Bruce Dowbiggin
Small But Mighty, Hockey Crusader Susan Foster Belongs In The HHOF
Susan Foster April 26, 1944 – May 7, 2023
The first time I saw Susan Foster’s wonderful smile was in 1991, just after I’d seen Carl Brewer’s legendary scowl. I’d come to their home on Mt. Pleasant Avenue in midtown Toronto to follow a story I was researching about the meagre pensions for retired NHL greats and the corruption of the NHL Players Association under Alan Eagleson.
When I announced my plan, Carl had said— in his measured, sarcastic tone— that he’d had reporters up to here (he pointed to his bald dome). He wasn’t cooperating anymore with media guys who were spies for the owners. I swallowed hard. That’s when Sue (everyone called her Sue) emerged from the back kitchen, beaming her smile.
“Oh Carl,” she chided. “He’s come all the way up here, at least ask him in.” Carl did what he always did when Sue gave his a suggestion. He obliged. When I left their place two hours later I had embarked on a journey that would take almost eight years to complete, a story of intrigue, deceit and discovery to assist my boyhood heroes. Through Carl/ Sue it won me two Gemini Awards.
Of far greater importance, it brought me and my family two enduring friendships. Carl, the imposing rebel of hockey whose heart was always troubled, died in 2001. And Sue, who left us last Sunday, the teacher-turned-social-catalyst who won over even enemies with her sweetness and determination. Small but mighty, she even charmed Gary Bettman, the cold-fish NHL commissioner.
In league with the indomitable Russ Conway of the Lawrence Eagle Tribune we took down a man and a system many thought invincible. It was gratifying and frustrating all the same but, oh, the trails we travelled. In a snowstorm up to our waist in Boston for the announcement of the charges against Eagleton. In Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, to plan more strategy with Russ. In Sue’s backyard where her cats— always she had cats around— walking the fence around her deck while I read the galleys of her book The Power Of Two about her life with the mercurial Mr. Brewer.
BOSTON – 1979: Carl Brewer #28 of the Toronto Maple Leafs skates against the Boston Bruins at Boston Garden. (Photo by Steve Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)
By the time I met them, Carl and Sue had been chasing the NHL over Carl’s pension since 1980, when he finally stopped playing in the NHL at age 41. When the league refused his personal grievance over a single year’s pension, they declared war on behalf of everyone. They went though, by their own estimation, 22 lawyers who told them to give up before Mark Zigler of Koskie Minsky took on the file that would end with Carl, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Ted Lindsay, Andy Bathgate and hundreds of others winning their pension lawsuit to retire millions of dollars to their Fund.
It took another four years before Eagleson answered for his scoundrel turn, being convicted in Canada and the U.S. for fraud and other crimes. Carl stood up in Boston court to declare that it was only the United States Justice Department who’d saved hockey players. Typically, Eagleson’s pals like ex-PM John Turner and Supreme Court justice John Sopinka made sure he only served a sliver of what he deserved in a Canadian jail. (He’d have done five years in the jar if he’d been sentenced in the U.S. which had forced Canada to due its duty.)
Through it all, Sue was the discoverer of documents, the one who remembered a letter sent, the recruiter to the cause. With tea and caramel cake she brought us more allies every week while keeping Carl’s head from exploding in outrage at the ill-treatment. Her normalcy charmed media people into finally doing their duty to come aboard. No one could refuse her calls. Only fools underestimated the gentle grandmother.
She taught me how to use the corporations act to explore boards of directors, and land transfers that slowly unveiled the manner in which players had been defrauded by Eagleson and the NHL. Her late-night calls announcing legal hearings and extradition requests kept me and CBC TV Toronto a step ahead of the competition.
A loving mother to Dan and Melanie, she soon adopted my own three kids to her brood. They’d arrive home for lunch to see Carl’s gleaming skull next to Sue pouring tea at our dining table. The gentle giant and the den mother. When the news came of her death from dementia Evan, Rhys and Clare were crestfallen, recalling those simple childhood days on Manor Road East.
I remembered driving in the limousine to Carl’s funeral at St. Michael’s Cathedral on St. Clair. I told her I was nervous, because there’d be about 50 former NHL greats in the pews for my eulogy. A hundred other hockey people were coming too. I’d had about four hours sleep coming in from Calgary on the red-eye. Sue grabbed my arm, smiled and said, “You’ll be fine. That’s why I picked you.” My worries disappeared.
After Carl’s passing— and the Pension issue subsided– Sue turned into advocate for the Original Six survivors, going to charity fundraiser games. And when the retired NHL guys grew too old to play, she attended luncheons where they exchanged notes with Sue on their predicaments. She reviewed lawyers’ letters and pension arcana for them, listening to their weathered stories as if it were her first listening.
One by one, they’ve disappeared, succumbing to age and the inevitable. When their funerals were within driving distance Sue was there to send them off properly. Now it’s her turn, and it breaks my heart I won’t be able to join Melanie (Will) and Dan (Sarah) and their kids Angeline, Marshal, Foster and Hannah this week on Bayview, the scene of so many great days. We will have Dowbiggins there to make she’s remembered properly. Still.
