After a disastrous opening to the season, culminating in the firing of their head coach, the Oilers have rebounded, going 35-11-1 since hiring Kris Knoblauch. Meanwhile, the Jackets have stuck to the disaster part.
It’s easy to be underrated when your club has the best player in the NHL, who has scored 99 points this season and, if he plays for another nine years, might become just the second player in NHL history to surpass 2000 career points. Leon Draisaitl, too, gets almost too little credit. With 80 points this season, Draisaitl leads 25 of the other 31 NHL teams in points scored, and with 32 goals, he leads 24 of the other 31 teams in goals scored. He’s not leading his squad in either stat, though, for some reason. Whoa. He’s still deadly, German, and is ninth in the NHL in points. Bonus points for me: my childhood best pal moved to Germany.
Augustine Lopez, 47, is accused of flying from Florida to London’s Heathrow Airport and sending his luggage to Oxford University, where Dr. Rebecca Smethurst is a researcher in the astrophysics department. He is also charged with possessing a prohibited weapon and stalking causing serious alarm or distress.
The Oxford Crown Court was informed, according to The Telegraph in Britain, that Lopez had written Smethurst, who had never met the accused in person, a number of “rambling” emails and social media messages.
The Melbourne, Florida, native Lopez is accused of bringing a can of pepper spray into the United Kingdom, a forbidden weapon, and claiming it was a “oversight” during transit, according to prosecutor Kellie Enever.
Smethurst, who has a popular YouTube channel with 700,000 subscribers, was visibly upset while testifying behind a screen.
âThe messages made me feel a mix of fear and revulsion,â Smethurst told the court. âMy skin was crawling that this person thought that I wanted to read this. It felt like such an invasion of my own life and privacy.â Enever said Lopez flew to the U.K. on Feb. 13, 2023. Witnesses have said he camped outside her workplace and tried to meet her in person. He apparently didnât have a hotel reservation and didnât know anyone in the country.
âMr. Lopez does not know her,â Enever said. âAll we say he knows about Dr. Smethurst is what he has acquired from social media.â
