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The conditional purchase agreement signed on Tuesday is a coup for Bombardier, and ushers in a change in Canadian aviation. That's because the CSeries jets can fly 5,400 km without refuelling, much farther than the current fleet of Q400 turboprop planes that Porter flies to connect 19 cities across Eastern Canada and the U.S.
The airline said the expansion could mean 1,000 new employees, which would bring the total to 2,400.
Potential price war
Joseph D'Cruz, a University of Toronto business professor and aviation expert, said the move could be good news for consumers.
The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown. (Marivel Taruc/CBC)
"It's going to be interesting to watch how WestJet and Air Canada react once Porter starts biting into their business," he told CBC News. "They're going to retaliate, and the only way they can retaliate is lower prices."
"This may trigger a vicious price war," D'Cruz said.
Air Canada said that before it takes a position on further investment at the island airport, it wants assurance that takeoff and landing slots will become available for other airlines that have been seeking increased access.
Canada's largest airline currently has only enough landing and takeoff slots to offer service between Montreal and the airport on the Toronto waterfront.
WestJet Airlines did not directly address Porter's plans, but said it remains focused on keeping its own business.
"We expect competition to increase and are preparing accordingly," WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said in a statement.
Political dispute
The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown.
The airline will seek permission to fly the long-range jets out of the island airport, where the runway would need to be extended into what is now water by 168 metres at each end.
Jets are currently not allowed to fly out of the waterfront airport except under special circumstances, and any changes would need to be approved under the airport's three-way agreement between the City of Toronto, the federal government and Toronto Port Authority.
The Toronto Port Authority said it wouldn't take any position on Porter's business plans.
"The TPA will not consider any change of use to the airport until a determination is first made by the elected representatives on Toronto City Council regarding Porter's proposed changes to the 1983 Tripartite Agreement," it said in a news release.
Deluce said Porter expects to have all the needed approvals within six months.
Politicians who represent the area at the municipal and federal level were quick to say before the announcement that any plans to expand Toronto's island airport would be out of the question.
"You can't pave the lake," Toronto Coun. Adam Vaughan told CBC News on Tuesday.
Porter executives went out of their way Wednesday to underline how quiet the new Bombardier jets will be designed to be.
"We knew that operating from a downtown urban airport would require us to be responsible operators and good neighbours, said Deluce, who launched the airline in 2006. "We believe that our track record of nearly seven years has shown that Porter has delivered on the promises we made when we announced plans to operate from this airport."
"We believe the CS100 is the perfect aircraft for the next stage of our growth for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is the quietest commercial jet in production."
Robert Kokonis, co-founder of airline consulting firm AirTrav, noted to CBC News that the thrust reverser required on landing may be louder than Deluce's promise of an engine that is "whisper" quiet.
"The runway's not long enough and to get an agreement to lengthen the runway, they’re going to have to go before … three levels of government, not to mention community opposition, environmental studies, so there’s a fair degree of long shot in Bob Deluce’s plans for Porter today," said Kokonis, who also questioned how the expansion will be financed.
In a separate interview with The Canadian Press, Kokonis noted that Porter's planes have been flying less full while load factors at WestJet and Air Canada have been improving.
"In a zero sum game where they're all sort of chasing the same passenger, it does give one pause for concern that Porter might be struggling in some areas."
Despite the expansion, Deluce said taking the privately held airline public and raising money through an initial public offering is not a priority right now.
The company had planned to issue shares on the public markets in the past, but shelved them for various reasons.
"We've not thought about an IPO in most recent times," Deluce said. "Sometime in the future it's a possibility."
The Vancouver Canucks, who bombed out at 28th overall and got wrecked by the draft lottery, are now in a position to fight for playoffs. With a game in hand over the eighth-place Calgary Flames and only one point back, all the critics who portrayed the Canucks as a directionless failure are being proved wrong: the Canucks are not a failure.
USA Today projected the team would hit 65 points, while EA predicted even worse with 63 points in their season simulation. If the Canucks were to be truly that bad, they would have the lowest team points since Edmonton and Buffalo in 2014-15.
But no – the Canucks started off the year 4-0-0, and are one of a few teams that have seven players with ten or more goals – Bo Horvat, who in his third season leads the team, has broken out into the next star, with 14 goals and 31 points in 48 games and an All Star Game Selection. Brandon Sutter, who was injured for the majority of last year, has 12, Henrik Sedin (congratulations on 1000 points!) has 11 along with brother Daniel, Sven Baertschi, and Markus Granlund (whose trade from Calgary for Hunter Shinkaruk drew heavy criticism). Summer free agent acquisition Loui Eriksson has 10 after a very slow start to the season. Alex Burrows, who was considered to be an overpaid buyout candidate, has worked himself onto a spot in the top 9 with Horvat and Baertschi and has seven goals.