The last time I saw her she was beginning to show the signs of PCA, a rare and debilitating dementia. An inability to use the phone or computer. Difficulty reading. But we still walked a couple of blocks down Mt. Pleasant over to The Homeway for brunch. It was spring, and she noted how the trees were blossoming in tribute. She was still full of chat, maybe a little apprehensive about her memory. But oh, that smile when I kissed her goodbye at the door. It elevated you.
They need to put her in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Now.
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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
Breaking: “Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum believes she will have a deal to avoid U.S. tariffs by next Tuesday. Meanwhile Canada’s PM Skippy McDoodles— he of 22 percent approval— is flying around Europe delivering billions to the Ukraine bribery-recycling mechanism and chatting with 18% approval Macron in Paris. God help Canada.”
For a party that consumes language the way Prime Minister Trudeau’s plane consumes jet fuel the ruling Liberals seem willfully— blissfully— ignorant of the meaning of the word Urgent. As in, get something done yesterday.
While Mexico seemingly recognizes the value of time in coming up with a deal by March 4 to avoid tariffs and Trump’s displeasure, viewers of the Xanax Liberal debates on Monday and Tuesday were treated to a government languorously floating down a river of polite debate, staying inside the guardrails of good taste.
The prevailing take was “we f**ed up the past decade, okay? But you know us and can depend on us to keep pandering to your romantic notions that don’t include Chinese money laundering, drug kingpins and cyber crime.” Apparently that should be enough for Canadian Boomers to flock to them like the swallows at Capistrano.
As most know by now the elders of the party disqualified two leadership candidates, Ruby Dhalla and Chandra Araya, from the debates because they couldn’t be relied upon to spare the cadaverous banker Mark Carney who famously has three different passports, a passel of corporate board seats and a halting grasp of French.
But who needs debate? The Liberals have settled on their enemy and it’s not Pierre Poilievre. It’s Donald Trump. They’re convinced themselves that targeting Beelzebub Trump, not addressing the tariff crisis, is all they need to expunge the Trudeau Follies and win a March election. Instead of engaging in serious talks (see: Danielle Smith) they’ll talk amongst themselves. The recent hockey win over over Tyrannus U.S. has apparently inspired Canadians to reward Liberals with another five years of sitting in first class while paying economy.
Emboldened 1A) candidate Chrystia Freeland, the former Finance minister and Truck Convoy caudillo, blasted Trump on Tuesday, urging Canada to join with… Denmark. “The U.S. is turning predator, and so what Canada needs to do is work closely with our democratic allies, our military allies. I would start with our Nordic partners, specifically Denmark who is also being threatened.”
Maybe she can do an anti-Trump rally at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen? The problem being— for those who applauded Nazis in the Visitors Gallery— this fatuous nonsense all makes perfect sense. The capacity for denial in the Libs aging Boomer base seems inexhaustible. Currently they’re memory-holing the Rez School buried babies claims that the PM recited before the U.N.
While the social-justice Left was routed in America in 2024, Team Carney is acting as if Canada’s culture cancellation scheme still works. Meanwhile the Libs seem unaware or uncaring about South of 70— the collapse of the CDN dollar— and the hollowing-out of Canada’s GDP (the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period).
Economist @TrevorTombe writes that it’s Code red time. “Real GDP per capita in the U.S. was 43% higher than in Canada in 2023. In 2024, I estimate this gap will widen to nearly 50% … This stunning divergence is unprecedented in modern history.’ But no sweat, Carney will print all the money Canada needs to keep diversity programs functioning.
It all mirrors the last desperate, flailing attempts by the U.S. Democrats to save their grasp on ultimate power in the 2024 election. Having used the Media Party that hid Biden’s bribery schemes to disguise the senility of Joe Biden for four years they discovered they would be wiped out by Trump in the voting. Presto change-o, they tossed the primary results, threw Biden into the dumpster, got friendly pollsters to make its look like Kamala Harris was ahead.
In the American model the DEMs still got smoked—every state voted more for Trump than 2020. Trump easily won the Electoral College. But Canada’s Libs seem assured that they can make an end run on the CPC’s big lead. Already the Media Party pollsters are showing a Lazarus-like ascent from Trudeau’s 22-percent approval to a lead in some polls and a closer call in others.
There are no Rasmussen polls as there were in the U.S., which consistently showed Trump on the road to his win. And Canada has yet to digest the full Carney record. Already his controversial record on climate and printing money has started to trip him up, as in recent revelations that he lied about his role in sending Brookfield’s head office from Canada to the U.S.
If all else fails Canada can still repatriate Wayne Gretzky. Donald Trump has made him a “free agent” again. “He’s the Greatest Canadian of them all, and I am therefore making him a ‘free agent,’ because I don’t want anyone in Canada to say anything bad about him… He supports Canada the way it is, as he should, even though it’s not nearly as good as it could be as part of the Greatest and Most Powerful Country in the World, the Good Ole’ U.S.A.!”
