Bruce Dowbiggin
Sports Tests Negative On Many Fronts In 2021
You have to concede this about 2021: At least it was consistent. The year started out miserable and soul destroying and continued that way till the final days of this misbegotten year. It’s a wonder any sports were played at all.
From draconian lockdowns over Covid-19 to draconian lockdowns over the Omicron variant, we never knew who was playing, where they were playing and whether anyone would be there to see them play. Some jurisdictions applied a lighter hand (Florida, Sweden) while others produced dystopian scenes of imprisonment and rejection (Australia, New Zealand).
Here is how I Don’t Like Mondays saw the year: In February our piece We Interrupt This Lecture To Bring You A Football Game noted the downbeat tenor of the knowledge class harshing everyone’s vibe with Bruce Springsteen in the starring role. “Only at the end of the Boss’ litany of Woody Guthrie dirges about the soil and churches in Kansas did we find out this paean to Woke America was for Jeep— a company owned by French and Italian interests. The guy who was Born To Run now cruises the streets of privilege.”
With the NHL resuming its regular winter slot, the monotony of modern goaltending excellence became apparent. In Ken Dryden: Mr. Bettman, Bring Down These Walls the HOFer observed: “While scoring remains near its typical levels, the art of scoring them is more luck than skill. In short, if today’s padded-up giants can see the puck they’re going to stop it. “This game, one that allows for such speed and grace, one that has so much open ice, is now utterly congested… Never in hockey’s history has a tail so wagged the dog.”
Wayne Gretzky’s celebrated father/coach Walter died in early March. We reflected on his impact in How Walter Gretzky Raised The Bar– And The Cost– Of Training Hockey Stars “With the success of Gretzky’s training model— plus the importation of European skill training— families realized that if their sons and daughters wanted to be world-class athletes they were going to have to reject the Don Cherry ”Try Harder” school and imitate the techniques Gretzky had used on his son. Within a decade, getting the proper coaching and fitness to become a star became a growth industry.”
While on the Gretzky theme we excerpted the 1979 amateur draft from our book Inexact Science: The 6 most compelling drafts in NHL history. Because Wayne Gretzky: The Great One Was A Draft Dodger
The recent debate over transgender swimmer [Will] Thomas harkens to our March column Why Trans Athletes Spells Bad News For Your Grandma’s Feminism “The current fetish for pretending trans men can menstruate or bear children— previously the sacred domain of women— is an existential challenge to the women who transported radical gender politics from higher education into the public sphere. The blurring of this line— adopted by the same liberals who once supported them in establishing feminist laws— leaves women as just one of myriad grievance groups now being accepted by government and (gasp) corporate friends.”
“CFL On Line 1? Tell Them I’m Out. Kielburgers? Put Them Right Through” was our summary of a government showering its foreign pals with money while allowing a national tradition to wither.
A Super Soccer League in Europe never got out of the starting blocks. But we observed: Super Leagues Aren’t Dead. They’re Only Resting. “As I wrote in Cap In Hand the long-term solution is to allow clubs to play at the level their market can afford— something soccer in Europe currently does. How can a fan In Edmonton or Kansas City or San Antonio pay the same prices as fans in NYC, LA, Chicago or Toronto? How can they keep their young stars when a super franchise comes calling with lucrative opportunities? Ultimately they can’t. The money will be too big.”
The whack-a-mole quarantine regimes of the leagues— with their test-and trace efforts— savaged lineups, forced cancellations and delayed Olympics. In our May column PCR Tests: Fudging The Numbers To Suit The Narrative we called it hopeless. “For much of the pandemic 40 cycles has been the standard PCR level. Using a standard of 32 cycles, as much as 60 percent of the positives announced in Canada (1.3 million at this moment) produce traces that can neither produce illness nor transmit the virus. Do the math on 60 percent of 1.3 million and you realize the daily counts vomited out on TV and social media have deliberately been used more to scare than to enlighten.”
Thankfully, some traditions never die. Oilers, Leafs Choke: Tanks For The Memories took time to honour the gag reflex in Edmonton and Toronto during the spring playoffs.
From Jon Rahm’s DQ at The Memorial for knowing someone with Covid to to depleted lineups across sports leagues we asked: Sports Cred: Can You Believe A Shred Of What You See? “The PGA Tour is no doubt under great pressure from its sponsors and political allies to keep promoting the Casedemic deception. The message of change on PCR testing in America and Canada will have to come from where it started: with the public and private ®Health experts who’ve zealously dissembled and deceived since early 2020 to deflect their mistakes and shift blame to the naughty public.”
The failure of the NHL and specifically the Chicago Blackhawks to deal with a 2010 sexual schedule was the subject of two columns. Where Was Media On The Latest Hockey Sexual Abuse Scandal? and Cleanse The Sport: These Men Need To Be Fired. “Either NHL commissioner Gary Bettman or NHLPA executive director Don Fehr— or both— need to be shown the door. Nothing better exposes the organizational failure of these two executives than their treatment of the Kyle Beach sexual assault case that spilled out this week.”
