Did James Bond make the martini famous? Or did the martini help make Bond cool?
The classic line of “shaken or stirred” has been used by men for decades. Bond instructs the bartender in the phrase “shaken and not stirred” in Diamonds Are Forever and Dr No and it has been in our lexicon ever since. But did Bond make the martini famous – or did the martini help Bond. And what is the perfect James Bond Martini?
The history of the martini is murky, “Professor” Jerry Thomas, a famous and influential 19th century bartender, invented the drink at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s. As the story goes, a miner, about to set out on a journey to Martinez, California, put a gold nugget on the bar and asked Thomas to mix him up something special. Thomas produced a drink containing Old Tom (sweetened) gin, vermouth, bitters and Maraschino, and dubbed it the “Martinez” in honor of the customer’s destination.
The big question is gin or vodka? Purist insist it be gin for the classic martini, but numbers say vodka is preferred. Vodka sales are about $7.5 billion annually while gin is around $5 billion. If you order a classic martini, you will probably be served gin unless you say vodka. Bond seems fairly fluid in his choice, he orders 19 vodka martinis and 16 gin martinis throughout Fleming’s novels and short stories.
Like Bond’s creator Ian Fleming, James Bond prefers his cocktails shaken and not stirred. A traditional martini is stirred rather than shaken, but Fleming’s biographer Andrew Lycett shared the author preferred martinis shaken since he believe it preserved the flavor.
Internationally known celebrity chef Justin Khanna has his take on the martini.
“The perfect Martini, to me, takes advantage of the “blank canvas” nature of this timeless cocktail. “Many cocktails restrict you to specific garnishes, and even fewer allow the liberty to swap the base spirit.
With the Martini, a vodka base that’s heavy on the olives and light on the vermouth is just as “right” as one made with gin and a twist of lemon, even though they couldn’t be more different once you take your first sip. Accompanied by a bowl of olives, bleu cheese or salty potato chips to snack on, and I’ll savor this iconic cocktail in bliss.
I personally love the body, complexity and herbaceous kick of vermouth, often making it a co-star in my version”
The Khanna Martini
Ingredients
2 1/2 oz vodka
3/4 oz dry vermouth
Ice
Lemon zest twist
Create
Combine vodka and vermouth in a shaker with ice.
Shake for 10-20 seconds.
Strain into a chilled martini glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist, first rubbing it along the rim for a burst of citrus aroma.
Dean Martin, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis’s Margo Channing, FDR, Frank Sinatra, and Jessica Walter’s Lucille Bluth are all noted martini fans. One of the most fun is the great Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker from the show Will & Grace.
The Karen Walker Martini
Ingredients
2.5 oz. High-end vodka
.5 oz. Dry vermouth
.5 oz. Olive brine
Create
Pour all ingredients into shaker with ice cubes.
Shake well
Strain in chilled cocktail glass
The Perfect James Bond Martini
Ingredients
2 ¼ounces dry gin
1ouncedry vermouth
1lemontwist, for garnish
1olive (for garnish)
Create
Combine vermouth and gin in a mixing glass filled with ice
Fill glass with ice and stir rapidly. Continue adding ice and stirring until the additional ice has been submerged within the cocktail
Strain the cocktail into the chilled martini glass
Express the lemon twist over the cocktail
Place expressed lemon twist and the skewered olive on the chilled rim
As famed writer and wit Dorothy Parker shared about martinis:
“I like to have a martini, Two at the very most. After three I’m under the table, after four I’m under my host.”
On the last day of January, an all-hands meeting was called at Empower Advisory Group, the financial planning division of the massive Greenwood Village-based company.
Nine financial advisors for Empower’s wealthy clients had unexpectedly resigned en masse five days before and the company was scrambling to understand what it all meant.
What it didn’t know then but believes now is that there were corporate spies at the meeting.
On March 1, four more financial advisors resigned abruptly — what Empower called “a second wave” of resignations carefully designed by a competitor to cause it “maximum harm.”
These allegations of corporate espionage and client poaching are spelled out in a lengthy lawsuit that Empower filed in Denver federal court March 13 against a baker’s dozen of former advisors and the New York company they left Empower for: Compound Planning.
“Instead of competing for clients fairly and honestly in the marketplace, Compound chooses to poach employees and clients from its competitors, like Empower,” it alleged.
Compound CEO Christian Haigh declined to comment on those allegations Friday.
The 13 ex-Empower advisors in question, 10 of whom are Coloradans, joined Empower when it bought Personal Capital, a wealth management firm, for $1 billion in 2020. The 13 advisors’ clients had a total of $5 billion in assets under Empower’s management, generating tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for the company, according to its lawsuit.
So, it had reason to be concerned when nine of them left for Compound on Jan. 26. Their resignation letters, which are attached as exhibits to the lawsuit, are identical and tell their surprised bosses to contact a Compound lawyer if they have any questions.
When a lawyer for Empower did so, he learned of the Jan. 31 espionage, Empower said.
“We understand Empower convened an all-hands meeting with its current and prospective advisors,” Compound wrote in a letter Feb. 2 that is also attached to Empower’s lawsuit. That letter threatened to sue Empower for defamation if it bad-talked the 13 advisors.
Then came the second wave of resignations, which cost Empower more clients, it said. All 13 advisors have convinced clients to move from Empower to Compound, the local company, it said. Empower believes this client exodus will continue unless a judge puts a stop to it.
Empower accuses its ex-employees of breaching non-solicitation contracts, stealing trade secrets and conspiring together to harm Empower. It accuses Compound of poaching its employees and clients. Empower doesn’t say how much money it believes it is owed but plans to ask jurors in Denver to award it punitive damages if the case goes to trial.
The 13 financial advisors that Empower is suing are Nathan Bengali, Willem Bloemsma, Matt Buenafe, Rachel Buffalo, Joseph Devorak IV, Aaron Foster, Shannon Lynch, Kevin Mann, Tyler Morris, Whitney Pappas, Bradley Porter, Beau Simon and Ian Wymore.
Empower’s case against them and Compound isn’t its only legal matter. In December, it sued its landlord for refusing to let it leave a downtown lease — one that it inherited when it acquired Personal Capital — early. A trial is set for November.
Empower’s lawyers in the Compound case are Adam Weiss and Mark Deming in Polsinelli’s Chicago office, along with Michael Greco from Fisher & Phillips in Denver.
Compound’s lawyers are James Heavey and Michael Ward at the Barton firm in New York.
Q: Is one day isolation sufficient to stop forward transmission of COVID-19?
A: People with COVID-19 could potentially transmit it to others well beyond a day after developing symptoms or testing positive. New guidance from the CDC advises people to isolate until they have been fever-free and with symptoms improving for at least 24 hours, and then take precautions for five days, which covers the period when “most people are still infectious.”
FULL ANSWER
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on March 1 updated its guidance on preventing the spread of respiratory viruses, consolidating advice on a range of common respiratory illnesses including COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
Since December 2021, the agency had recommended individuals isolate for at least five days after developing symptoms of COVID-19, or after a positive test if asymptomatic. After five days, the agency recommended various symptom-based criteria for leaving isolation combined with additional continued precautions, such as masking.
The new guidance drops the standard minimum of five days of isolation in favor of a symptom-based approach. The agency advises people to stay home and away from others when they are sick with a respiratory virus. People can cease isolation if, over a period of 24 hours, their overall symptoms have been improving and they have been fever-free without using fever-reducing medications.
Many people have had questions about what the new guidance means for people who have COVID-19. Some, like our reader, have referred to the idea that the guidance means only one day of isolation is needed. “do you agree with Biden that one day isolation for covid is fine and dandy??” asked one person on X, formerly known as Twitter.
But that’s not what Biden or the CDC is recommending.
“It’s not saying isolate for 24 hours,” epidemiologist Ronit Dalmat, a research scientist at the University of Washington, told us, referring to the CDC guidance. “It’s saying if you have a fever, absolutely stay home” until it has been gone for 24 hours, and also stay home until other symptoms are improving.
Nor does the CDC say people are guaranteed not to spread COVID-19 or other respiratory illnesses after their symptoms have improved. “Keep in mind that you may still be able to spread the virus that made you sick, even if you are feeling better,” the guidance says. “You are likely to be less contagious at this time, depending on factors like how long you were sick or how sick you were.”
