Detroit rallies to force Game 7 against Sharks

DETROIT — The Detroit Red Wings will get a chance to complete one of the few pieces of history that has eluded the storied Original Six franchise.
The Wings will look to become just the fourth NHL team to overcome a 3-0 deficit to a win a best-of-seven playoff series after they rallied to down the San Jose Sharks 3-1 on Tuesday in Game 6 of their Western Conference semifinal.
Game 7 Thursday in San Jose.
Henrik Zetterberg and Valtteri Filppula scored third period goals and Darren Helm sealed the deal with an empty-netter.
Logan Couture gave the Sharks a 1-0 lead early in the third period, but San Jose could protect the lead.
Filppula’s goal came with 7:28 left to play.
In a series that is becoming a war of attrition, both teams were missing key pieces in this critical contest due to injuries. Detroit’s Johan Franzen (ankle) sat in favour of Mike Modano, while Ryane Clowe, the Sharks’ leading scorer in the post-season, stayed in San Jose with an upper body injury. Ben Eager replaced Clowe. Wings coach Mike Babcock also inserted Jiri Hudler back into the line in place of Kris Draper.
However, with the changes it was the Wings who found their game first. Detroit outshot the Sharks 18-6 in the opening frame as goalie Antii Niemi and his teammates were in complete survival mode. However, Niemi stood firm in the face of the onslaught as he not only had to stop a hail of rubber, but he had to do it with a lot of red and white crashing his crease. His best saves came against Niklas Kronwall, who swooped across the face of goal but was denied, and a glove save on Tomas Holmstrom from 20 feet out in the slot. After being a step slow all period, the Sharks had to be delighted to escape to the intermission with a scoreless tie.
The traffic remained pretty much one-way in the second period. It was becoming apparent that it would be up to Niemi to steal this one as Detroit outshot the Sharks 14-7. When Niemi wasn’t outstanding he was blessed by good fortune. Three times in the period, the Wings had him down and out and couldn’t score. Drew Miller shot wide off a Helm rebound, Dan Cleary hit the post on a breakaway after sending Niemi the wrong way on a deke and Holmstrom fired Pavel Datsyuk’s rebound wide at the buzzer of the middle frame.
Watching the masked-man at other end turn in a show-stopping performance is always dangerous. Just how dangerous became evident in early in the third period. Detroit defenceman Ruslan Salei turned the puck over and Wings goalie Jimmy Howard failed to control a weak shot allowing Couture to bat in the rebound at 3:54.
However, Zetterberg tipped in Kronwall’s wrist shot at 10:38 to send the crowd into a frenzy.
The Wings continued their Lazarus act when Datsyuk set up Filppula for his first goal and point of the series.
Detroit had one more scare to survive when Justin Abdelkader took a bad penalty, but the Wings were able to kill it off and Helm finished the scoring.
Windsor Star

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Canada lone holdout in reporting greenhouse gas emissions

OTTAWA — Canada has once again missed an international deadline for submitting an inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations.
While 42 governments, including from earthquake-stricken Japan, have submitted their data on emissions of the heat-trapping gases that warm the atmosphere, Canada is the only one behind schedule in reporting to the UN's climate change secretariat as part of its international obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
An Environment Canada spokesman said that the report was final, but had not been submitted for publication on the UN website because of the election campaign.
"During an election, the government confines itself to necessary public business — that is, matters that are either routine or too urgent to be postponed," wrote Henry Lau in a statement. "This is a factual report on emissions sources and sinks in Canada. While the report is final and the data will not change, we intend to use the grace period allowed by the UNFCCC to ensure that all parties, including the newly re-elected government, are properly informed before proceeding."
The data to be reported from 2009 is required on an annual basis and allows government officials and scientists to measure progress in reducing pollution as well as whether individual countries are meeting their pledges to fight climate change. But Canada has been criticized in recent years for being late in several cases for reports on its greenhouse gas pollution data.
Graham Saul, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, a coalition of environmental, faith-based and labour union groups, said it reflected a pattern of behaviour by the Canadian government.
"If the Japanese can pull it together in the midst of a devastating natural disaster then I don't know what excuse the government of Canada could have for failing to produce it on time," said Saul in an interview.
He added that the delays suggest the Canadian government is trying to do as little as possible to address climate change and deserves to be criticized as the worst in the industrialized world at promoting progress in international action to reduce dependency on fossil fuels such as gasoline, to reduce pollution and promote cleaner energy options.
mdesouza@postmedia.com
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Osama bin Laden hideout a videogame battleground

