Play this drinking game. Every time some football analyst on TV says during the course of a game, “He’ll be a star for this team for years” take a drink. You’ll be tipsy in a hurry.

Maybe in the old days, Skip. But the concept of the players you’re loving now lasting very long with NFL, NHL, NBA or even MLB teams has come and gone. The new model was never more apparent as when the NFL No.1 seed Detroit Lions, replete with young stars, were blindsided from the NFL playoffs by upstart Washington’s rookie QB Jaden Daniels.

Heavily favoured Detroit (10 point favourites in some places) was loaded with superstars on their first contract. Jahmyr Gibbs, Jameson Williams, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Penei Sewell, Aidan Hutchinson (injured), Sam LaPorta, Jack Campbell and Ali McNeil (injured). Added to veteran QB Jared Goff and a sprinkling of veterans they seemed perfectly balanced.

Except the new mantra says you can only win a Super Bowl in this time of salary-cap hell with a HOF QB or a QB on his affordable rookie deal. Goff is neither, and to emphasize the mantra he threw four picks and fumbled once en route to the heartbreak loss. The dynasty turned into as ‘die-nasty”.

In the old days you’d just say “we will get them next year” and hope for better luck. But within two years the Lions will have to do a painful triage of their glittering young stars. You can’t pay them all, so who will go and who will stay? Adding to the misery of the salary-cap mandated chop will be can you get value for them in trades?

The Lions are far from the only ones dealing with leagues that value parity ahead of dynasty. In the NHL the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs are hearing the steady tick-tock counting down on the NHL’s cap machine. The two clubs lost consistently for a decade to score top picks in the draft. Riding the skills of Conor McDavid and Auston Matthews they’ve brushed up against a Stanley Cup but have yet to do the deal.

As every fan of the teams knows it’s a race to add the proper players to the roster to compliment the young stars before they get too expensive. McDavid is an unrestricted FA after 2025-26 and as the league’s top star he will command the maximum under the salary cap where ever he lands. If that’s Edmonton he and Leon Draisaitl will be added to Darnell Nurse, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent Hopkins as a large portion of the cap. Can the Oilers balance these stars and still pay defensemen and goalies?

Ditto the Maple Leafs who have Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Morgan Rielly and Chris Tanev hogging the top end of the cap. Can they find the right pieces at a cheap price to create a team that will reach the Final, let alone win the Stanley Cup? And can they do it before their core players start to decline?

For those reasons, NHL teams and players were fixated on the news that there will be no more escrow deductions taken from players the rest of the season. That led many to surmise that the salary cap will be going up significantly for the next few years, allowing teams more latitude to complete rosters and elite players to be paid their worth to the league. Even if true the increases will be proportionate, forcing the same constraints of a cap at the top and bottom of payrolls.

None of these economic concerns seem to bother the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers. With just a luxury tax, not a salary cap, to restrain them the Dodgers have added Japanese star Riki Sasaki and bullpen ace Taylor Scott to their payroll in the past week. This in addition to two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Their payroll now exceeds $370 M. For 2025. By comparison the Pittsburgh Pirates sit at just $77 M for 2025 and the fans are outraged demanding the owner sell.

The Dodgers justify the spending because they are building a global brand. While the competing leagues constrict their payrolls to pay service to parity, MLB is allowing the Dodgers to take a soccer attitude to their payroll. The arguments for parity are pretty weak when you consider that their have-nots are happy to take the bounty of great TV/ digital/ logo revenue but refuse to improve their teams.

Which leaves us with the Toronto Blue Jays, definitely a large-market team trying to spend like one. Monday they announced the signing of FA Anthony Santander, who had 44 homers for Baltimore last season. This follows an offseason of humiliation where the team has made no progress signing its superstars Vladdy Guerrero and Bo Bichette.

Like NFL Lions or NHL Maple Leafs, the clock is ticking on their core players as they become prohibitively expensive. Should they sign both? One? Or trade them to get value before they scram to LA or New York? Right now they seem caught between bad options.

Meanwhile the underwhelming Jays management was punked— yet again—in pursuit of a high-profile Japanese FA. The very visible failure left many wondering if it was the market or the management that is holding back Toronto. Which might be another drinking game. Take a drink every time the Jays management swings and misses on a high-profile free agent. You’ll be in detox pretty soon.

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.

Canadians are still lamenting the pasting Team Canada absorbed at the World Junior Championships in Ottawa, won by the USA. Out of the medals, beaten by Latvia and Cechia, among others. There’s talk about the ongoing problems of the development system and the people at Hockey Canada.