The guidance recommends continuing to take precautions for five days after resuming normal activities. These include physical distancing, testing, improving air quality, using good hygiene and wearing a well-fitting mask, such as an N95 or KN95.
“The total number of days of precautions when sick, that is, a period of staying home and away from others plus 5 days of additional actions, covers the period during which most people are still infectious,” the CDC wrote in an FAQ.
“That whole period could be quite a while,” Dalmat said. “That could be 10 days for some people.”
The CDC said in background materials accompanying the new guidance that it looked at data from countries and states that had adopted similar policies for COVID-19 isolation and had not seen “clear increases in community transmission or hospitalization rates.”
“The updated guidance on steps to prevent spread when you are sick particularly reflects the key reality that many people with respiratory virus symptoms do not know the specific virus they are infected with,” the CDC said. The agency noted that its survey data indicated less than half of people with cold or cough symptoms would take an at-home COVID-19 test.
Some on social media have misinterpreted the guidance as an admission that it was always reasonable to liken COVID-19 to the flu, as was done early in the pandemic despite the marked difference in the diseases’ severity.
But the new CDC guidance acknowledges the continued seriousness of COVID-19 while also detailing the ways in which treatments, vaccines and population immunity have improved outcomes for people with the disease.
“COVID-19 remains a greater cause of severe illness and death than other respiratory viruses, but the differences between these rates are much smaller than they were earlier in the pandemic,” the CDC said. The agency explained that the risks are reduced due to the availability of COVID-19 treatments and population immunity to the virus, both from vaccination and prior infection. The agency also said that long COVID remains a risk, although the prevalence appears to be falling.
The Science on COVID-19 Transmission
Whether someone transmits COVID-19 depends on multiple factors. These include a person’s infectious viral load, but also the susceptibility of the people the infected person encounters and the precautions taken.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to how long a particular individual will shed infectious virus and how much they will shed. “Everybody has a slightly different ability to control the amount of virus in their system, which is a part of what makes the virus shed,” Dalmat said. Variation in how people’s bodies fight a virus affects “how much virus you are putting in the world that is infectious.”
There’s evidence that a relatively small number of people who shed particularly high levels of the virus over the course of their infections have been responsible for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases, and many people with COVID-19 do not infect others.
However, according to the CDC, the data on the typical overall length of shedding has not significantly changed, even as new variants of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — have arisen. “Even as the SARS-CoV-2 virus has continued to evolve, the duration of shedding infectious virus has remained relatively consistent, with most individuals no longer infectious after 8-10 days,” the agency said.
The CDC accompanied this statement with a figure showing data collected by the Respiratory Virus Transmission Network from five U.S. sites between November 2022 and May 2023 (see below). One line on the graph (light blue) shows how often researchers were able to isolate and grow — or culture — virus from people with COVID-19.
Trying to culture the virus that causes COVID-19 from a respiratory sample — a laborious process used in research — indicates whether someone is carrying infectious virus. The figure shows that the proportion of people with culturable virus began to increase two days before symptoms begin, or before a positive test for those who were asymptomatic, peaking around one to two days after symptom onset. After that, the rate began falling, with around one-third of people having culturable virus at day five. By day 10, the percentage had dropped to around 10%.
A different study, published in 2023 in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, combined data from multiple studies done in people diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2021 and 2022. The average duration of shedding of culturable virus was just over five days from symptom onset or first positive PCR test, whichever came first.
Another metric for assessing infectiousness in people with COVID-19 is viral load, often measured as the amount of viral materials, such as RNA or proteins, found in a respiratory sample. A 2023 study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases found that median viral load for people diagnosed with COVID-19 peaked around three or four days after symptoms started. The study assessed people seeking testing for respiratory infections between April 2022 and April 2023.
Someone who is shedding infectious virus may or may not transmit it to others. One factor is that the average person is less susceptible to infection today than they were early in the pandemic, Dalmat said.
“Even if the person is producing the exact same amount of virus today as they could have three years ago, the people on the other end on average are less likely to get infected,” Dalmat said, explaining that today more than 98% of the population has had some exposure to COVID-19 itself, COVID-19 vaccines or both.
When people do get infected, the cases tend to be less severe.“Among the people who get infected with COVID these days, on average it is much rarer that it turns into a very serious illness,” Dalmat said, while also acknowledging that a lot of individuals “are still very vulnerable.” People at elevated risk for severe disease include those who are elderly or immune compromised.
While the CDC guidance harmonizes suggested precautions for COVID-19 and other common respiratory viruses, there are differences in the details of how COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses are spread.
The new guidance is meant to be a general rule of thumb but does not apply to health care settings or cases where there is an outbreak of a disease that requires special instructions, the CDC said. The CDC also said the agency is working on specific guidance for schools, which should be available prior to the 2024/2025 school year.
Masks, Tests and Other Precautions
Isolating from other people when sick is a key way to reduce one’s risk of spreading COVID-19. But the CDC guidance lists additional ways to reduce the chances of spreading a respiratory illness.
Masks can help prevent the wearer from spreading a respiratory virus. They can also protect others from inhaling a virus, particularly well-fitting masks such as N95 or KN95 respirators, the guidance says. Individuals can take measures to improve their hygiene and the air quality in their surroundings and maintain physical distance from others, such as by avoiding crowded spaces.
The CDC still recommends testing to help high-risk people who are sick determine whether to seek treatment for a specific virus. For instance, someone with COVID-19 may benefit from receiving Paxlovid within five days of when their symptoms start. The guidance also lists tests as a tool that can help people decide when they need to take precautions to avoid spreading disease.
At-home rapid antigen tests can be helpful for people who are recovering from COVID-19 and want to see if they still have infectious virus, Dalmat said. In their research, she and her colleagues found that among people who tested positive for COVID-19 on a rapid antigen test, subsequent negative antigen test results were “very, very highly correlated to whether you had infectious virus or not,” she said. That means people with COVID-19 who start to test negative on rapid antigen tests as they get better likely are no longer at risk of infecting others.
However, the CDC cautions that rapid antigen tests early in the course of a person’s infection often miss COVID-19. People who are sick should be taking precautions regardless of test results, Dalmat said. “They shouldn’t test and have a negative test be the end of it,” she said.
The authors of the Clinical Infectious Diseases study, which measured viral loads over the course of infection, wrote that “our data in combination with others’ suggest that symptomatic individuals testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 by PCR currently may not reliably test positive on a rapid antigen test until the third, fourth, or even fifth day of symptoms.”
The CDC guidance says people can end isolation when they have been fever-free and their symptoms have been improving for at least 24 hours. Dalmat cautioned that the definition of improving symptoms is somewhat ambiguous.
“Symptoms improving can mean different things to different people,” Dalmat said, adding that people should make sure their symptoms are truly getting better. “If your symptoms are not really improving – not kind of plateauing but really improving — you should continue to stay home and continue to take whatever measures you are taking in your household.”
Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
The man and woman were killed Saturday night at the former DoubleTree hotel, 4040 N. Quebec St., which the city has leased since November for use as a transitional housing shelter for up to 300 people. Police have not said how the couple were killed.
“The case is still under investigation. No arrests have been made. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers (720-913-7867),” Denver Police officials said in an emailed response. Police announced the killing at 9:30 a.m. Sunday on X.
Denver officials did not respond to queries about the safety at city shelters.
The former hotel is located in Denver’s Central Park neighborhood. It is owned by Rocky Mountain Communities, a nonprofit that provides apartments around the state for low-income residents.
BOULDER — The NCAA still can’t read a room. But man, can they ever kill one.
Kindyll Wetta and her teammates on the CU women’s basketball team were belles of the ball inside the Dal Ward Center. You shoulda seen it. Balloons. Cheerleaders. Catering. One of the sweetest pep rallies to grace the Touchdown Club since Coach Prime got injected into the Buffs’ bloodstream here some 16 months ago.
As the NCAA Tournament brackets came on the screen, the party hushed. Then when Kansas State came up as a 4 seed and as a host for the first weekend of the women’s Big Dance, it sank.