SAN FRANCISCO - Images of the Pakistani compound where Osama bin Laden made his final stand have been turned into a videogame battleground.
A software map named fy-abbottabad in reference to the city where a U.S. military team killed the infamous Al-Qaeda leader in a May 2 raid was available Monday as a setting for play in online computer shooter game "Counter-Strike."
The map program described as a creation by "Fletch" had been downloaded more than 6,400 times from gamebanana.com website as of late Monday.
The setting is a virtual version of the compound where bin Laden was shot dead in the raid by U.S. Navy SEALs, but does not feature interiors of buildings. Players battle it out on the grounds of the compound.
Fletch dismissed some online criticism that the bin Laden slaying was too fresh to be made light of in a videogame.
"What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that the only thing this map has in common with Osama is location," Fletch said in a blog post at gamebanana.com.
"I can see how people would think it is in bad taste, but honestly if that’s your opinion you may as well protest the whole game (as well as many others)."
"Counter-Strike" games made by Washington State-based Valve Software let people play online as members of terrorist or counter-terrorist groups with "maps" for missions such as assassinations or the saving of hostages.
Fletch indicated the map made available was an interim creation and the "real update" was nearly completed.
"I find it a lot more enjoyable than this (fy-) version," Fletch wrote.
"The idea is that the T’s (terrorists) have returned to destroy sensitive information before it can be located and taken away."

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Liberals consider delayed leadership race in wake of unprecedented election defeat

OTTAWA — The federal Liberals could stretch out their next leadership race until the summer of 2013, under recommendations from the party's senior management that were released Tuesday.
The party's national board said it wanted to move forward with this plan "solely with a view to the interests of the party as a whole having full regard to the views and rights of its members and to the unprecedented situation in which the party finds itself."
Last week, the Liberals were reduced to 34 seats and third-party status in the House of Commons for the first time in its history as Canadians elected the Conservatives to form a majority government and the New Democrats to be the official Opposition.
Michael Ignatieff announced after the results that he would step down as leader, after failing to hold on to his own seat of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in the Toronto area.
"The national board of the Liberal Party of Canada is acutely aware of the challenges that confront the party in the wake of the recently concluded federal general election, as well as its responsibilities in these circumstances," said the board in a statement sent to the party's caucus.
The elected and defeated candidates in caucus will meet Wednesday to discuss the recommendations.
The party's board also suggested that an interim leader should not be allowed to run in the next leadership race. It also appeared to close the door on the interim leader exploring merger options with the New Democrats by suggesting that he or she not be allowed to "engage in any discussions or negotiations" to fundamentally "change the nature or structure of the party" without approval from a resolution from delegates at a convention.
Former prime minister Jean Chretien suggested earlier this week that Liberal MP Bob Rae, a former premier of Ontario, could be a good candidate to lead the party on an interim basis.
But some elected and defeated candidates suggested that the party must fix its own problems before moving on to other issues such as a leadership race.
"I think the period of clear reflection and careful analysis of where we are as a party and what we offer to Canadians is needed first," said Joyce Murray, who was re-elected in Vancouver Quadra. "Anything that commits to a roadmap forward when we haven't reflected on where we are at is, I think, premature."
Murray said she believed that Canadians still want a moderate government in the centre of the political spectrum but acknowledged that the Liberals failed to connect. She said she was also committed to ensure that B.C.'s perspective is included in the discussion.
Other Liberals also suggested that the party needs to listen more to its members about policy and direction, as opposed to adopting a top-down approach from the leader's office and senior party officials.
"It is the leadership of the party that has lost its way," wrote Jim Karygiannis, re-elected in the riding of Scarborough-Agincourt, in an e-mail sent out to Liberals. "We need to listen to the rank and file. People have to be given a voice in re-building the party, in rediscovering our roots, in making policy."
Gerard Kennedy, a former Liberal leadership candidate who was defeated in the riding of Parkdale-High Park by the NDP's Peggy Nash, said the party has in some ways become too "Ottawa-centric," which isolates it from Canadians who consider themselves Liberals.
"The renewal has got to involve the grassroots," Kennedy said in an interview. "It's just more important, because we've had this habit, I think, acquired in power and never shaken off, of deferring too much to a leader and a leader's office as a way of supporting our political movement."
The proposed delay in launching the new leadership race would have to be approved by the party's rank and file in an "extraordinary" convention, to be conducted on the Internet on June 18, the party's board suggested. It is also proposing to hold a national convention in January 2012 as an important phase in the rebuilding process that would give members "a full opportunity" to propose new ideas and debate them.
The actual leadership race would follow a new voting system, based on changes approved by the party in 2009, that would allow each member to have one vote in a system that gives 100 points to every riding association across the country.
The vote would no longer require delegates at a convention with special ballots for various party committees, for members of caucus or others in the party, as was the case in the 2006 convention that elected Stephane Dion as leader.
mdesouza(at)postmedia.com