Ryan Miller has shown why he was signed to his contract. While he’s got a middling-but-decent 2.50 GAA and .919 sv%, he’s played well, stuck up for his team, and been a source of leadership in the dressing room.
Troy Stecher, who played on the North Dakota team with Canuck prospect numero uno Brock Boeser, has shown incredible skill as a rookie defenseman coming straight out of college. His moves have left fans’ jaws agape and his work ethic has fans and management alike falling in love with him. Nikita Tryamkin, brought over from Russia at the end of the season in 2016, has not looked out of place, despite being held out of games early for being reportedly out of shape. He is constantly a source of physicality and solid puck movement (except when he ices the puck). Even Luca Sbisa has looked good this year – which is much-needed, given first pairing Alex Edler and Chris Tanev’s injuries.
You’d think that injuries would stop the Canucks. It didn’t.
Of course, there lies just under half a season left to play, and anything can happen. But despite injuries, doubting fans, and faithless media, they’ve managed to pull through pretty well and will find a way if their efforts toward playoffs are hampered.
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We are eight weeks into the season, and we only have three weeks left of the LCS regular season and fantasy. The pressure to win is increasing exponentially and decisions have more weight behind them now that the end is upon us.
Week 8 Analysis
Last week, I incorrectly predicted Millenium, Roccat, Dignitas, and Alliance. My data incorrectly predicted Roccat, Dignitas, CLG, and Gambit. I made the mistake of thinking that Mil was on a downswing, when in reality they were just being horribly inconsistent which they showed in their crushing victory over Alliance and their close game with CW. Alliance was the exact opposite: I thought that they were just having a fluke week on super week and that their games vs Roccat and Millenium would boost them back up. Instead, they went 0-2 and look extremely vulnerable for the first time this season. It seemed expected that Dig would at least have close games with LMQ and CLG, but they were crushed in both games and garnered less than half of what was expected of them. Roccat went 2-0 against SK and Alliance. CLG went 2-0 against TSM and Dig in crushing victories. Gambit swapped their roster around and not even NiQ could post a decent score this week. SK did much worse than expected this week, however, they were expected to do the worst, or the 2nd worst in each of their respective positions, so I would say that was still accurate.
Overall, my data predictions were extremely accurate and fairly precise last week. I was 0.56% accurate, and +/- 9.53 points precise for both EU and NA last week. A lot of that deviation comes from EU where teams like Gambit, SK, and Roccat scored upwards of 30 points off from the predicted values. In fact, EU was +/- 11.51 points precise while NA was +/- 7.54 points precise. The good thing about EU is that it remains extremely accurate due to many games being stomps. When one team in EU scores over, another team will score just as much under the projection.
I found that another good way to compare how well predictions worked is to rank all players based on their predictions, and then see where they ended up for their actual performance. For last week, the two tables are here:
Projected Week 8
Actual Week 8
As you can see, even though teams like SK did much worse than predicted, they were still predicted to be some of the worst players going into week 8, and they ended in relatively the same spots.
Week 9 Method
Not many changes this week. The biggest change is that I am including the chart that ranks the players by their position which can be found directly below.
And the points projected for each player (M3):
Top Lane
FNC SOAZ 42.61 points
Fnatic is now #1 in EU by elo, and they have crushed their competition in recent weeks. They also play the two weakest teams in EU this week: Gambit and CW. I’m going to spoil the rest of this for you, Fnatic is #1 in every position, and they will all have the same reasoning as s0AZ. Start them.
TSM Dyrus 33.67 points
TSM is a strong team that struggles to consistently beat the top teams in NA. This week, they play LMQ and coL. That seems a little contradictory for them to do well this week, but TSM players average 14 points a game against LMQ even though they have not beaten LMQ. They also average 25 points against coL. So expect TSM to do well this week. Dyrus is the biggest risk of the entire TSM roster because he only averages 6.5 points a game against LMQ and about 18.5 points a game against coL.
LMQ Ackerman 31.15 points
Ackerman has been one of the best top laners throughout the split and he is lucky enough to be playing against TSM and CLG this week. Most teams score a lot of points for their top laners against CLG, and LMQ has yet to lose to TSM this split. If Ackerman performs to his average against these teams, he is in line to get 51 points, 31 from TSM and 20 from CLG. I would definitely start Ackerman.
Jungle
FNC Cyanide 40.78 points
Fnatic player. See Soaz. See the past two weeks.
TSM Amazing 39.47 points
TSM plays coL and LMQ this week and both teams like to have games that either last extremely long or have a lot of kills. Amazing has 36 points on average from these teams, and his aggressive playstyle will be rewarded in these probably high-scoring games.