“It’s definitely a bummer for me because I wanted to play at home and I wanted to be in front of my family,” Wetta, the firebrand of a Buffs guard and former Valor Christian star, told me after CU found out its first stop in Bracketville would be as a 5 seed opposite K-State in the Little Apple of Manhattan, Kan. “I thought this year we really had a great shot of doing that. It’s disappointing in that sense.”
There was a lot of that going around here Sunday night. The mood was even less jovial a few hours earlier up in Fort Collins, where the men’s selection committee decided to take its annual dose of stupid out on the Mountain West as a whole — and on the Rams in particular.
Want a laugh? Committee member Bubba Cunningham contended on CBS that teams selected from the Mountain West, save for San Diego State, got strapped to double-digit seedings because their best wins were over one another.
“(That) made it more challenging for us,” Cunningham explained.
Not half as challenging, apparently, as trying to stay up past 10 p.m. Eastern to do homework on teams west of Lincoln. Poor guy.
At least five teams — lookin’ at you, Oregon, NC State and New Mexico — “stole” bids from more worthy at-larges by winning their respective conference tourneys. But any ‘S’ curve that’s got CSU as the “last team in” gets an automatic F.
Do you watch the games, Bubba? Or do you watch “X” and Instagram and hope for the best? CSU beat Creighton by 21 on a neutral court. The Jays were slotted as a No. 3 seed Sunday. The Rammies (24-10) were unveiled as a 10.
Boise State, who’ll take on Tad Boyle’s CU men on Wednesday night, beat Saint Mary’s on a semi-neutral floor by three. The Gaels are dancing as a 5 seed. The Broncos, like CSUand CU, are a 10 seed having to scrap their way over to the Big Kids’ Bracket by winning in Dayton first.
“To be honest, I was really surprised how most of the Mountain West was seeded,” stunned CSU coach Niko Medved, who’ll face Virginia on Tuesday in Ohio, told reporters.
“But you know what? That’s fine. They always disrespect our league. And now it’s time to go out and do something about it.”
Amen. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the Cavaliers (23-10), on paper, are certainly in the Rammies’ weight class. For one thing, unlike Michigan in 2022, UVa doesn’t have a Hunter Dickinson down low, taking up a duplex’s worth of space in the paint. On the surface, it’s the irresistible force (CSU’s shooters) against the immovable object (Tony Bennett’s trademark tire-iron defense), a classic Clark Kellogg “contrast-in-styles” scrum between a Rams offense ranked 42nd nationally by KenPom.com in adjusted offensive efficiency and a Cavs D that’s seventh in adjusted defense. If you’re hopping over to Dayton, take the under and take your pizza square-cut.
If the Oppenheimers on the men’s committee dinged CSU for its 4-7 mark away from Moby Madness, their counterparts on the women’s side docked the Buffs (22-9) for losing six of their last eight, including a maddening, come-from-ahead loss to Oregon State in the Pac-12 tourney.
In March, you make your own luck. The Buffs women — despite being one of the best draws in all of college basketball, male or female — didn’t.
“I mean, (it’s) definitely frustrating,” Wetta said. “But like (Coach JR Payne) said, you can’t dwell on that, because (now) it’s completely different conferences, completely different teams, styles of play.”
CU women’s basketball players react to being selected as the fifth seed for the NCAA tournament during a watch party in the Touchdown Club at Dal Ward at the University of Colorado at Boulder in Boulder, Colorado on March 17, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
At least Wetta and her teammates know the drill. Payne’s Buffs got shipped to third seed and host Duke at this time last year and earned their Sweet 16 berth the hard way, stomping 11th-seeded Middle Tennessee and then shocking the Blue Devils in overtime to advance out of Durham.
“I feel like the same situation’s happened to us the past two years, where we thought we should’ve been a higher seed and we weren’t,” Wetta reflected. “So, again, it’s nothing new. Disappointing, but we’re used to it.
“I think we definitely do better with underdog mentality. So I think that’s a good thing going into the NCAA Tournament. It just adds a little bit of fuel to the fire.”
Why bust brackets when you can burn ’em? Pack your bags, kids. And your grudges. This dance just got personal.
Disbarred Denver attorney Steven Bachar died Friday at the Rifle Correctional Center, where he was serving a three-year sentence for defrauding an investor of $125,000.
Bachar, 58, apparently had a medical event and became unresponsive, according to the Garfield County Coroner’s Office.
First aid and CPR were given and emergency medical responders arrived at the scene, but Bachar died at the prison. The coroner’s office was called to the prison Friday morning.
Bachar’s cause and manner of death are still pending, but it appears to be “most consistent with a natural death,” Garfield County Coroner Robert Glassmire said in a statement.
The Department of Corrections confirmed Bachar’s death on Friday but declined to release further information, stating his death was under investigation, “as is the normal course of action,” spokesperson Alondra Gonzalez said in an email.
Bachar had ongoing health problems, he told a Denver District Court judge during his sentencing hearing in November.
“As your honor knows, I have some significant health issues that focus me on the need to live a good honest life going forward,” Bachar said during the November hearing.
Before moving to Colorado in 2015, Bachar was an Army reservist, graduated from Georgetown University Law Center and worked in the U.S. Treasury Department and the White House under President Bill Clinton, according to his LinkedIn and previous reporting.
He also worked with Sen. John Hickenlooper, serving as counsel for Hickenlooper’s campaign for Denver mayor and on his transition team before moving to Denver to join the law firm Moye White’s business section.
He left the firm in August 2017, according to previous reporting.
Bachar was then charged with three counts of theft and one count of fraud in June 2022 for defrauding an investor of $125,000 in December 2017, according to court records. He was also disbarred in June 2022.
According to the Denver District Attorney’s Office, Bachar misrepresented and omitted information in order to secure $125,000 in funding from an investor for his firm, Empowerment Capital. Bachar never invested or repaid the money, instead spending most of it for personal use.
While prosecutors asked for two years of prison during Bachar’s November sentencing, Johnson sentenced him to 3 years in prison, stating during the hearing that he wanted to push back on the criminal justice system’s tendency to be more lenient on wealthy, well-connected and well-educated defendants.
Time to stop worrying about Colorado State’s NCAA Tournament hopes.
Time to start thinking about where the CSU Rams might land if they win the Mountain West Conference tournament.
The CSU men moved within two victories of doing just that with an 85-78 win over 23rd-ranked Nevada in Thursday’s quarterfinal matchup at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
Next up is a semifinal date with the winner of Thursday night’s late game between No. 3 seed Boise State and No. 6 New Mexico. Tip-off is at 8 p.m. MDT Friday.
Senior guard Isaiah Stevens was brilliant, scoring 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting while dishing seven assists, and Jalen Lake was nearly flawless off the bench with 16 points while hitting all three of his 3-point attempts. The seventh-seeded Rams (24-9) buried seven 3s en route to topping a Nevada (26-7) club that beat them twice during the regular season, the last of which came on a half-court buzzer-beater in Fort Collins.
The second-seeded Wolf Pack didn’t have a shot at such late-game theatrics Thursday night. CSU raced out to a 10-point halftime lead, withstood a pair of second-half runs from Nevada and held on for their fourth straight win.
Along the way, the Rams turned the ball over just nine times while forcing 15 Nevada giveaways.
Jarod Lucas, the Nevada guard who hit that half-court heave in FoCo, led the Wolf Pack with 18 points but was largely contained for most of the night.
Nique Clifford added 14 points, 10 rebounds and five assists for CSU, Joel Scott had 11 points and five rebounds, and Joe Palmer added 12 points as part of a 35-21 advantage in bench scoring for the Rams.
MIAMI — The backcourt that shepherded Denver to consecutive road wins in Miami during last year’s NBA Finals was waiting to check back into the game, waiting to send Heat fans marching toward the exits once again. Clutch time is when the Nuggets’ starters thrive.
But these two starters decided they’d rather let the backup backcourt do the honors.
After a barrage of Reggie Jackson jumpers, Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went to coach Michael Malone and told him to keep Jackson and Christian Braun in the game. Malone obliged, and the Nuggets kept pulling away for a 100-88 win that they hope will be important for reasons that transcend their temporary, solitary claim to first place in the West.
Jackson needed a new dose of confidence.
“I’ve been in a crazy slump,” he said.
