Bruce Dowbiggin
Insecurity Detail: Is Anthing Safe From Mayhem Anymore?
It’s not like baseball hasn’t seen fans on the field before— sometimes thousands of them. Remember when Hank Aaron hit home run No. 715? He was chased around the base paths by fans in Atlanta who’d somehow gotten past security. One of whom, Craig Sager, went on to have a lengthy sports broadcasting career.
Yankee Stadium crowds often mobbed the field in the 1970s, forcing players like Reggie Jackson to fight their way to the clubhouse to save their skins and, maybe, their caps. MLB has managed to discover security in the years since then, the protective netting surrounding the field providing a barrier to overly refreshed fans from taking an idiotic lap around the field.
That’s why the sight of, not one, but two fans being allowed to get to Atlanta’s superstar Ronald Acuña Jr. in centre field in Denver was so shocking. The first fan had time to awkwardly hug Acuña before, belatedly, a few porky security dudes finally hustled out to help. In doing so, Acuña, the runaway favourite for NL MVP— was knocked to the ground.
As more Rockies security emerged, a second fan joined in the untidy melée. After a brief scuffle the fans were bodily carried from the field. Only at the very end of this did any of Acuña’s teammates come out to help. The pair of intruders were arrested and charged.
An unhurt Acuña played down the incident afterward, talking about the men just being fans, a little over-excited etc. Maybe. But in a time where security is breaking down in stores, government buildings and schools, laughing off the episode is folly. In that context, the invasion of the field represented a massive security fail on behalf of MLB, the Rockies and the game-day staff.
First, players are told that in these situations they are to head immediately to the dugout. Acuña did not, waiting for the intruders. Second, the security staff were critically slow. The fan had ample time to create a worse confrontation before the other staff— and the second intruder— arrived on scene. Third, Acuña’s teammates were strangely reticent to come to his aid. Fourth, the areas of entry to the field were not properly supervised. Fifth, the umpires should have cleared the field. Instead the Braves pitcher was allowed to continue his warmup on the mound.
Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail. Fail.
Again these scenes have happened before, shrugged off as a lark by a drunk fan. Why the big fuss? The answer is context. In a time when MLB is trying to get fans as close their heroes as possible (see the Blue Jays new bullpens) the league has now shown it can’t control an emergency. Other leagues have had varying degrees of success. The NHL has very few intrusions on-ice anymore since high glass and netting made invasions nearly impossible.
But players in all sports still must pass through gauntlets of fans wanting a touch of the hand or a souvenir. In this regard golf and tennis are whistling past the graveyard as fans can stand in arm’s length of a golfer or interface with tennis stars at courtside. Just attend a PGA Tour event— most are like frat parties— and you’ll know how hard it would be to contain trouble if it got any momentum.
In the bigger picture, Canadians and Americans have come to accept that the people who are entrusted to keep the criminal element in their place are not doing their job. Like the Rockies staff they show up late— if they show up at all. And the perps are quickly back on the street due to new bail laws and hyper-liberal judges and crown attorneys. (Except if you’re a truck driver.)
Every major Canadian city— and a few secondary places as well— is now a squat zone for the homeless, the addicted and the politically insane. Here’s Ottawa: . Here’s Calgary: Here’s Toronto: They’re not exceptions. There are now no-go sections of these formerly safe places where unspeakable acts are performed on a sidewalk or in a park, menacing people in their everyday activities. Children must pass by the human detritus of needles and junk. Authority seems non-existent.
Large American cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York (among many) are also being preyed upon by organized gangs who swarm stores, gutting even high-end outlets like Nordstroms, Saks and Gucci in a blur of action, departing the scene in every direction. At times they use stolen cars to break through security. Many of these stores are closing their inner-city outlets.
Who are these thugs? Some are lifetime criminals, some are illegal immigrants, some are junkies, some are joyriders, out for a lark. Absent proper housing and mental healthcare they spill out in the streets knowing that laws about shoplifting have been forgotten (thanks to municipal councils replete with bleeding hearts). In the midst of this, the VPOTUS urged citizens to pay the bail of those who burned American cities for six months after George Floyd. That’s a deterrent, huh?
Knowing that the legal system is debased by Woke prosecutors and clown politicians such as AOC (“They’re just putting bread on the table”) they act with impunity. As often as not those protecting stores are charged for injuring the criminals. Managers tell staff to instead turn the other cheek to rampant theft.
For the most part the fanciful liberals who support ultra-permissive politicians have been immune from the impact of electing fools and revolutionaries. But now, the mayor of NYC is crying the blues because the illegals he thought should be kept in border states are now roaming his streets, flooding social services and jails. Ditto mayors in many other Democrat-run cities who see the migrant bussed to their streets.
In Canada, the current Liberal government has set a target of 40 million people in this country by 2026. Where are these new people to live? Where are they to work in cities with insane housing supply? Who will pay for their healthcare when personal physicians are as rare as Toronto Stanley Cup triumphs since 1967? Trudeau has no answers, just word salads blaming Stephen Harper.
