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http://toughmudder.com/events/montreal-sat-july-6-sun-july-7-2013/?language=fr Tough Mudder: Fancy an obstacle course on steroids? Tough Mudder brings its bruising brand of insanely popular obstacle-course challenges to Quebec in July By René Bruemmer, THE GAZETTE May 31, 2013 Tough Mudder: Fancy an obstacle course on steroids? Tough Mudder brings its bruising brand of insanely popular obstacle-course challenges to Quebec in July By René Bruemmer, THE GAZETTE May 31, 2013 ason Ostroff ran competitively as a kid. He remembers it being a trying experience, with much training and gasping and worrying about best times. He doesn’t run much anymore, but one childhood activity he does miss is the jump and tumble fun of navigating obstacles, revelling in the elemental joy of getting over, under or through. Which is why he and three longtime friends will be taking part in the Tough Mudder event this summer near Montreal, a child’s obstacle course on steroids designed by military men that bills itself as “probably the toughest event on the planet.” “Honestly, it’s just that I like the idea of running an obstacle course — it’s just fun, and since I was a little kid, I kind of liked the idea of having to get through this stuff,” said Ostroff, a 26-year-old McGill medical student living in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. “It feels like an army boot camp kind of thing. And an opportunity to be a kid again.” In July, about 8,000 people are expected to sign up to test their strength, stamina and perhaps sanity at the first Montreal Tough Mudder event, taking place at the Bromont airport, one hour’s drive east of the city. Participants will navigate an obstacle course 15 to 20 kilometres long and scale 25 challenges designed by British Special Forces, most often with the help of teammates — entrants are encouraged to enter as part of a team, and about 80 per cent do. They will climb wooden walls, jump fire, receive electric shocks, crawl through fields of mud and immerse themselves in freezing water in challenges with names like Arctic Enema, Fire Walker and Ball Shrinker. At the end, they will be handed an ice cold beer, but they will not be told how long it took them to complete the course, because providing a change from timed marathon-type races is at the heart of the Tough Mudder philosophy. It also was a key selling point Ostroff used to coerce his friends. “None of them wanted to do it, until I explained it wasn’t timed,” he said. “They liked the fact we could just take it easy and didn’t have to sprint the entire race.” The Tough Mudder events are part of a growing phenomenon of adventure-type races offered worldwide with names like Muddy Buddy, Spartan Race and Warrior Dash for those seeking a new brand of challenge. In its second year in 2011, Tough Mudder had 140,000 participants at 14 events. By 2012, it had grown to 35 events, bringing in almost 500,000 participants. This year, 53 events are planned worldwide. The Spartan Race, a similar challenge that has a 20-kilometre event this year at Mont Tremblant on June 30, had 300,000 participants globally last year. Of those, most are corporate types joining with colleagues and “70 per cent of our people just came off the couch,” Spartan co-founder Joe DeSena told The Wall Street Journal. (Doing some training, however, is highly recommended.) When Will Dean presented his idea for Tough Mudder as part of a Harvard Business School contest, he was hoping to attract 500 participants to his inaugural event in 2010, drawn mostly through advertising on Facebook and word of mouth through social media, he told The New York Times. His professors considered that optimistic. The first race drew 4,500 participants to Allentown, Pa., and Dean, a former counterterrorism agent from Britain doing his MBA, discovered a new calling at the age of 29. It has grown into a $70-million company based in Brooklyn, N.Y. Modelled largely on events held in Europe, Dean’s premise was to create a challenge that involved more camaraderie and teamwork than standard marathons, and where participants don’t have to train for months. Participants are also allowed to skip obstacles they find too challenging. The organization takes a certain glee in poking fun at marathon-type races (“Fact # 1,” its website reads: “Marathon running is boring. Fact #2 — Mudders do not take themselves too seriously. Triathlons, marathons, and other lame-ass mud runs are more stressful than fun. Not Tough Mudder.”) The organization has also raised more than $5 million for the Wounded Warrior foundation, which supports injured soldiers. That being said, one does have to be a tough mudder to complete the race, which is why only 78 per cent of participants do so. Given the nature of the event, participants have to pay an extra $15 for insurance on top of the $85 to $180 it costs to register, depending on how soon in advance participants sign up. Spartan Race estimates an average of three people are injured in each of their races, and seven per cent will suffer “light” injuries. A 28-year-old died in April at a Tough Mudder event in West Virginia after leaping into a mud pond and failing to resurface, the first fatality in Tough Mudder’s history. The organization notes it is its only fatality in its three years among 750,000 participants, and the West Virginia event was staffed with more than 75 first aid, ambulance and water-rescue technicians. Ostroff trains five to six times a week at the gym, doing cardio and working on upper body strength, which should help, as might his intended specialty of orthopaedics. He hasn’t done any specific training for Tough Mudder — one day a year of climbing ropes and walking slippery planks over ice pits is enough, he said. He trusts his teammates, some of whom he has known for 20 years, although he’s a little concerned about the one who weighs 240 pounds, since he will have to help boost and lift that mass over wooden walls. His greatest concern is the running aspect of the race. “Honestly, I just hope to have a completely awesome day, as injury-free as possible,” Ostroff said. “I just want to have a great memorable event.” rbruemmer@montrealgazette.com Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Tough+Mudder+Fancy+obstacle+course+steroids/8460617/story.html#ixzz2UziJ5r3o