Earlier in the fourth quarter, Braun scored seven critical points during Nikola Jokic’s rest minutes to protect a slim lead. Then Jackson took over, scoring from 17, 15 and 26 feet on three consecutive possessions in a span of 1:12 to double Denver’s lead and force an Erik Spoelstra timeout.
“I had Jamal Murray and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope at the scorer’s table during that stretch. And this speaks a lot about our group,” Malone said. “Both those guys said to me, ‘Coach, let Reggie ride. Let CB ride. This group is playing well.’ And part of our culture — because we do have a culture in Denver as well — part of our culture is being selfless. Getting over yourself. And I think that’s another example of how our team is always getting over the individual, thinking about the collective. Really happy for Reggie Jackson.”
Malone was not-so-subtly throwing shade at Miami’s “Heat Culture” mantra in his postgame comments, but his proud advocacy for Nuggets Culture was validated by the team’s reaction to Jackson’s heat check.
“You could see it transpire on the court. That was the cool part,” Jackson told The Denver Post. “I’ve been playing long enough. You see a lot of things the older you get. You witness it. I knew my minutes were kind of up. I knew Jamal was supposed to come on the court. … And then I see Jamal motioning to Coach, like, ‘Keep him in. Let him play.’ I saw Pope doing the same thing for C.B. So that was a really cool moment for C.B. and myself.”
For Jackson in particular, the vote of confidence was revitalizing. In the first 30 games of the season, he averaged 13.2 points on 48.6% shooting, including 38.1% from 3-point range. He led the Nuggets to a handful of wins in November when Murray was out with a strained hamstring. In the next 35 games entering this matchup, Jackson shot 38.7% from the floor and 30.9% from outside, averaging only 7.4 points and scoring in double figures only 10 times.
After the win in Miami, he has still gone a season-long 10 consecutive games without touching double digits, but seven of his nine points Wednesday were scored during the game-clinching burst.
He says his teammates have been urging him to take those shots despite the drop in efficiency.
“They want me to continue to be myself. Continue to be aggressive. They’ve been kind of upset at me for not playing my game the last few,” Jackson said. “So then I started playing aggressive. Even still in the midst of missing shots. I think I had a 1-for-9 night. I had like a 1-for-7. But just hearing the encouragement from my teammates … once you have a great group like that — front office, coaches, teammates — believing in you like that, you can’t do anything but start believing in yourself again. So like I said: Hit a slump. Had some dark days. Tough days. But having that encouragement has made it easier to come out here and keep attacking, keep pushing ahead and just live with the results.”
Jackson’s defining quality is his one-on-one scoring capability. There have been flashes in recent games when he puts the moves on an opposing guard but simply misses the shot he generates.
“That’s the annoying part,” he said. “I think the reassuring part is that I can still get to a spot and get to a shot. So that’s always the best part. I think once I’m not able to get to a shot, that would be a little worrisome. That’s probably when you’ve gotta hang it up. … Just knowing I can still get there. And now it’s on me to go ahead and continue to get in the gym and find a way to complete the play. So that’s really what I’ve been trying to focus on. Footwork. Having my confidence down, and just continuing to trust in the reps, trust in the work.”
Jackson’s rotations have changed recently. He’s not sharing the floor with Murray much anymore, after a stretch of games in which Malone tried a variation of the second unit that deployed both point guards at the same time. Instead, Justin Holiday is filling the extra backcourt spot in that lineup; Jackson is subbing back in with Jokic to give Murray a brief rest. That’s why Jackson was on the floor as a competitive NBA Finals rematch entered the last five minutes.
He went around a Jokic ball screen and pulled up at the right elbow for his first jumper when Bam Adebayo played drop coverage. On the next possession, he went around a Jokic screen to the left. Adebayo kept dropping again, so Jackson pulled up at the opposite elbow and knocked down the shot.
Jimmy Butler picked him up the next time down the floor instead of Terry Rozier. Jokic screened to Jackson’s left, and the Heat continued to disrespect Jackson’s range. Butler went under the screen while Adebayo dropped. Jackson didn’t bring it inside the arc this time. Caldwell-Pope, Michael Porter Jr. and the rest of the Nuggets mobbed the 33-year-old as he jogged to the bench.
“This team is mad at you if you don’t shoot,” Aaron Gordon said. “And that’s different than a lot of teams. If you don’t shoot your shots, if you’re not playing your game, that’s when we get frustrated. So we just want him to be who he is. He’s an ice-cold ballplayer that can score the ball at three different levels.”
Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft’s long-running open-world RPG series, and Vanderpump Rules, Bravo’s long-running reality TV series, are connected—kind of. It’s rare that two of my biggest, most disparate interests collide so spectacularly as this, but here we are, and it’s all thanks to a man named Jax Taylor.
The Week In Games: Pokémon With Guns And More New Releases
Taylor, one of the former stars of VPR (he left/was fired after season eight, depending upon who you ask) has been claiming for nearly 15 years that the face on the Assassin’s Creed I box art(or II, depending upon who and when you ask) is based on his visage. Taylor, who was previously a model, even lists it as one of his (unverified) credits on his old Model Mayhem page.
Before we go any further, it’s important to note that Taylor has, historically, been considered to be, well, um, a liar. As any VPR fan knows, and as a 2019 Vulture article pointed out, Taylor was accused of infidelity in back-to-back seasons and “both times [he] convinced both the show’s behind-the-camera staff and his friends that he was wrongfully accused; both times, he was caught red-handed as the season ended.” Taylor was also tied up in a lie in season six, after he was caught cheating on his future wife (then-girlfriend) with another co-star. There are other lies you’ll find deep in the Bravo subreddits: that he was roommates with Channing Tatum, that he almost got a job working for the NHL, that he loved the tea set Lisa Vanderpump gave him as a wedding gift.
But the reality TV star doggedly insists that he is, indeed, the face on the cover art of an Assassin’s Creed game. He recently doubled down on this claim at Lexington Comic Con, which took place in the Kentucky city over the March 7-10 weekend. Taylor and several of his former and current castmates (he’s starring in a new Vanderpump Rules spinoff called The Valley alongside his maybe-future-ex-wife, Brittany Cartwright) had their own tables at the convention, which were decorated with images of their professional appearances. On Taylor’s table: A picture of the Assassin’s Creed I cover art.
Is Jax Taylor the face of the Assassin’s Creed box cover art?
Screenshot: Jax Taylor on X / Ubisoft
Now, here’s where things get confusing. Taylor first claimed this video game connection back in 2012, when he posted “Me on the cover of assassins [sic] creed II” on X (formerly Twitter). The picture accompanying the text certainly looks like cover art for an Xbox 360 game, but there are some notable discrepancies. First, the image depicts Assassin’s Creed I, not II, and second, that picture doesn’t appear to have ever been used for a physical release of the Ubisoft game. An intrepid reporter asked about this alleged cover art back in 2022, and the replies only unearthed more questions: It appears that the image Taylor posted is from a website called Customaniacs, which, back in the Xbox 360 era, would share hi-res, downloadable, custom pieces of box cover art for people to print out and slip into the plastic shells.
On March 12, I reached out to Taylor’s PR via email, who initially confirmed that Taylor was “on the first season” of Assassin’s Creed. When pressed for clarification, the representative confirmed that he was the model for “the very first game” and “just the box art.” I thanked them for the clarification.
An hour later, unprompted, Taylor’s representative emailed me an image that only made things more baffling: a picture of the cover of PlayStation: The Official Magazine’s Holiday 2009 issue, which featured the publication’s review of Assassin’s Creed II. Yes, a review of the sequel, not the first game like his representative initially confirmed. To add more layers to this confusion cake, the PlayStation mag cover does not depict the box art for any Assassin’s Creed game, but bespoke art. (Unrelated, but hilarious: the image is clearly just the cover torn off the magazine, the rest of which Taylor ostensibly threw out.)
Screenshot: Jax Taylor Instagram / PlayStation: The Official Magazine
Not long after my conversation with his PR person, Taylor posted a picture of the PlayStation: The Official Magazine cover that had been emailed to me to his Instagram story, with the caption “Flashback to when I did the cover art/box art for #assassinscreed 2009.” He tagged the Instagram accounts for Lexington Comic Con and PlayStation.