It’s gotten so people now look at the attack on Ronald Acuña in a baseball park and say, “More of the same.” The breaking point is near. Should anyone choose not to do something about it.
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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
It’s fair to say everyone in hockey wanted the Winnipeg Jets back in the NHL. They became everyone’s darlings in 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers, the league’s second stab at a franchise in Georgia, were sold to Canadian interests including businessman David Thomson. (Ed.: Gary Bettman’s try number three in Atlanta is upcoming.).
Yes, the market is tiny. Yes, the arena is too small. Yes, Thomson’s wealth is holding back a sea of inevitability. But sentimentalists remembering the Bobby Hull WHA Jets and the Dale Hawerchuk NHL Jets threw aside their skepticism to welcome back the Jets. The throwback uniforms with their hints at Canada’s air force past were an understated nod to their modest pretensions. It was a perfect story.
The question now, however, is will the same folks get dewey-eyed about the Jets if they become the first Canadian team to win the Stanley Cup since (checks his cards) Montreal and Patrick Roy did it in 1993. It would be helpful in this election year if something were to bind a nation torn apart by politics. The Gordie Howe Elbows Up analogy is more than shopworn, and Terry Fox can only be resurrected so often. So a Cup win might be a welcome salve.
But the approved script has long dictated that the Canadian team to break the schneid should be one of the glamour twins of the NHL’s Canadian content, the Edmonton Oilers or the (gulp) Toronto Maple Leafs. The Oilers and their superstar Connor McDavid barely lost out last spring to Florida while the Leafs, laden with superstars like Auston Matthews and William Nylander, are overdue for a long playoff run.
Hockey Night In Canada positively pants for the chance to gush over these two squads each week. When was the last time Toronto played an afternoon game so HNIC could showcase the Jets? Like, never. Same for the Oilers, who with their glittering stars like McDavid Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent Hopkins are the primary tenants of the doubleheader slot, followed by Calgary. Winnipeg? We’ll get to them.
But there’s going to be no ignoring them in the spring of 2025. The Jets in the northern outpost in Manitoba were the top team in the entire league in 2024-25. They’ll comfortably win the Presidents Cup as the No. 1 squad and have home-ice advantage throughout the playoffs. They have the league’s best goalie in Connor Hellebuyck (an American) and a stable of top scorers led by Kyle Connor and Mark Schiefele. Because Winnipeg is on a lot of No Trade lists, they have built themselves through the draft and thrifty budgeting.
But will the same people who swooned over the Jets in 2011 now find them as adorable if they ruin the Stanley Cup plot lines of the Oilers, Leafs and Ottawa Senators? Will the fans of Canadian teams in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal not making the postseason take the Jets to their hearts or will they be as phoney as the Mike Myers commercials for the Liberals?
In addition, the Jets will be swamped by national media should they proceed through the playoffs. It’s one thing to carry the expectations of Winnipeg and Manitoba. It’s another to foot the bill for a hockey crazy county. We remember Vancouver’s GM Mike Gillis during the Canucks 2011 Cup run bemoaning the late arrivers of the press trying to critique his team as they made their way through the playoffs.
It will be no picnic for the Jets, however strong they’ve been in the regular season. No one was gunning for them as they might for the Oilers or Leafs. They will now get their opponents’ best game night after night. Hellebuyck has been a top three goalie in the NHL for a while, winning the Vezina Trophy, but his playoff performance hasn’t matched that of his regular-season version.
Already the injury bug that sidelines so many Cup dreams is biting at the Jets. Nikolaj Ehlers collided with a linesman in Saturday’s OT win in Chicago. Defenceman Dylan Samberg is also questionable after stopping a McDavid slap shot with his leg. A rash of injuries has ended the run of many a worthy Cup aspirant in the past. Can Winnipeg’s depth sustain the churn of seven weeks of all-out hockey?
As always for the small-market Jets time is of the essence. Keeping this core together is difficult with large markets lusting after your players. With the NHL salary cap going up it remains a chore to keep their top players. Schiefele and Hellebuyck are tied up longterm, but 40-goal man Connor is a UFA after next season while Ehlers is not signed after this season. Young Cole Perfetti will be an RFA in 2026. Etc.
So how much do Canadians love the Jets if they sneak in and steal the hero role by winning a Canadian Cup? Lets see Ron MacLean pun his way through that one.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Good news if you like the way Rogers Sportsnet covers hockey in Canada. You’re about to get a whole lot more of it. In a move that sums up Gary Bettman’s unique broadcast philosophy the NHL has awarded the Canadian TV/ digital/ streaming rights to Rogers for the next 12 years. The price tag? 12 billion U.S. dollars (about $16.B CDN dollars).
While the pattern in modern sports broadcasting rights has been toward sharing the wealth among competing bidders— the NFL has six distinct partners— Bettman the contrarian has opted for a different notion. He’s all in with one Canadian partner, and let his critics STFU.