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Canada expected to cut back on financial assistance to Afghanistan

OTTAWA — Canada is expected to "scale back" financial assistance to Afghanistan as it draws down troop levels and winds up the combat mission in that country, according to a confidential cable from the U.S. Embassy released by WikiLeaks.
The cable, dated Feb. 18, 2010, voices the concerns of U.S. diplomats about Canada's involvement in the Afghanistan mission post-2011.
The cable points out that Canada's military mission is expected to end in 2011 — Canadian troops will be withdrawn from a combat role but others will remain in a training capacity — and U.S. officials are worried that financial assistance may be withdrawn as well.
"Canada will not only end its military mission in Afghanistan in 2011 but will likely significantly scale back its assistance after 2011 and offer only relatively modest contributions to Afghan Trust Funds," reads the cable.
"With growing concerns over budget deficits (which are unusual in recent Canadian history), Canadian leaders will be loathe to make any new generous commitments for Afghanistan in what is already an unpopular cause within Canada."
The diplomatic communique compares the support for the Afghan mission in Canada with the outpouring of goodwill that Canadians had for Haiti after the earthquake in January 2010. Afghanistan remains the largest recipient of foreign aid from Canada, followed by Haiti.
The cable goes on to say that Regan Watts, a policy adviser to outgoing foreign minister Lawrence Cannon, said Canada had opted for a "small" role in Afghan funding, although the five-year commitment of $1.9 billion through 2011 would stay intact.
U.S. officials were concerned that while Canada's Afghan policy was not set in stone, "the trend lines have been clear for some time."
Watts also apparently noted that Canadian officials at the time increasingly viewed Haiti as "overtaking Afghanistan" as its main foreign policy priority and its major assistance recipient.
The cable says there was "no evident political will by either the Conservatives or the Liberals to revisit the issue," and the situation in Haiti made it even less likely that the government would "go out on a political limb to provide significant new resources for Afghanistan."

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Nevada hunters recall finding 'amazing' B.C. woman alive