The thing is, a French-Canadian model named Francisco Randez has been widely credited as the face of series protagonists Desmond, Altair, and Ezio. Randez has done interviews about his role in the series and has an IMDb credit for it. In a 2011 interview, Assassin’s Creed devs discuss creating the digital likenesses of the character, referring to the “handsome model” as a “neighbor” of the game’s producer in Montréal…though they have trouble remembering his name and call him “Rafael.” (It’s around the 8:50 mark.) Is there more than one “Assassin’s Creed guy”? Is Jax Taylor one of them? Is he none of them?
I reached out to both Ubisoft and Francisco Randez. Ubisoft declined to comment, and Randez has yet to respond.
So, it’s still unclear if Jax Taylor is, indeed, the face on the cover for either Assassin’s Creed I or Assassin’s Creed II. As a VPR fan, I’m inclined to believe he’s not, but what do you think?
Crews are fighting the fire from the outside and working their way in due to the complicated nature of the structure and current wind conditions, the agency said in a 2:20 p.m. update.
On the mound: Right-hander Cal Quantrill scuffled in his second start this spring, allowing two runs on seven hits, one walk and zero strikeouts over four innings. He has a 4.50 ERA in six innings of Cactus League action. The bullpen put up its second straight scoreless outing, with LHP Evan Justice, RHP John Curtiss, RHP Tyler Kinley, RHP Justin Lawrence and RHP Geoff Hartlieb each going one inning. Justice (5 2/3 IP) and Kinley (5 IP) have yet to allow a run this spring.
At the plate: Infielder Brendan Rodgers (2 for 3, double) and center fielder Brenton Doyle (1 for 3) each had productive days. Rogers is now hitting .385 (10 for 26) and Doyle .370 (10 for 27) this spring. Coco Montes smashed a two-run homer, his first of the spring, in the bottom of the second, and fellow non-roster invitee Bradley Zimmer recorded a hit in his lone at-bat to move to .429 (12-for-28) in 13 spring games. The Rockies have a .281 team batting average (second-best in all of baseball) and 11-6-1 record in Cactus League play.
Prospect watch: Right-hander reliever Riley Pint, who has still only pitched one-third of an inning in the majors, had a solid camp but was optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque Tuesday, along with infielder Julio Carreras, infielder/outfielder Hunter Goodman and right-hander Gavin Hollowell. Also, catcher Braxton Fulford and outfielder Jordan Beck were reassigned to minor league camp. The Rockies have 42 active players remaining in major league camp, 12 non-roster players.
Up Next: Rockies at D-backs, 1:10 p.m. Wednesday
Rockies probable pitchers: RHP Tanner Gordon, LHP Carson Palmquist, RHP Jaden Hill, RHP Matt Koch, LHP Ty Blach.
From the sidelines – in sacking Russell Wilson — the Broncos and Denver lost not only a great QB, but very decent and genuine human beings, both he and his family. The fault lies not with Wilson but with Sean Payton and his inability to coach the talent he had at his disposal. And quality talent it was. They should have dumped Payton. The very best to Wilson and his family. Would it not be the height of irony if he lands with a team that knocks Denver out of Super Bowl competition?
Steven Turner, Aurora
Transition to renewables is more than fast enough
Re: “Colorado’s renewable energy transition too slow,” March 2 letter to the editor
I disagree with the letter writer’s opinion that Colorado’s clean energy transition is too slow. I don’t believe the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s data support his argument.
Yes, Iowa produces more wind power than Colorado. It also operates a fleet of coal plants. In November 2023, Iowa’s coal power consumption per capita equaled Colorado’s. In 2022, Iowa’s and Colorado’s power sectors produced roughly the same amount of CO2 emissions, but Colorado has twice the population.
Colorado’s coal plants are slated for shutdown within the next 7 years. Iowa’s are not. The accelerated closures are a direct result of climate policy led by Gov. Polis in 2019. If the letter writer feels that Colorado’s coal transition is “dangerously slow”, he should talk with folks in Moffat County where Craig Station will close within four years, eliminating half the county’s tax base and most of the good-paying jobs.
How about grid reliability? Colorado’s coal-powered generation ends within 7 years. Within that timeframe, our utilities must build and deploy new assets to replace the energy coal supplied, balance out intermittent renewables, reform the grid to handle new sources and connect all that new renewable generation. The letter writer should pitch his faster-faster theory to the utilities that keep our lights on and our EVs charged.
We need clean, reliable energy and healthy economies in rural Colorado. “Move fast and break things” may be a viable strategy for tech start-ups. It’s a dangerous strategy for state-wide energy transition and the economic disruption that can bring.
X (formerly known as Twitter) has been a popular hook for scammers for over a decade now. However, the tactics employed in these schemes continuously evolve.
What’s concerning is that many victims are still falling for scams because of misleading comments made by fake X accounts, leading them to phishing websites.
X Fakes Fuel Phishing Frenzy
According to Scam Sniffer’s February Phishing Report, a significant portion of the victims fell prey to such scams via X. Deceptive comments from impersonated X accounts were used as a means to lure unsuspecting individuals to phishing websites, where they subsequently became victims of such schemes.
A staggering 57,000 individuals succumbed to crypto phishing scams, resulting in collective losses of around $47 million. Surprisingly, this marks a significant decrease of 75% in the number of victims, losing over $1 million compared to the previous month.
Meanwhile, Ethereum mainnet accounts for the majority, comprising 78% of the total thefts, with ERC20 tokens being the primary assets targeted, making up 86% of the stolen funds. The thefts of ERC20 tokens were predominantly facilitated through phishing signatures like Permit, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2.
Additionally, many Wallet Drainers have begun utilizing Safe or Account Abstraction wallets as token approval spenders, further exacerbating the phishing issue.
The latest revelations from Scam Sniffer are consistent with SlowMist’s investigation, which uncovered widespread theft driven by phishing tweets. The security team reported numerous instances of theft, discovering that a significant portion of these incidents were facilitated by misleading comments under tweets from reputable projects.
In fact, about 80% of comments under tweets from such projects were identified as phishing scam accounts.
Malicious Crypto Ads on X
Despite Elon Musk’s promises to curb bots on the platform, not much has changed since his controversial takeover and the subsequent updates. Several reports suggest that cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting X advertisements to promote websites that result in crypto drainers, fake airdrops, and other scams.
Don’t be trapped in new scams.
A group of fraudulent influencers is shilling $BALLZ, grifters who previously shilled $Analos.
They are dumping a small amount of $BALLZ on you every second. Using bot buying to trend on Dexscreener & Birdeye.
In 2023, X’s revenue dropped by 22% compared to the previous year, reaching $3.4 billion. The decline is primarily attributed to a significant decrease in advertising income over the last two years. Despite efforts, revenue from subscriptions and data licensing hasn’t compensated for this loss.
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His mentioning marijuana at the State of The Union was historic, but boy did he get some feedback when he tweeted.
The State of the Union address for many years was referred to as “the President’s Annual Message to Congress“. It is believed George Washington started the tradition and the term “State of the Union” first emerged in 1934 when used by Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). President Biden mention of marijuana was historic and also showed how the plants reputation has come a long way from the war on drugs. And when he tweeted about it, things got spicy. Biden’s weed tweet got numbers and feedback – and the administration might be wise to pay attention.
The tweet on cannabis reached 14 million and had 12,000 comments and 104,000 likes. The President mentioned his marijuana pardons which drew a significant amount of feedback. According to BDSA, a leading analytics firm covering cannabis, the industry generated $29.5 billion in revue in 2023. When talking about a need to grow the economy and taxes, here is a fresh industry the public wants, but antiquated laws are punishing small businesses.
When you subtract comments not relating to weed, they fall in three categories. The first is the remaining resentment toward Vice President Harris for her historic stance on marijuana. The industry was at first excited when Biden was elected as he indicated he would move opening up legalization for cannabis. His slow pace along with VP Harris’s previous role has frustrated the industry and it shows by the sharp remarks.
Another large batch of comments were just about making a move already! Science, the American Medical Association, and the federal departments of the Healthy and Human Services (HHS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have all said there are benefits. People are clamoring for him to act and act quickly. But, it seems to the public eye, the administration has been very slow in fullfilling this promise from over 2020.
The third big conversation is his perception his pardons did more than they actually did for prisoners. Again, there is hard feelings about it and the online community want him to understand what he did and did not do.