Works at le Bremner http://cultmontreal.com/2013/05/top-chef-canada-danny-smiles-le-bremner-montreal-chefs-canadian-cuisine/ Danny Smiles in the Le Bremner kitchen. Photo by Dominique Lafond. Danny Smiles is repping Montreal cuisine in this cycle of Top Chef Canada, and as the show hits mid-season, the le Bremner chef is well positioned to take the title, especially after winning last week’s elimination challenge. The challenge was to create Canada’s Next National Dish, with the carrot of a 10 G cash prize for the winner and the stick of two chefs’ elimination from the show. Smiles won the contest with his creation, which he calls the “Coast-to-Coast” roll — a shrimp and crab roll, served in pretzel hot dog bun with maple bacon and a side of house-smoked BBQ chips. The Coast-to-Coast roll. “It was a weird choice that I made, to do seafood. It was 40-something out, and we knew it was going to be hot. We knew it was going to be an outdoor event, and I was just like, I’m ready for the challenge. I wanted to go big or go home,” says Smiles, meaning it literally. “Those are the only options.” Smiles wanted to move beyond the usual signifiers of Canadian-ness — maple, pork and poutine. “That was the whole focus, a new national dish. I wanted to showcase fish. I’m a very fish-oriented chef,” he says, his point proven by the shrimp and albacore tattooed prominently onto one forearm. “There’s not a lot of countries that border two of the biggest oceans in the world, too, so that’s really cool,” he continues. “I used B.C. Dungeness crabs and Nordic shrimp from Quebec,” while the overall concept references an East Coast foodie fad du jour, the lobster roll. Smiles explains that he wanted to create a dish that draws not only on Canada’s geography, but its history as well. “Smoking fish and preserving goes back to First Nations; it’s a huge part of Canadian history,” he says. “I was trying to also come up with a story, something that realistically made sense with the history of our country. I’m a huge history buff, so I decided to go back a bit and readapt that into what I thought would be the new national dish.” Smiles may be following in the footsteps of mentor (and le Bremner’s executive chef) Chuck Hughes, who rose to celebrity chef status after becoming the first Canadian to win the US Top Chef — an increasingly necessary career move for chefs as they emerge from the obscurity of the kitchen and into the limelight of cooking shows, contests and book tours in order to establish themselves. Top Chef Canada made sense to him as a next move, he explains. “I liked the show, and also just wanted to see where I match up to the rest of Canada, almost like a personal challenge.” The best part of doing Top Chef Canada, he admits, is that it actually gives him room for his first love, cooking. “Unfortunately, being a chef, you’re not always focusing on cooking,” he says. “You’re lucky when you get into the kitchen and start cooking. That’s like a bonus, because there’s food costing, there’s menu planning; you’re plumbing, gardening. Those are all fun things that I love about my job, but in a small restaurant, you kind of do everything. And now, for six weeks, your main focus — you’re not contacting anyone, you’re not phoning suppliers; that’s all supplied for you, and you’ve just got to focus on cooking. So it’s like it brought me back to when I first started on the line.” ■ Top Chef Canada airs Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET on Food Network Canada.

(Courtesy of CBC News)

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)

Devinez où: Grand Montréal. Guess where: Greater Montreal. La ville (ou l'ancien ville si applicable), et la rue (si vous voulez un vrai défi)! The city (or the former city if applicable) and the street name if possible (if you are up for a real challenge). 1 point - ville/quartier seulement 1 point - rue seulement 2 points - ville + rue

Top Asian team at global business challenge 31 March 2008 NUS' MBA team beat more than 270 Asian teams to emerge the best in the continent at Cerebration 2008, with DBS as principal sponsor. The Competition is an annual global business challenge organized by the NUS Business School. The team finished second overall among the more than 450 participating teams from 200 business schools worldwide. HEC Montreal team emerged the champion, with the London Business School and McGill University completing the final field of four. Now in its fourth year, the competition gives MBA students a chance to devise global business expansion strategies for participating Singapore companies -- Brewerkz Restaurant and Microbrewery, Expressions International and Qian Hu Corp. Each team had to study its chosen firm and come up with strategies based on the firm’s unique profile and target market. This is the second straight year that the NUS team has finished second in the competition, reflecting the School’s global ranking of the top 100 business schools for its MBA program.