Besides, there are other Canadian fish for Trump to fry: “@Tablesalt13 If Donald Trump really wanted to hurt Canada he could offer (vetted) citizenship to any Canadian with an advanced degree or a sought-after skill. 40-50% of skilled Conservatives would leave… and only the socialists would remain….. This would be extinction level.” Just don’t call it urgent.
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.
Welcome to Canada’s Bedlam 2025. A petition is circulating in Edmonton demanding that Wayne Gretzky’s name be stripped from the eponymous boulevard honouring his status as an Edmonton/ Canadian hero and hockey icon. His crime? Supporting Donald Trump, who’s demanding Canada pay for its own defence, among other outstanding bills.
Meanwhile the kaffiyeh-wearing NDP members who support the scum who massacred mothers and babies in an unprovoked attack on Oct. 7, 2023, are still referred to as honourable members. Go figure. (Lest we forget the same Canadian Mensheviks out for Gretzky also want to strip Elon Musk’s Canadian citizenship for similarly hanging out with Trump and firing useless bureaucrats.)
There was a time when Gretzky was the holiest of holies. So above criticism that, when he got himself snared in a gambling scandal, the Canadian media and fans bought a story about his wife being the degenerated gambler. That’s an untouchable. In a nation where no one is disciplined for foisting untested vaccines on an unsuspecting public he was a made man.
Or so we thought, till a picture appeared of him and his family celebrating Donald Trump’s re-election in November.
Canada’s reflexive Left (see above) recoiled in disgust that No. 99 would sully his name and record by supporting Trump at the moment he was about to serve Canada with the bill for riding in first class while paying economy. When he did nothing to repent to the kaffiyeh brigade— as is his obligation apparently— they primed their attacks on the No. 1A player to ever don skates in Canada.
The final straw came when Canada and the U.S. engaged in their epic, brawling two-game set for supremacy of… a title the NHL made up a month before. No matter. An unchastened Gretzky was introduced as the honorary captain for Team Canada for the final game. It was the heretical excommunication moment for those orchestrating a coup, replacing PM Justin Trudeau for dour banker Mark Carney.
Forget Winnipeg chantoozie Chantal Krevaziuk massacring O Canada before millions of TV viewers. Gretzky’s failure to bend a knee before the Charlie Angus demographic was the real betrayal. Even though he’s lived as an American citizen since the epic trade of 1988 (all his kids are American) he’s obliged to honour the diktats of the Canadian Liberal cult.
As we wrote last November Gretzky has company in Canada’s penalty box with his only rival for greatness, Bobby Orr who has become a non-person in Canada for getting too close to Trump. “In Orr’s case it was his published endorsement of Trump’s losing 2020 campaign that led to the shade being drawn over the greatest defenceman (IMO player) ever. “He’s the kind of teammate I want”.
“Much like the Gretzky tsunami of condemnation, Orr took it in the cup… and we don’t mean Stanley… Here was Vancouver columnist Daniel Wagner: “In other words, Orr faces no harm from a Trump administration and is likely insulated from the harm that others have experienced. That doesn’t excuse his endorsement, but goes a long way towards explaining it.” In the Hockey News Ken Campbell tied Orr to the Jan. 6 riots. “Bobby Orr Was Part of the Problem. Now He Can Be Part of the Solution”.
In our column of Nov. 8, 2020, we pointed the wee hypocrisy of the liberal-left press box. “Just weeks after giving LeBron James’ political activism a tongue bath, the Globe & Mail sent in the goons for Orr. “Neither Bobby Orr nor any other athletes should be leading the political conversation” thundered Cathal Kelly.
Sure. Leave it to us. Other Canadian sports media called Trump a “monster”, a “racist” and “a totalitarian”. You could heat most of the GTA with the steam emitted by their indignation at Orr having the temerity to speak out. Others swore to sell off their precious Orr memorabilia as if Orr had been accused of throwing a Stanley Cup Final.
A bitter Orr has taken a low profile since as even some in his hometown of Parry Sound wants nothing to do with him. “Poor Parry Sound,” tweeted Mary Lou George on Oct. 31, 2020. “What a disgrace #BobbyOrr has turned out to be. Guess he believes bragging about assaulting women really is just locker room talk since he wants Trump on his team. Sad.”
Longtime fans in Parry Sound dumped on him. “I just assumed that he was a good guy. Honestly it was heartbreaking for me to learn this about him. It just shattered my impression – I guess it was an illusion – it just shattered it… It kind of now, makes me rethink a lot of my hockey heroes … it’s just disappointing.”
The message is that in progressive Canada, suspended in its 1970s it doesn’t pay for even the greatest hockey heroes to diverge from their Trudeaupian orthodoxy. As Canadiens star goalie Carey Price learned when he dared to disagree with Trudeau’s plans to seize guns.
But the message is clear. Whether you’re Wayne Gretzky, Bobby Orr or Carey Price, Canada’s Woke chorus will not abide insubordination to their cause. That includes much of the media. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, they can’t handle the truth. So shut up and pass the puck.”
At this rate Canada may run out of hockey gods who decamp to America. And heaven forbid Canadians ask how it is that their stars who have a chance to look at the True North from a different view come away with a new perspective.
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.
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