Mil KottenX 32.52 points
KottenX always plays well. He has had maybe one bad week this split, but he has consistently been one of the top performers on a team that goes for kills. Mil plays a struggling SK and a resurgent Roccat this week, so they might have issues, but I thought they would have issues last week and almost all of them were #1 in their respective positions.
Mid
FNC xPeke 48.48 points
I tried warning you guys. Fnatic is #1 in every position, and I think those predictions are fair. Keep reading.
TSM Bjergsen 44.61 points
Oh, I forgot to mention, TSM is #2 in every position this week as well. Again, I think #2 is fair for all of them except for Dyrus, and entirely possible. Unless they give Vasilii Tristana. Then your fantasy points can RIP.
All Froggen 41.99 points
Even when most of Alliance underperformed last week, Froggen remained strong. Alliance has an easier schedule this week, and they will hopefully perform better than last week. I feel confident with Froggen being my #3 mid laner.
ADC
FNC Rekkles 54.72 points
Even if FNC wasn’t all #1 right now, I think Rekkles would still be #1. Amazing player, team is playing better than ever, “easy” week; all of that means a lot of fantasy points.
TSM WildTurtle 44.63 points
TSM is 2nd again. WildTurtle has been playing amazingly ever since the casters started talking about him not having a game with more than 5 (or was it 7) kills in this split. I think the players just enjoy proving Jatt wrong and it is very likely that it can be an NA LCS game that they play amongst themselves.
CLG Doublelift 41.69 points
He’s in the number three position along with his trusty partner and the more attractive half of rush hour: Aphromoo. He plays LMQ and EG this week, and on average would score 40 points against those teams. EG has not looked like they have improved much since the last time CLG played them, and LMQ vs CLG is always a high-kill game due to both teams always trying to make plays to get back in the game.
Support
FNC Yellowstar 47.94 points
Supports are very reliant on how well their team does. Fnatic is doing well. Yellowstar will do well. He has also played amazingly the past 2 weeks. Start him.
TSM Gleeb 37.35 points
TSM will probably do well. TSM likes to snowball games from kills. Kills mean assists. Assists mean free fantasy points for whoever started Gleeb.
CLG Aphromoo 34.10 points
APHROMOO! The community-titled “Best Player NA” has been playing outstanding recently. CLG has historically scored a lot of points against EG and LMQ, and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon. I would start him, especially alongside his more attractive partner Doublelift.
Teams
Fnatic 34 points
This is like the really bad “Knock Knock” joke involving bananas and an orange. Except there are no oranges to make me glad I didn’t say banana. Fnatic is number one, once again this week, and that’s all I have to say.
Dignitas 30 points
Dignitas has already started their typical end-season slide with none of their players performing well in the past couple of weeks and a severe lack of coordination. Also, none of their players are expected to be in the top 10 of their respective positions, so it is extremely unlikely for their team to do that much better than the players. They play CRS and EG this week so there is hope, but I find it unlikely.
Alliance 30 points
Hopefully Alliance can pull it together, but like Dig, they are 2-4 in their last two weeks. They have an easier schedule this week than they did last week, but if they are really slumping, that might not even help them. SHC and GMB are still LCS-level teams, so no win is free, especially with how Alliance has looked these past two weeks.
Closing
LCS is coming to a close soon, and that means Worlds is coming up. However, that also means that Fantasy will end until January of 2015 (unless Riot has fantasy Worlds with a draft for all the teams for the round robin stage of Worlds. Rito pls!). So far, I think that fantasy data not only has applications in predicting the outcomes of games and scores players will get each game, but that the data is also extremely useful in identifying strength of teams and analyzing their playstyle’s or where their weakest link is. So far, I only have one loss this season in fantasy due to Mil and Roc last week (I hate you Fridge) and I have really enjoyed doing these articles for you guys. I look forward to the next 3 weeks and hopefully the next time Fantasy LCS becomes available.
Credit to /u/_Zaga_ and his site http://flcspro.com for compiling all data for me this week.
P.S. Have some elo graphs of NA and EU! K = 45.
President Trump with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in the Oval Office. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a motion Thursday to intervene in a long-running lawsuit over a core part of the Affordable Care Act.
In their legal filing, the attorneys general say they can't trust the Trump administration to defend their interests, because health insurance for millions of Americans has become “little more than political bargaining chips” for the White House.
The lawsuit is challenging how billions of dollars of federal payments were made to health insurers. Those payments are critical to the stability of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which are designed to help individuals buy government-subsidized health coverage. The attorneys general want to step in to defend the payments, saying there is a “sharp divide” between the administration's goals and those of states.
For months, health insurance companies have been trying to get a solid answer from Congress and President Trump's White House on the future of the payments, called cost-sharing reductions, that help lower-income Americans afford their deductibles and co-payments. Their calls for certainty have grown increasingly urgent as they face deadlines to decide whether to offer plans in states and how much to charge.