Yes, Canada’s top eligible players (Macklin Celibrini, Connor Bedard) are in the NHL and unavailable to the team. And the massive feeder system— prospects spread out over the CHL, Junior A and NCAA— is inefficient at best. But the talent window is definitely narrowing.

As we wrote in August of 2021, “The hockey pipeline is full of young men whose fathers could give them a hockey education but who also knew many of right people to tap into. The sophisticated training and arduous diet regimes are getting more like Tom Brady and less like Gump Worsley. And they’re expensive— even in Howe’s home nation of Canada which honours its roots.”

What might be of interest is that people in the development system of American hockey are similarly distressed about the problems of developing players in their country. Cost, bureaucracy and the sheer time commitment for families is breaking a lot of people. “This discipline and access is reflected in the United States where the boom in hockey participation is resulting not in farm boys and rink rats but in privileged sons and daughters of highly paid NHL stars getting an inside track on making the league or the Olympics.” 

Topher Scott of The Hockey Think tank.com has posted about what he sees in American hockey culture. “I’ve talked to so many people in youth hockey about how to change the toxic culture – and it’s tough hearing so many good people saying they can’t do it the way they want (the right way) because everyone else is doing it the other way (the business way) and if they don’t do it that way they’ll lose their club.

I’m calling BS. If you are involved in youth hockey, please listen to this clip. And if you are a person of influence wherever you are at, stand tall and don’t cater to the crazy. The only way we’ll see positive change is if people of influence in youth hockey areas, who know better, go against the grain and lead the change.”

The comments on his post are familiar in the burgeoning hockey system that now has roots in most states in the U.S. “Such a scam to charge these families 5/6k in dues per year and then pay another 10/20/30k in travel expenses.”

—“It’s an arms race and you are not going to stop that. Make it fun for the other 90% of kids and families that aren’t part of the arms race.”

—“This system beyond broken. Organizations telling some kids In the contract we have the right to put you on the lower team, as we may find other players to replace you, along w/ we are flying players in to play.”

—“U14 has kids who live in central USA playing on east coast teams. Nj pa and ny loaded w aaa programs, many refuse to play each other because of rankings”.

—“…the hockey culture DOES not like disruptors- they are a THREAT to exposing bad things & bad people. Loss of power, control, money & damaging adult egos trumps what is best for kids.”

—“I find it unbelievable that travel hockey programs demand kids miss Fri and Monday school days to play wraparound weekend tournaments 5X/yr or risk being thrown off the team. Its gotta stop!”

Scott and his X followers are describing the same issues affecting hockey in Canada where a number of financial and social changes have created a system dominated by clubs, agents, schools and ambitious parents. The image he presents of the overbearing parent— in concert with team officials— who are stage managing a child’s progress is familiar. One that dictates needing to take out a mortgage to create a young hockey star.

As we have written recently, the NCAA decision to now allow players with service in the CHL to play at the U.S. college level has accelerated the meat grinder of development hockey in Canada. Again, delusional parents are now demanding that their child have extra ice time and a prime spot on a team so as to qualify for a pro career. Adding to the pressure is the NIL program now radically restructuring college sports in the U.S. After winning the rights to name, likeness and image in the U.S. Supreme Court athletes can now be paid millions in some cases to attend a certain school or transfer through the “portal” system,.

While NIL has not hit hockey as dramatically as other sports, it’s just a matter of time till schools wanting the next Connor Bedard to attend their school will be tossing alumni and sponsor money to over-18 prodigies. Parents seeing this will re-double efforts at the minor level to get their child on the prospect track, paying vast amounts for training and travel.

One problem in Canada, as mentioned, is the vast network of teams demanding players on the men’s side. For prospects to star on the first line or in goal there must be others to play on the third line or be a seventh defenceman. This creates a meat grinder. While clubs sometimes level with parents about ice time there are plenty who are in denial, hoping their son or daughter can still cash in on the riches in the NHL from the fringes of the roster.

Some of this has been alleviated by scholarships for players depending on their years in the system. Canadian University hockey is full of 22-26 year olds using their CHL grants to pursue education. But there are many who simply melt away to play in minor pro leagues across the country and in Europe.

In the long run this may make the CHL an elite league for under 18 players or those who can’t manage the scholastic record to switch to NCAA. The NHL likes the longer CHL schedule with its pro model, but there is much to be said for a prospect growing at an academic institution, broadening their horizons.

But, as always, parents will follow the money and the dream— even if they’re unattainable.

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.