The BC Lions' emphatic dominance of the West BC Lions pre-season sensations

the game — to a scoreless second half. Who in the CFL remembers such a phenomenon happening? Few, because the last time a western division team beat the Bombers on their home turf was in 2018.

Highlighting key defensive players for the Lions is a problem because they all work well together. Each tackle is a group effort, but some Canadian players have been making big impacts on each play. Quebecer Mathieu Betts has been an explosive pass rusher on the defensive line, leading the team in sacks, dropping three of the Lions' seven sacks against Winnipeg. Boseko “Bo” Lokombo, the CongoleseBritish Columbian linebacker from Abbotsford’s W. J. Mouat Secondary is the Lions’ ripper. The CFL’s 2021 most outstanding Canadian leads the defence with 14 total tackles, while former UBC Thunderbird Ben Hladik from Vernon B.C. has 10 tackles, and an interception against Winnipeg in a great start this season.

3DownNation’s JC Abbott wrote was “the best” he’s seen Adams play. Adams’ opening drive of the game set the tone for his short quarter and change as the QB. Rhythmic passing, quick escapes, and decisive running, Adams drove the Lions down the field quickly, scoring on the team’s first possession. Overall, Adams threw 12/12 pass completions, including three touchdown receptions for a total of 213 passing yards, and rushed for 26 yards.

On his performance, Adams said in the post-game against Calgary that he “felt a lot more comfortable” leading the offence. “Probably for the first time in my CFL career, I was seeing things clearly. Jordan [Maksymic, offensive

Many sports fans have heard “the best offence is a good defence” — a twist on the old war proverb that may be proving true for the Lions. Defensive coordinator Ryan has harnessed the weapons of the Lions’ roster to pitch the first franchise shutout in 46 years against Edmonton, and only allowed Winnipeg to kick two field goals for six points. He’s pulled from his experience playing under defence-oriented head coaches such as legendary coach Wally Buono, and Mike Benevides. After signing as a defensive back coach in 2021, Phillips has gained the confidence of another defensive-minded head coach, Rick Campbell, to run the Lions’ defence and has done well to produce the best defence currently in the CFL. While there’s lots of football left to be played this year, the Lions are showing their true culture with their dominant victories. Next on the B.C. schedule is the reigning Grey Cup Champions, the Toronto Argonauts, on July 3 — another test for the Lions to overcome. Argos quarterback Chad Kelly is an aggressive rusher and accurate passer that has control of his offence and defensively, the Argos backfield covers passes well. Vernon Adams and his receiving corps will have to be firing well off the whistle to establish an early lead. coordinator] did a great job just dialing things up, guys are making tremendous catches for me. O-line did their thing, and I used my feet a little more to extend some drives.”

“I want to dial in and try to be a consistent quarterback.” Adams continued. “I got a lot more to do, show, and prove to myself and I plan on doing that, but it's going to take one game at a time.”

Justin McInnis, a veteran wide receiver who caught for 60 yards and received two out of three of Adams’ touchdown passes, had good things to say about his quarterback’s performance and

Phillips

continued from page 14 the team’s chemistry.

“The atmosphere of this team, it's always ‘work hard, compete’, but we have fun, smile, laugh — just playing for this group, you can tell is something really special,” said McInnis. “[Adams played] outstanding from every aspect… He keeps his composure, he keeps us locked in the huddle… He's always been that kind of leader and when you finally meet him, you can see how serious he takes football.”

The secondary QB options, Dominique Davis and Dane Evans flipflopped out of QB in the pre-season, with Davis looking the stronger out of the two. However, the veteran backup showed slight mental stress when he got on a cold passing streak. Evans was successful in creating two scoring drives for the Lions in the first pre-season game, but in both games couldn’t use the full offence, only able to connect with one receiver per drive against Calgary.

If either of the QBs plays confidently, they are covered in the receiving corps. The proven veterans played to their already-known abilities, while Ayden Eberhardt stood out from the rest of the rookie pass catchers. Eberhardt caught six receptions for 104 yards in a skilled and flashy manner against the Riders and has been a workhorse in training camp and on special teams.

On defence, defensive coordinator Ryan Phillips and defensive line coach John Bowman have put together a front four that starts to plug and stop the run — the biggest hole the team has defensively.

On the D-line, there are key players that stand out for the Lions: Tibo Debaillie, nicknamed “The Belgian Freight Train,” was the Lions’ most impactful Global player last season and looks to have improved at training camp. Mathieu Betts from Quebec, picked up a clutch tackle and a quarterback sack. Rookie Linebacker Ryder Varga had two good shows in the pre-season, dropping five tackles on defence and stops on special teams. The Saskatchewan-born linebacker will be a key player as the Lions still don’t have a solid side linebacker option. However, the Lions still show a bend-but-not-break style of play. The defensive backs (DB) rookies and safeties were caught sleeping on passes that scored big pickups for Calgary, and pass interference penalties plagued the Lions’ in both pre-season games.