While the industry is expanding, it is still in growth mode and needs basic help in continuing to grow. Rescheduling would allow state cannabis operators to take federal tax deductions they’re currently barred from under an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code known as 280E. This would give immediate benefits to the cannabis industry which is 50+% small businesses.
Well, it looks like it’ll come down to the same song and dance this November with Donald Trump and Joe Biden. I’m really angry that both parties couldn’t find stronger, better, younger candidates than these old farts! Don’t these two have lives like normal older people who want to retire and spend time with family, travel, or just relax? Or is it just the egomaniacal want for power that they just keep on (and on and on)?
I don’t want either one of them again, but I really can’t stand another four years of constant anxiety, dreading reading the daily news and seeing that loud, obnoxious Trump spouting off every single day. And that’s not even to mention his numerous financial litigations and sexual scandals that he is currently in court for!
What a world we live in.
Liz Boswell, Denver
It looks like we’re stuck with the so-called match-up “nobody wants.” The GOP is stuck with “the mouth” and the Dems are stuck with cartoon dummy “Walter” look alike. I still can’t believe that out of the 350 million plus people in this country, we can’t come up with two truly qualified people to run for POTUS. Since these knuckleheads ran against each other back in 2020, we haven’t learned anything.
Yes, I voted for Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, but not because I wanted him; it was because I couldn’t see either of those other two in office.
If we have the 2020 rematch, I won’t be voting for president at all. I’ll vote for everything else on the ballot. I honestly believe that the leaders of both parties created the “mouth” that Trump has become — granted, he always had a big egotistical mouth. All the top dogs in the GOP, starting with the Bushes, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, wouldn’t support his election. He had to fight for everything with opposition from all corners; it’s no wonder he turned into someone I would no longer support for the next election.
I also find it hard to believe that after so many times Biden was rejected for the nomination by the Democrats, they couldn’t find a better nominee back then. As far as I’m concerned, neither one of them would make a pimple on Richard Nixon’s butt.
Peter Beckley, Aurora
Goody. In 2024, Americans are now facing a repeat of the delightful 2020 presidential election, only this time the Packard with a hole in its muffler will have 810,000 miles on it, and the Edsel that leaks oil everywhere will have 780,000.
It’s laughable to hear liberals like Doug Friednash pining for Ronald Reagan in his approach to Russia and insulting Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, respectively, for their “bromance” and “propaganda” with Putin. I often hear liberals say they want a Republican from years ago, like Reagan or Ike, while not pining for Democrats like Walter Mondale or Jimmy Carter. Are they dishonest, or do they genuinely not realize that times and issues change?
For Friednash to call Russia “ideological” shows him to be uninformed. Russia isn’t communist, and it’s hard to know what their ideology is other than authoritarianism and social conservatism. That’s the case in most of the non-western world. Russia and China are famously hands-off about the governance in countries they deal with. China is criticized for apathy in Africa, where they have mining concessions. They extract minerals, pay royalties, and don’t give political lectures. Russia’s Wagner group recently replaced French anti-terrorism forces in Niger and Mali, likely due to French political interference regarding corruption. Wagner doesn’t care.
Ironically, it’s now the U.S. as the ideological actor on the world stage. We fly pride flags at embassies and meddle in LGBTQ, diversity and immigration issues. That’s why we’re finding it hard to recruit allies in the developing world against Russia. Friednash implicitly recognizes this with several references to LGBTQ rights in Russia. That’s what “our democracy” now means and why he hates Putin.
The reality is that this war could have been prevented if we had merely agreed not to admit Ukraine into NATO. In February of ’22, I remember distinctly U.S. officials making comments about our commitment to a rules based order where countries can choose their allies and security partners. Who’s the ideologue? Making enemies and risking WWIII for pride flags and Drag Queen Story Hour is foolish.
Jim Hemenway, Niwot
Editor’s note: Hemenway is a candidate for Colorado’s 7th Congressional District.
A tale of two classified-documents leakers
Re: “Pentagon leaker pleads guilty, faces 11-plus years in prison,” March 5 news story
On Tuesday, there was an article about the Massachusetts Air National Guard member who leaked highly classified documents and shared them with other users on a social media platform. He pled guilty and will serve up to 17 years.
We have a candidate running for president who removed many boxes of highly classified documents from the White House when he previously served as president. This classified information was available to many people who visited his place of business and residence as it was not kept in a secure area. This man also showed highly classified documents to a foreign citizen and others.
Why the unfairness in our society? Should he not be in prison as well? Why would anyone vote for a person who jeopardizes the secrets and safety of our country?
Norma Anderson, Lakewood
Editor’s note: Anderson is a former state senator.
A few words on behalf of Oct. 7 victims
Re: “Local cease-fire resolutions are statements of humanity,” March 3 commentary
I was struck by the excuses for the lack of decorum at the Denver City Council meeting for the insistence on the council to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Clearly, the disruptions of these protesters caused the council to feel threatened and bullied. Good for the council to resist these threats as undemocratic. We have had many protests at many city council hearings across the country and all have been similar in nature to what happened in Denver. This strategy of rage and bullying is right out of Hamas’s playbook.
In fact, while the commentators continue to condemn Israel’s actions, there is often no mention of Oct. 7, nor the loss of lives of women and children, the torture, rape, and brutality by Hamas perpetrated on Israel that fateful day. No mention of the hostages that Hamas kidnapped and is now using as pawns in their game to vilify Israel. Not one.
If these protesters were interested in a cease-fire, they should rightfully be protesting against Hamas. If Hamas were to release all of the hostages, both dead and alive, and surrender, there would be a cease-fire immediately. In fact, there had been a cease-fire on Oct. 6. Hamas’ bloodthirsty savagery in its attack against the sovereignty of Israel and the massacre of Israeli civilians the following day had more than provoked the Israel Defense Forces (not the “Israel Occupation Forces” as sarcastically noted in the guest commentary).
We are all concerned about the deaths of the Gazans, well, except for Hamas. This poor excuse for the lack of decorum and protest against Israel’s military actions, etc., is just one more example of what these protests are truly about: Jew hatred.
ER Miller, Denver
If Hamas surrenders and releases the hostages, there will be a cease-fire. Instead of telling Israel to stop firing, tell Hamas to stop firing.
Russell Wilson may play at Empower Field in 2024 after all.
It would just be in the black and gold.
Wilson, who has not even been formally released by the Broncos but is set to be later this week, announced Sunday night that he plans to sign with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Multiple outlets have reported that the sides have an agreement on a one-year contract.
Wilson will likely play at the veteran minimum of $1.21 million because he has $39 million in guaranteed salary from Denver for the 2024 season. The Broncos will pay all of that amount except for Wilson’s salary with a new team, so there’s little incentive for the Steelers to pay him more than the minimum.
The Broncos still must actually release Wilson, which they will do sometime between the start of the 2024 NFL league year at 2 p.m. Wednesday and March 17. After they informed Wilson of their intent to release him a week ago, Denver allowed Wilson to begin speaking with other teams as if he were already a free agent.
When they do process his release, Denver will have to account for $85 million in dead salary cap charges over the next two seasons. The Broncos will decide whether to take $35.4 million in 2024 and $49.6 million in 2025 or $53 million in 2024 and $32 million in 2025.
In Pittsburgh, Wilson will play his 13 season for his third team and do so under longtime head coach Mike Tomlin and first-year offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, the former Atlanta head coach. Wilson will compete with former first-round draft pick Kenny Pickett for the starting job.
It’s a long way from the mega trade that brought Wilson to Denver just two years ago and the subsequent five-year, $245 million extension, but Wilson has maintained that he’s motivated and excited for the next chapter of his career regardless of where it materializes. Now, it’s in the Steel City.
Oh, and Pittsburgh visits Denver during the 2024 season, so Wilson will be back on the Front Range, perhaps even as the Steelers’ starting quarterback. The NFL usually announces its schedule in early May.
No doubt that game will be a centerpiece of Denver’s schedule and the NFL’s slate.
Logan O’Connor’s season is done for the Colorado Avalanche.
The veteran forward is set to have season-ending hip surgery, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Sunday.
