knock lessons handed down to them in the past few seasons, it seems like the team is as determined as ever to cut the extracurriculars and focus on getting revenge on the scoreboard.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the longest-tenured player on this Oilers team, had to keep his emotions in check with Kings defender Vladislav Gavrikov, who punched him in the face early in the game. The easy reaction would be to punch back, but the veteran Nugen-Hopkins took his licks and wound up scoring later in the game.
“It’s going to be physical, the emotions are high, and there’s probably going to be some stuff after the whistle,” Nugent-Hopkins told reporters this morning. “I think it’s important to stay poised out there and not retaliate and just play through the whistles and let the other stuff just kind of happen.”
Nuge on the doorstep pots one on the power play! 🚪 pic.twitter.com/6nUeQJZASl
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 23, 2024
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch also noticed his team’s discipline. Playoff hockey is full of emotion, and keeping those in check to focus on the larger goal is difficult. He was happy with how his team set the tone.
“It’s not necessarily easy to do,” Knoblauch said. “You get punched in the face and sometimes the referees feel it’s enough to call a penalty, sometimes it’s not… You just have to take them, and sometimes, you get rewarded with the power play.
“I liked our guy’s response and we want to be sticking up for each other, we want to have that pack mentality, but it’s really important that we’re not the ones taking that extra penalty.”
There is no doubt that the Kings will continue to poke and prod at the Oilers as the series continues. Keeping those retaliations in check will only get more difficult, but if the team can continue to succeed on the scoreboard, it could get easier.
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Thatcher Demko returned from injury just in time for the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs but now is injured again.
After the Vancouver Canucks’ victory in Game 1, Demko was not made available to the media as he was “receiving treatment.” This is not unusual, so was not heavily reported at the time. Monday’s practice was turned into an optional skate — just nine players participated — so Demko’s absence did not seem particularly significant.
But when Demko was also missing from Tuesday’s gameday skate, alarm bells started going off.
According to multiple reports — and now the Canucks’ head coach, Rick Tocchet —Demko will not play in Game 2 and is in fact questionable for the rest of their series against the Nashville Predators.
Demko made 22 saves on 24 shots, none bigger — and potentially injury-inducing — than his first-period save on Anthony Beauvillier where he went into the full splits.
While this is not necessarily where Demko got injured, it would be understandable if it was. Demko still stayed in the game and didn’t seem to be experiencing any difficulties at the time.
Demko is a major difference-maker for the Canucks and his injury casts a pall over the team’s emotional Game 1 victory.
Tocchet confirmed that Demko will not start in Game 2 but said Demko did skate on Monday on his own. He also said that Demko’s injury is unrelated to the knee injury he suffered during the season that caused him to miss five weeks. Instead, Tocchet suggested Demko was day-to-day, leaving open the possibility for his return in the first round.
TSN’s Farhan Lalji, however, has reported that Demko’s injury could indeed be to the same knee, even if it is not the same exact injury.
If Demko does indeed miss the rest of the series, the pressure will be on Casey DeSmith, who had a strong season when called upon intermittently as the team’s backup but struggled when thrust into the number-one role when Demko was injured. Behind DeSmith is rookie Arturs Silovs, who has come through with heroic performances in international competition for Latvia but hasn’t been able to repeat those performances at the NHL level.
DeSmith played one game against the Predators this season, making 26 saves on 28 shots in a 5-2 victory in December.
While DeSmith has limited experience in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, his one appearance was spectacular.
On May 3, 2022, DeSmith had to step in for the injured Tristan Jarry for the Pittsburgh Penguins, starting their first postseason game against the New York Rangers. DeSmith made 48 saves on 51 shots before leaving the game in the second overtime with an injury of his own, with Louis Domingue stepping in to make 17 more saves for the win.
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