As opposed to the previous CDN national monopoly awarded to Rogers in 2013 this one bestows national rights in all languages across TV, streaming and digital for all regular-season and playoff games, plus the Stanley Cup Final and all special events. This extends to coverage in all regions. There are some concessions for Rogers to sell limited cutout packages, such as the Monday Night Amazon package they’ve created.
Presuming Pierre Poliievre doesn’t get his way with CBC, Rogers will likely piggyback on their time-sharing agreement for Saturday Hockey Night In Canada to get CBC’s network reach. (There remain many hockey fans who still think CBC has the NHL contract. Go figure.)
Translation: there will be no regional packages for TSN to produce Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators or Toronto Maple Leafs games, for instance. But there will be regional blackouts, because nothing says we are proud of our product like denying it to a larger audience. Conn Smythe would be proud.
At the presser to announce the deal Rogers and Bettman were coy about how much they will charge consumers for the honour of being inundated by content in what now seems likely to be a 36-team league by the time the deal expires. Will costs be added to cable/ satellite packages? How much for streaming? With stories circulating that Rogers massively overbid for the package to get the monopoly it’s apparent that the phone company will be turning over every nickel to make it worthwhile.
Fans are apprehensive and over-saturated with hockey content already. For that reason, the NHL is now desperately looking for ways to lessen the tedium of the 82-game regular schedule with midseason content like the 4 Nations Cup or a World Cup format. In Canada’s hockey-mad environment Rogers will have a passionate market, but even the most fervent fans will only spend so much for their fix.
Already, Rogers is trumpeting its re-acquisition with commercials featuring Ron Maclean doing his breathy feels-like-home voice about how Sportsnet is the natural landing spot for hockey until many of us are dead. Bettman made cooing noises about Rogers’ commitment at the announcement.
But let us cast our minds back to 2013 when the last Rogers/ NHL deal was concocted. We were the sports media columnist at the Mop & Pail at the time and much was made that Rogers would be a technological marvel, re-inventing the way we watched hockey. There would be new camera angles, referee cams, heightened audio, refreshed editorial content etc.
As hockey fans now know Rogers dabbled in the brave new world briefly, blanched at the cost of being creative and largely went back to doing hockey the way it had always been done. Taking no risks. On some regional casts that meant as few as three or four cameras for the action.
But if you were expecting dashboard cameras and drone shots you were sadly disappointed. Similarly there was a brief stab at refreshing the pre-, mid- and postgame content. Hipster George Stromboulopoulos was brought in as a host to attract a larger female audience.
But pretty soon Strombo was gonzo, replaced by the anodyne David Amber (whose dad was once the leader of the journalist union at CBC). Women like former player Jennifer Botterill were brought in to change the gender balance on panels. They then acted pretty much like guys, chalk-talking viewers into numbness. Appointment viewing has become a fallback choice.
The move away for anything controversial came in 2019 with Rogers’ axing of Don Cherry’s Coach’s Corner in a flap over the former coach’s continuing ventures into political or cultural content. Maclean slipped the knife into his meal ticket and continued on the show. After time in limbo, doing location shoots, he was returned full-time to the desk.
As we wrote in June of 2022, the one exception to the standard “serious, sombre, even a touch grim” tone is former defenceman Kevin Bieksa. “Bieksa has been a moveable feast. His insouciance with media has become his ragging on the fellow panelists during intermissions that used to be as much fun as skating in July.” His banter with “insider” Elliotte Friedman is now a lone concession to wit on the show.
Intermissions are numbingly predictable, and Rogers’ stable of analysts and play-by-play announcers outside of HNIC is unchallenging to the orthodoxy of PxP being a radio call over TV pictures. Name one star beside Bieksa that has been produced by Rogers’ “safe” broadcast style since 2013. They’d fit in perfectly in a 1980s hockey broadcast. Now compare it with the lively Amazon broadcasts hosted by Adnan Virk and Andi Petrillo.
This leaves a lingering question. What happens to TSN? Many prefer the editorial and studio profile of TSN on Trade Deadline Day or Free Agent frenzy. TSN locked up its stars such as James Duthie and Bob McKenzie when the last deal was signed. But there isn’t enough live content this time to support keeping a full roster anymore. Who will stay and who will go? (TSN’s president Stewart Johnson is the new commissioner of the CFL).
And with Rogers taking full control of MLSE (Maple Leafs, Raptors, Argos, Toronto FC) TSN is left with the CFL and packages of NFL, golf, tennis, some auto racing and international soccer. Is that enough on which to float a network? There have been rumours that Bell, owner of TSN, is interested in divesting itself of the high cost of sports broadcasting. Should that happen— who has the money to replace them?— the effect will be seismic in Canadian broadcasting.
For now, watch how much pressure the NHL puts on Rogers to up its game. More importantly what will happen when Bettman finally retires and the league has a new vision since 1992? Rogers has sewn up its end. Will the audience go with them?
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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