Formula One// Dreams start to brew with Lewis Hamilton’s P2

Head coach Rick Campbell isn’t too worried about the kinks in the defence so early into the season. “I'm not gonna read too much into it,” says Campbell. “As coaches, we're always concerned about everything. We wanna be as good as we can be. But I wouldn't read too much into this game. There's a lot of new guys doing different things.”

The Lions opened the CFL season against Calgary on June 8. Vernon Adams had another good performance, passing for two more touchdowns and totaling 270 yards, leading the Lions to a 25-15 win. The O-Line looked strong again and opened up space for Taquan Mizzell to rush for 81 yards off 12 carries, and Dominique Rhymes caught eight passes for 100 yards.

The long-awaited upgrades to Mercedes’ W14 arrived and have shown the steps the team is taking to salvage their season.

“Mega job guys, mega job!” exclaimed Lewis Hamilton over his team radio as he finished P2 at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Teammate, George Russell, finished P3 and shared the podium with Hamilton, scoring the team’s first double podium finish of the season. The podium spotlight is in part to do with the massive upgrade package developed for the W14 by the Mercedes Petronas team at their Brackley factory.

The new W14 is not a true B-spec car due to the budget cap not allowing teams to change the chassis and monocoque completely. This new W14, which I will dub the W14 Mark 2 (Mk. 2), features completely redesigned aerodynamics, underfloor, and front suspension concepts.

The most noticeable change the Mk. 2 has are its sidepods; gone is the infamous zero-sidepod concept, and in comes full-sized sidepods that resemble every top team on the grid. Mercedes’ sidepods are large and push out air similar to Ferrari’s design. They also have a waterfall-esque slope in the back to feed air into the beam wing, and a rear diffuser akin to Aston Martin.

The underfloor has changed to allow better airflow through the venturi tunnels, and the redone front suspension is a push rod configuration similar to Red Bull and Aston Martin. This gives the W14 better tire degradation through the race, and lets it ride lower to the ground to improve the underfloor and aerodynamics without the deadly porpoising that plagued the W13 last year.

The Mk. 2 isn’t completely perfect, and Mercedes still has a lot of catching up to do to reach Red Bull. Even with the upgrades, Lewis Hamilton finished 24 seconds behind Max Verstappen in P1 at Barcelona. However, the new W14 overall race pace was on fire in Spain. Hamilton had a great launch at lights out and easily overtook Lance Stroll in his Aston Martin once the drag reduction system (DRS) was enabled on Lap 3. The Mk. 2 was fast and still had good tire management even on the softest tire compound. With a clever pit stop strategy, Hamilton was able to easily catch and clear Carlos Sainz in his slower Ferrari SF-23.

George Russell also had a fabulous race day despite a sad qualifying performance that saw him start the race in P12. His launch at the start was better than Hamilton’s, jumping up multiple positions on the opening lap, and maintaining his momentum throughout the race. Russell’s W14 Mk.2 with the help of DRS made overtaking look easy on the Circuit Barcelona de Catalunya’s main straight. Blowing past his competition, Russell was able to outpace Sergio Perez, who started in P11 in the still dominant RB19.

“This is what we were hoping for when we brought the upgrades,” said

Hamilton in his post-race interviews. “We had hoped for more in the sense of a bigger step. The actual performance step they told us was under two-tenths. That’s still good, but not the step that everyone is working so hard towards, but we’ll take it. But this result is definitely what we are working towards, and this is amazing. Down to all the great, great work from the people back at the factory just keeping their heads down. I hope everyone is feeling very proud back at the factory.”

“I mean we’ve always been showing in Barcelona, but the upgrades definitely worked as expected which is really promising to see,” said Russell. “Thanks, a huge amount to everybody who put so much hard work and effort into this. It’s truly paying off. But we’re already looking forward to the next races and already looking to the next updates and how we can close that gap to Red Bull.”

Our home race, the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, followed Barcelona. It was an exciting ninth round filled with overtakes and tire strategies across the grid and made for a great spectacle. Max Verstappen finished in P1 yet again, securing Red Bull’s 100th race win to join an elite class of teams in the sport. Fernando Alonso finished in P2, driving his newly upgraded Aston Martin. Hamilton, in the new W14, drove well and ended in P3, scoring Mercedes’ first back-to-back podium of the season. Mercedes will look to maintain their podium streak at the upcoming Austrian Grand Prix until their next major step in their upgrade plans — which will most likely be shown at the British Grand Prix at the historic Silverstone Circuit. It’s a longstanding track that the team will have lots of data on, but time will tell if they can make use of the technical direction of their car this year.