O’Connor was in the middle of a career year for the Avs, but this has been a lingering injury. He missed four games last month, then returned to play six times before shutting it down again. There’s no timeline on a return until after the surgery is complete, but Bednar ruled him out for the rest of the regular-season and the playoffs.
“Well, it sucks because he’s been a real good contributor to our team for a long time,” Bednar said. “He’s really dialed in with what he has to do.”
O’Connor finishes the year with a career-high 13 goals in 57 games. He was on pace to easily surpass his best point total as well. He’s been a fixture on the Avs’ second-best line this season, along with Ross Colton and Miles Wood, but Bednar broke that group up recently and cited a decline in performance.
The Avs added three forwards in the days leading up to the trade deadline — No. 2 center Casey Mittelstadt, along with depth forwards Yakov Trenin and Brandon Duhaime. Bednar acknowledged that O’Connor’s deteriorating health played into the club’s aggressive moves this past week.
“We had an idea that it wasn’t going well for him,” Bednar said. “I would say yeah. Adding depth is important regardless, but especially when you’re dealing with potentially getting bad news on a guy.”
If Casey Mittelstadt scores a huge goal or sets one up with a beautiful pass for the Colorado Avalanche this spring, there is one member of the organization who will probably feel an extra twinge of pride.
Mittelstadt’s career hit an unexpected low point in 2019-20, when the Buffalo Sabres sent their recent top-10 draft pick and a player who carried such high expectations to Rochester in the American Hockey League. Toby Petersen, now a skills coach for the Avalanche, was an assistant coach on that team.
Things had not gone according to plan with the Sabres after joining the club after his freshman season at the University of Minnesota and a full rookie season in the NHL at 20 years old. Mittelstadt played 36 games with Petersen and the Americans.
“I think that was a big turning point for myself,” Mittelstadt said. “I was able to go down and just play really freely. The coaches were really supportive. I think I started to really enjoy being at the rink with the guys and having fun again. I realized that I love this game and this is what I want to do. Having Toby on the staff was huge for me. He and Chris Taylor, they’re great guys and great people and they helped me a lot.”
Mittelstadt’s rise, fall and rebirth as an NHL player is a reminder that not every prospect, not even the phenoms, has a smooth, linear path to fulfilling their potential. He is one of the best players in Minnesota high school hockey history. He was the No. 8 pick in the 2017 NHL draft.
Players picked that high, particularly forwards, often never see the AHL. And when they do after spending 114 games in the NHL, it’s seen as a disappointment. Mittelstadt said there were a lot of people who deserved credit for helping him get to this point — in the midst of a second-straight productive season and the No. 2 center on a Stanley Cup contender after the Avs traded defenseman Bo Byram for him this past week.
Hockey is a small world, and Mittelstadt, now 25 years old, is reunited with one of those people.
“I was pretty excited when I heard (Petersen) was here,” Mittelstadt said. “He’s a familiar face and someone that I can bounce things off. We had a great relationship in Rochester. He’s obviously a smart hockey mind, so definitely excited to have him here.”
The Avalanche believes Mittelstadt can solve what has been the organization’s toughest riddle: Who can be the next center on the depth chart after Nathan MacKinnon? It worked with Nazem Kardi, and there’s a Stanley Cup banner at Ball Arena as a reminder.
It has not worked to varying degrees with several others, most recently Alex Newhook, J.T. Compher and Ryan Johansen. Mittelstadt began his Avs career Friday night next to Valeri Nichushkin and Jonathan Drouin, and both his new coach and general manager have made it clear that’s the spot in the lineup they expect him to help upgrade.
“We’re not trading Bo Byram for a 31-year-old or a 30-year-old. We’re not trading Bo Byram probably for a winger,” Avs GM Chris MacFarland said Friday. “Defensemen are really hard to get, and top-two line centers, top-three line centers are really hard to get. You’ve got to draft them or you’ve got to pay a big price to get them, whether that’s in free agency or via trade. So the fact that we traded a player and a person of Bo’s stature for Casey tells you what we think of him.
“We think an awful lot of him. We think he’s going to have a big role here. Hopefully it will be a good marriage, but we’re excited to have him.”
Mittelstadt’s breakout didn’t happen directly after his time in Rochester, but injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic were factors. He played 81 games across two seasons, and the production did tick upward.
A bigger jump came last season. He finished with 15 goals and 59 points. He followed that up this year with 14 goals and a team-leading 47 points in 62 games before the trade. If he can produce at a similar level for the Avalanche, Colorado will have its most productive No. 2 center since Kadri left.
But the Avs believe there could still be more for Mittelstadt to unlock. MacFarland mentioned it the day they traded for him. Mittelstadt has taken longer to blossom into an impact player, but the jump from high school hockey to the NHL with just one season at the NCAA level might have been too much, too fast.
His body needed time to develop, and he needed time to figure out how to translate his sublime skills to the pace and physicality of the NHL.
“He’s got good hands. He’s a very good playmaking center with really good vision,” MacFarland said. “We think the last two years, his game has taken a jump. He’s gotten stronger with experience, and we think there might even be another level to his game.”
There’s another reason to dream a little more on Mittelstadt. Several young players have left Buffalo in recent seasons, a franchise that hasn’t reached the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2011, and found a new level of performance elsewhere.
Sam Reinhart, Evan Rodrigues, Brandon Montour and Linus Ullmark, who were all teammates of Mittelstadt’s when he broke into the NHL, have all reached new heights after moving on.
“He’s just emerging as a really good, high-end player in the league,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Sometimes it takes guys different lengths of time to kind of get to that spot. I do think there’s lots of growth left in his game, though. I think he could be a more consistent player, a player that can contribute on a nightly basis. Not that he’s not now, but even more so and being more of an impact player. That’s just maturity, etc., etc. Just watching him a couple of years ago to where he is now has been huge gains. Hopefully he can continue to do that.”
Mittelstadt’s greatest strength is his playmaking ability and how he sees the ice. He made a pass during the morning skate Friday while the Avs were practicing the power play — a cross-ice dish through several defenders — that drew oohs and aahs from media in attendance. He had a slick no-look pass from the left point to a teammate near the edge of the crease in his debut.
He’s found a way to be more than a flashy pass here or there as he’s carved out an NHL career with the Sabres. Now the Avs think he can be the last key piece of their ferocious attack and help secure a second championship in three years.
For Mittelstadt, a guy who has spent most of his life in Minnesota and Western New York, there are many sunny days ahead in Denver away from the rink. He and his new club hope that is true on the ice as well.
SAN FRANCISCO — In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco last Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X (formerly Twitter) and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.
Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped from cannily named cocktails such as the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear purée, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tim O’Reilly, a tech industry veteran, dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.
“Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the crowd tittered. The suggestively designed buckets had become a sensation across social media.
The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s newest obsession: “Dune: Part Two,” the latest movie adapted from the Frank Herbert-authored science-fiction saga, which helped inspire many of them to become interested in technology. The film, which follows the 2021 installment “Dune,” sold an estimated $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada over the weekend, the biggest opening for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”
The invitation-only private screening at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco was hosted by two tech executives turned podcasters of “Escape Hatch,” a weekly show focused on sci-fi and fantasy films. And it was not the only game in town.
Across Silicon Valley — from venture capital firms to tech executive circles — people had booked their own private screenings of the movie, directed by Denis Villeneuve. On Thursday, the venture firm 50 Years invited founders, friends and investors to “come fuel your imagination with stellar science fiction” in a theater takeover.
Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-created by Peter Thiel, rented out the Alamo Drafthouse theater in San Francisco’s Mission District for the film’s opening night on Friday, with an open bar and free food. Some people flew in from across the country to attend.
“If you’re a VC firm and you’re not hosting a private Dune II screening, are you even a VC firm?” Ashlee Vance, a longtime technology journalist, wrote in a post on X last month.
Even as tech companies have cut jobs and perks in recent months, the tradition of the sci-fi movie premiere remains alive and well. Films such as “Star Wars,” “Dune” and “Ready Player One” were the very things that helped stir techies’ interest in the field of computer science. No longer content with only watching the future unfold onscreen, employees at companies such as Meta, Google and Palantir have started plucking directly from their favorite movies to build the products of tomorrow.
