Joe Biden joked Steven Stamkos was getting old after playing in the National Hockey League for 14 seasons, praised the Tampa Bay Lightning’s vaccine efforts and otherwise avoided politics while honouring the team for winning the Stanley Cup each of the past two seasons.
In a rare sports break amid his administration’s response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the president on Monday referenced first lady Jill Biden’s attendance at a vaccination event at the Lightning’s home arena last year and congratulated the Lightning for winning two pandemic championships: one in an empty building in a quarantined bubble and another in a packed house at home in Tampa.
“I’m not saying that the first lady being there at your arena during the playoffs is why you won,” Biden said with a smile. “But just saying that she was there during the election season, as well. She seems to show up when people win. Just something to think about.”
Biden made little mention of players other than Stamkos while talking about the Lighting’s back-to-back title runs, which relied heavily on Russian goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, forward Nikita Kucherov and defenceman Mikhail Sergachev. Vasilevskiy was the playoff MVP last year, and Kucherov was the top scorer in each postseason.
WATCH | Lightning visit White House with Stanley Cup:
Lightning visit White House with Stanley Cup
22 hours ago
Duration 15:00
U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Stanley Cup Champions, Tampa Bay Lightning at White House Monday in Washington. 15:00
All three players attended the event, and Sergachev shared photos of them around the White House on social media. There were no noticeable absences, and a handful of players from the Lightning’s 2020 championship team who had departed or retired even made appearances.
Just for this occasion, the team made a third trip to the nation’s capital in eight months after already visiting the Washington Capitals twice this season. The Lightning flew Sunday night after playing at the Florida Panthers and were set to return home before facing the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday in one of their final games of the regular season before the playoffs begin next week.
“Pretty much everybody was on board, and everybody that could make it — former players and stuff — they all tried to make it here,” alternate captain Ryan McDonagh said. “It’s just a great tradition that we have: You become part of a championship team, you get to go to the White House and meet the president.”
McDonagh spoke on team’s behalf
Despite the Lightning winning the Stanley Cup three times — in 2004, 2020 and 2021 — it was the organization’s first time visiting a sitting president at the White House. The 2004-05 NHL lockout prevented that year’s team from going, and the pandemic delayed this opportunity until nine months after the second of these back-to-back championships.
“It was a long time in the making,” Stamkos said. “We weren’t sure if we were going to get this opportunity, but it was certainly worth the wait.”
Stamkos, who is Canadian, deferred to McDonagh, a Minnesota native, to speak on behalf of the team at the ceremony. Players and coach Jon Cooper, who were wearing both Cup rings, were most impressed by Biden inviting them into the Oval Office to chat afterward.
“In the position he’s in [being] the leader of the free world and all that stuff, he has an amazing ability to wipe that persona aside and just be a human being like he was one of our teammates,” said Cooper, who is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada. “I kind of wanted to get greedy and sit down with a beer on a barstool with this guy and listen to the story of his life. You can see why he was elected president.”
Biden won some more points when he praised the Tampa area for Major League Baseball’s Rays reaching the World Series in 2020 and the NFL’s Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl months later. He said the Lightning “may be here next year — who knows?”
The Lightning are again among the NHL’s top teams and are looking to become the first to win the Cup three years in a row since the New York Islanders dynasty in the early 1980s.
“The good thing with our group is the hunger’s still there,” McDonagh said. “We don’t need any kind of extra motivation, but certainly this does heighten the excitement, for sure, going into the last week of the regular season and before the start of the playoffs.”
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