VANCOUVER — Diehard outdoor enthusiasts Chad Herman, his wife Whitnie, and her father Troy Sill, were trudging through washed-out roads in northeast Nevada's high desert scavenging for elk antlers last Friday when they came upon an unexpected sight: a Chevy Astro minivan parked off the two-track road in the rock-rutted, brush-covered landscape.
As they got closer, a woman in jeans and plaid shirt popped her head out of the van's sliding doors.
"You OK?" Sill gestured by putting his thumb and index finger together in a circle.
"No," the woman shook her head, barely able to get her words out. "I'm not OK."
That chance encounter — details of which were shared for the first time Monday with Postmedia News — marked the beginning of the end of Penticton, B.C., resident Rita Chretien's harrowing seven-week ordeal alone in middle-of-nowhere ranch country, a case that has drawn headlines and an outpouring of support from around the world.
"She's an amazing woman, I'll say that," Sill, 48, said Monday back at his job as a heavy-equipment operator at Le Garza Exploration. "She must be a God-fearing woman. She did everything right."
As the trio got off their all-terrain vehicles, the gravity of the situation soon became apparent. Sheets of paper were pressed up against the windshield. One said "STUCK." Another said "PLEASE HELP." Bright-coloured blankets hung over the window sills, presumably to attract attention to passersby.
"Thank God," the woman inside said with a gush of emotion and tears. "I'm going to live."
In a whispered and rambling fashion, Chretien, 56, recounted her story: How she and her husband, Albert, 59, had been on their way to a trade show in Las Vegas. How they attempted a shortcut but took some wrong turns and then ended up stuck in the mud on March 19. How they were just a pair of "dumb ol' Canadians." How she wasn't sure she would've made it through the weekend.
Chretien said she was worried about her husband, who had left on March 22 to go find help — GPS device in hand — but never returned.
But "he's a fighter," she said over and over again. "He's a fighter."
Chretien said she had passed the time by reading and re-reading books and writing in her diary and got by on a bit of trail mix and candy.
Each day, she would walk to a nearby stream to get water. But in recent days, she didn't have the strength, so she had to settle for water from nearby puddles, which didn't taste so good.
As the trio offered her some bottled water, a bag of Doritos chips and some beef jerky, they huddled together to figure out how the heck they were going to get her out of there.
Whitnie Herman, 26, a logistics analyst at Newmont Mining, said she tried calling 911 on her cellphone but couldn't get through.
They considered pulling the van out with their ATVs, but Chretien told them she had sapped the van's battery and there was no gas in the tank.
Maybe they could drive her out on their ATVs, they thought. But they quickly dropped that idea given her weak condition and the rough terrain.
Then Chad Herman, 31, an electrical and instrumentation supervisor at Barrick Goldstrike Mines, remembered that there was someone living on a ranch about nine miles away near the abandoned mining town of Rowland.
He asked Chretien if she'd be OK by herself for about an hour while they fetched for help. She said yes.
When the trio got to the ranch, they scaled the locked gates and were prepared to break down the door if they had to.
"We've got to get to a phone, no matter what," Chad Herman said.
Fortunately, the ranch owner was home.
They called 911 and arranged to meet a sheriff's helicopter at a bridge over Bruneau River. From there, they would lead the chopper through the canyons to Chretien.
When they returned, they were shocked by what they saw.
Chretien — adrenalin clearly pulsing through her body — had taken down the blankets, ripped down the pieces of paper from the windshield, had her purse slung over her shoulder and suitcases packed and ready to go.
She even appeared to have fixed up her hair.
"She was smiling, she was happy," Chad Herman recalled.
As paramedics attended to her, Chretien handed the family their bag of Doritos chips — neatly rolled up and clipped at the top.
Whitnie Herman couldn't believe it.
"I wish you the best," she said, leaning in to give Chretien a hug.
Chretien asked for the family's contact information, but Whitnie Herman said not to worry. "Just take care of yourself."
On Monday, doctors at St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho, said Chretien's health was continuing to improve. She had moved from a liquid diet to eating yogurt, other dairy products and rice, and was continuing with physical therapy.
Her spirits were described as "extremely high."
Meanwhile, a 20-person search team resumed their hunt for Albert Chretien, navigating the rugged terrain on horseback and four-wheelers and, thanks to clearing weather, utilizing a helicopter for the first time.
At a news conference on Sunday, Chretien's children said they were praying for a second miracle.
Out of the spotlight and back at their regular jobs, a trio of elk antler-hunting adventure-seekers were praying for the same.
dquan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/dougquan

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