In Google’s early days, the company routinely bought out entire theaters to see the latest superhero flick. When “Blade Runner 2049” debuted in 2017, the boutique tech investment banking firm Code Advisors rented out the Alamo Drafthouse for a private screening and had a Q&A with the film’s antagonist, Jared Leto. Venture capital firms have repeated the practice for other futuristic films and series, including “The Martian,” “Arrival” and HBO’s “Westworld.”
But “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” hold a special place in Silicon Valley hearts and minds because of the series’ expansiveness. It doesn’t hurt that “Dune” was born in San Francisco, where Herbert lived in the late 1950s as he researched what became the series of sci-fi novels.
“It is one of the original world-building exercises in genre fiction, and we’re all about world-building here,” said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter executive who joined Matt Herrero, a techie friend, to create the “Escape Hatch” podcast during the pandemic lockdowns.
The “Dune: Part Two” viewing events also acted as a kind of safe space for techies to step away — however briefly — from the tech culture wars that rage on- and offline.
“Twenty years ago, most people coming into tech were idealists with utopian dreams,” said Tom Coates, a tech veteran, at the “Escape Hatch” cocktail party. “That’s clearly not true anymore — now for many it’s much more just a job, and one that has attracted a certain type of ‘tech bro.’ But I think it’s interesting that we’re not all here tonight to watch the Ayn Rand filmography.”
Goldman said part of Silicon Valley’s enchantment with “Dune” could be due to characters such as Chalamet’s Paul Atreides, a messianic figure who leads a downtrodden tribal group into rising up and defeating its evil overlords.
“What people want, what they’re always trying to recreate, is that charismatic leader with the ability to see into the future,” Goldman said. “The hero worship of Steve Jobs is right up there with the fanatical praise of Paul Atreides.”
What was not clear was how many of Silicon Valley’s tech elite had absorbed the finer points of the source material. Herbert was deeply skeptical of man’s technological progress, a perspective that framed his series.
“It’s all based on a world in which artificial intelligence has been wiped out entirely,” said Cal Henderson, a co-founder and chief technical officer of Slack, who attended the Thursday party.
(That morning, Elon Musk had sued OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, over claims that the company had put commercial interests before the future of humanity. “Meta doesn’t even begin to describe it,” another person at the party said.)
Still, attendees were determined to have fun. One presented Herrero and Goldman with a glossy, custom-printed “Dune: Part Two” poster, with the hosts’ faces photoshopped over those of the film’s celebrities. Tables were stacked with trays of Nebula Nebulae parfaits (spiced chocolate and vanilla mousse) and platters of Atreides Delicacies (rice noodles, harissa, sesame oil).
After the movie, which ran 2 hours, 46 minutes, ended, the group headed into a VIP room to record a live edition of the podcast on what they had just seen. The geeking out continued past midnight.
Shortly afterward, Goldman bought tickets to a Monday matinee of “Dune: Part Two.”
For the second time in as many games, Tommy Wight put on his green cape and played hero.
The senior forward’s buzzer-beating put-back propelled ThunderRidge into the Class 6A championship, the Grizzlies’ third appearance in the title game in four years after capturing the Class 5A crowns in 2021 and ’22.
It was the difference in a dramatic 64-62 win over Eaglecrest and marked Wight’s second game-winner at the Denver Coliseum after his lay-up with five seconds left helped ThunderRidge beat rival Rock Canyon in last week’s Great 8.
“This is even a little bit better feeling (than the Great 8 game-winner),” said Wight, a Point Loma commit. “It was the same plan as against Rock Canyon. High ball screen, let Andrew (Crawford) do his thing. He’s the best in the state at getting downhill, and I was right there in the right moment.”
Wight’s score came off Crawford’s miss on a contested lay-up, and after Eaglecrest star junior point guard LaDavian King sank three free throws on the other end to tie the game with 9.9 seconds left.
King’s clutch free throws capped his 31-point night, but that wasn’t quite enough to topple ThunderRidge, which had four scorers in double figures. Crawford paced the Grizzlies with 22 points, while Wight had 14, senior guard Charlie Spann had 14 and senior guard Ryan Doyle chipped in 10.
The quartet helped ThunderRidge avenge last season’s first-round playoff loss at home to Eaglecrest, a 75-56 setback that remains the Grizzlies’ lone playoff defeat over the last four seasons. ThunderRidge won on Friday despite going down 11 points in the first quarter, which was punctuated by a 12-0 Eaglecrest run.
“Just like the Rock Canyon game, we have great resolve, and we know what it means to come back and fight,” said Crawford, the team’s senior leader at point guard and a CU commit. “We made the plays when it was most important.
“LaDavian had four threes in the first half, and the game plan at half was to step up on him. He’s most of their production, along with (junior center Garrett) Barger. They were offensive rebounding over us, so we had to rebound and get stops on LaDavian in the second half, and we did that just enough.”
Eaglecrest Raptors Ladavian King (1), right, passes against ThunderRidge Grizzlies Ryan Doyle (1) in the first quarter of the 6A boys Colorado state high school Final Four game at the Denver Coliseum in Denver on Friday, March 08, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Barger finished with a double-double, with 15 points and 12 rebounds, and had a handful of impressive put-backs in the fourth quarter to help the Raptors rally after ThunderRidge went on a third-quarter scoring spree to take command. That spree came after the Grizzlies decided in the locker room to stop running set plays.
“All those buckets we took the lead on, there was no sets,” ThunderRidge head coach Joe Ortiz said. “There was structure, but it was our guys just playing.”
The Grizzlies dominated in the paint to take control in the second half and ultimately finish, outscoring the Raptors there 44-18. ThunderRidge was up 12 points late in the third quarter, but King and Barger wouldn’t let Eaglecrest go quietly. King poured in seven 3s total while shooting way beyond the arc.
“We had a couple mishaps down the stretch — missed an easy shot we should’ve made, then we had a sloppy turnover on the sideline that really hurt us, and they made shots,” Ortiz said. “Garrett made some phenomenal put-backs, and then LD can hit from 25 (feet out). He’s just something special.”
For Eaglecrest, the heartbreaking loss comes with a silver lining, as the Raptors graduate just one senior and figure to be an immediate contender again next season. Their deep run in the state tournament was unexpected to many, even head coach Jarris Krapcha.
Eaglecrest Raptors Ladavian King (1) is dejected after the ThunderRidge Grizzlies won the 6A boys Colorado state high school Final Four game 64-62 at the Denver Coliseum in Denver on Friday, March 08, 2024. Eaglecrest Raptors Kris Coleman (11) can only watch and walk past the celebration. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
“There was a pretty big stretch in our year where I didn’t think there was any chance we’d be in this spot,” Krapcha said. “We had problems on and off the court, injuries, etc. We came together at the right time and we were in a position to win a Final Four game. I’m proud of them, because we’ve got a lot of guys back next year, and we can come back here (to the Coliseum).”
ThunderRidge’s composure in the game’s tensest moments shows this year’s Grizzlies’ DNA is like the title teams in ’21 and ’22, albeit with a different cast minus Crawford, who is set to play in his third title game.
“Two years ago in the state finals, we were down 12-0 to start the game,” Ortiz recalled. “Then we were down eight at half, and Fossil Ridge thought they had it, and we came out and scored 12 straight (to open the third). And we had 11 or 12 straight stops. So the resolve is phenomenal, and it’s similar this year to those title teams.”
Saturday will mark ThunderRidge’s ninth appearance in the title game under Ortiz, who is 4-4 in those bouts. With a win, the longtime Grizzlies’ boss — who earned his 500th career win earlier this season — can move into a tie with Greeley Central’s Jim Baggott for fifth all-time for the most championships at one school.
“It’s just about one,” Ortiz emphasized. “This one.”
ThunderRidge takes on Valor Christian at 4 p.m. on Saturday. The Grizzlies beat the Eagles earlier in the season, 62-55 at Valor Christian on Dec. 9. It was one of two losses for the Eagles, who avenged the other defeat with a 67-56 win over Smoky Hill in Friday’s second Class 6A Final Four game.
ThunderRidge Grizzlies Andrew Crawford (42) gets fouled by Eaglecrest Raptors Kris Coleman (11) in the second half quarter of the 6A boys Colorado state high school Final Four game at the Denver Coliseum in Denver on Friday, March 08, 2024. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