Writer Taleen Voskuni talks to The Cascade

Books // The author of Sorry, Bro expands on her novel about queer Armenians.

GIANNA DINWOODIE

In an interview with ArmenianAmerican author Taleen Voskuni, I had the pleasure of learning about her writing process and the details that went into creating her debut novel Sorry, Bro. The book, which I recently reviewed for The Cascade, centers around Nareh “Nar” Bedrossian and her experience in coming to terms with her queerness and how that integrates with her culture.

This interview has been edited for clarity and flow.

going to get serious about trying to write a novel and unlearning everything I thought I knew. I embarked on this great writing journey where I took a lot of classes, outlined, and wrote a novel that was not, Sorry, Bro, but another romance that will never see the light of day. Then, in 2020, I started Sorry, Bro The words and the voice flowed in a way that they had never done before. I never wrote with voice until, Sorry, Bro, but now, I have a pretty clear authorial voice.

What was your inspiration for Sorry, Bro? Was there a reason that you decided to write from Nar's point of view?

It's Nar's journey. Nar has the most to learn in this book, and that's usually a good person to pick as your protagonist. Even if you have multiple points of view and you're not sure who's the main character, it's usually the person that needs to grow the most.

Nar had a lot of misconceptions; beliefs she held as true, but that weren't true. I wanted to really get in her shoes and show the way she changes her mind about her identity. We were in her head for the whole thing, so we really got to know her.

Was there inspiration for characters like Nar, her grandma or her mother?

Hi, Taleen. Could you start by telling me about the beginning of your writing journey?

My mom just reminded me the other day that when I was about five years old I would draw pictures because I couldn't write and I couldn't spell, but I was telling stories. I always loved to do it. It was in 2016 that I decided I was

Yes and no. The characters were all inspired by bits of real life people. The mom isn't one-to-one with my mom. I actually never knew my grandmother, my Armenian grandmother, which is so sad and such a loss for me. Apparently she was just the kindest woman in the world. I did know my Armenian grandfather, so Nene [Nar’s grandma] was a really fun character to write. I infused bits of my grandfather into her and into who I imagine.

In Sorry, Bro, you begin your chapters with selected proverbs. Was there a reason you decided to do this?

Yeah, I saw Nancy Kricorian, who's the author of Zabelle, among other books, posting those proverbs on Twitter and they captured my imagination. I bought a book of proverbs, and then I reached out to Nancy and she suggested a second book that I should look at. I read those books and highlighted specific proverbs and then decided I'm going to make them the epigraphs of my book. They just infused a little bit of extra Armenian culture.

Is there a reason you called it Sorry, Bro?

Yeah, it was a joke. Originally, my husband and I were out to dinner and he knows that “bro” is very Armenian, so he said you should call it, Sorry, Bro: a Tale of Bi Awakening or Lesbian Awakening. I decided I was going to cut that subtitle, but Sorry, Bro, is actually a really great title! I wanted it to have a slightly Armenian element but of course no one but Armenians see it that way. You either love the title or you hate it, but it’s memorable and people won't easily forget what it's called.

What has the response from the Armenian community been like after writing a queer focused book?

It's been better than I thought. I've still braced myself for negative comments, but none have come. I had a surprising amount of people from the Armenian community come to my launch event. People I would've never thought would come, came. They showed up and they supported me.

I’ve had a lot of “oh my gosh, this reminds me of my, my mom, my aunt, my teacher.” That's such a great feeling for me to know that I've been able to portray characters from our lives on the page in a way that they haven't appeared before. There have been lots of Armenian books, but not modern, lighthearted diaspora ones.

Have we seen the last of Nar's story? Would you ever consider writing a sequel?

It might be the end of their story, but they're also good now. Sometimes it's hard when characters get the happy ending to then write a new book that has conflict because I don't want that.

Would you ever consider writing another book focused on Armenian identity, but in a different way?

I did a little bit with my second book Lavash at First Sight, where there's a lot of almost implied Armenian culture. I love it. It's what I wanna keep writing about. There's still unexplored territory there and more that needs to come out.

What's next for you, would it just be Armenian-focused novels or do you think you would ever decide to branch out into something different?

We'll see, never say never. There may always be Armenian characters in my books, but the deep focus wouldn't be Armenian. Through writing Sorry, Bro, I realized I want to write from my experience. Maybe if I run out of things I want to say about being Armenian I will shift my focus. But for now there’s still a lot I want to say.