The Tokyo Summer Olympics had great moments for Canadians. But nothing can hide The Empty Games: The Olympics On Life Support. “Put bluntly, the number of cities able to afford the back-breaking cost of staging the Summer Games has dwindled to a few major cosmopolitan cities and to nations run by dictators, sheiks and autocrats. And even those parties have realized that it’s hard to justify ten billion dollars for a swanky party for jocks and sports hangers-on.”
There was some attempt to adapt the Canadian medal count to suit political memes. In Success Of Canada’s Women Does Not Mean Men Failed. “In about half the nations in the world women are not allowed to compete at all or are severely hampered by religious doctrines or cannot get funding for the rigorous training needed to make an Olympic final. In short the talent pool that Canadian women swim in is clearly smaller by a large factor than that in which the make athletes compete. So when you’re watching an Olympic final in rowing or cycling or wrestling the odds that a Canadian woman gets on the podium increase exponentially over what can be expected for a man.”
With the introduction of vaccine passports to enter sports events we replied Civil Liberty: The Hard Is What Makes It Great. “The founders of democratic nations with liberal values understood the power of fear. The Declaration of Independence was forged in the midst of the American Revolution. Its authors would be hanged if it failed. They knew fear. That’s why they made it so damned difficult to circumvent the rights to person and privacy when people get nervous. They knew “easy” would get a lot of traction in a moment of stress.”
As the NFL started in September we did a little prognostication. NFL QBs: The More You Pay The Less They’re Worth? “Unless Tom Brady wins yet another SB, the team hoisting the trophy is most likely going to be a team with a QB on a manageable salary-cap number. Outside of Brady’s SB wins the past decade, the teams that have won the NFL’s top prize— or played in the big game— have had QBs on entry-level contracts at a fraction of what the big boys make.”
Endless MLB postseason games were one traditional feature that hasn’t disappeared. While We’re Young: Putting MLB On The Clock. “We’ve seen the PGA Tour hustle players back into timed pace and tennis officials penalize players for not serving before their 25-second clock expires. Baseball remains stubborn on using the clock. The question is, how to sell MLB stars that a ticking clock will not hurt their pre-pitch, in-between-pitch and after-pitch-rituals? Who’s going to tell Vlad Guerrero Jr. to pick up the pace or Max Scherzer to just release the damn ball?”
In our ongoing campaign to introduce real audio to sports we pleaded All Ears: Let Athletes Have Their Say. “The success of Netflix’s F1 documentary series Drive To Survive (now showing its third year) is a perfect example of the public’s demand for the inner sanctum of sport. Drive To Survive has plenty of the Nuke LaLoosh blarney from athletes and owners. But it also has enough free-wheeling about the bitchiness between drivers, the headaches of team managers and some of the greatest video from the pits to intrigue even the least serious fans.”
In a time of surrender Why Black NBA Stars Don’t Buy The Vax outlined a point of resistance to mandated behaviours. “Canadian NBA star Andrew Wiggins was supposed to be known as a superstar when he was drafted No. 1 overall by Cleveland in the 2014 draft. Now, after seven seasons of mixed playing results, he may instead be best known as the guy who said no to the NBA on their mandatory vaccination rules”.
In another Book Excerpt: The Price Was Right– Even Without A Cup. “NHL teams seem content to find goalies when they need them— not necessarily in the draft. Since 2000, just two first-rounders— Marc-André Fleury and Martin Brodeur— have won the Cup for the team that drafted him. Carey Price’s greatest legacy may be the absence of goalies being selected at the top of the draft.”
Frustration with strike zones coloured the World Series. Punch Out: Time To Go Virtual On Balls And Strikes “But the virtual stroke zone shows MLB can have 100 percent accuracy to a defined strike zone. Not to put @umpscorecards out of work, but with a virtual strike zone MLB has the power to remove doubt about the strike zone, end arguments and conspiracies about certain umps and make the games move faster.”
There’s not much new in broadcasting sports events. But. Manning The Broadcast Booth Proves A Winner may have shifted the NFL experience. ”Call it other revenge of the little brother. Or “pipe down, I’m watching the game:” However you characterize it, the emergence of the Manning Brothers, Peyton and Eli, on Monday Night Football has breathed life into a stale broadcast format and shown that All In The Family doesn’t always mean Archie Bunker calling Mike Stivic a Meathead”.
Finally, year-end showed voices within the sports establishment saying the draconian Covid testing and quarantine rules don’t work. Testing The Covid Narrative: Stevie Y Says Enough ”At the end of the day, I think — and now I’m getting political — but at the end of the day our players are testing positive with very little symptoms, if any symptoms at all. I don’t see it as a threat to their health at this point. I think you might take it a step further and question why are we even testing, for guys that have no symptoms,” Yzerman said on Saturday.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on 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.
“Reporters once asked legendary boxer Rocky Graziano why he hugged his opponent after the guy had pounded him senseless for 15 rounds. “He stopped punching me, didn’t he?” That sums up the reaction of Boomer voters hugging Mark Carney after ten years of having Liberals pound them. They can rationalize any amount of suffering.”
The two looming figures in the current “hurry up before they find out who Mark Carney is” election are Carney, the transnational banker/ climate zealot/ not-Trudeau Liberal, and Donald Trump. Yes, Pierre Poilievre is running against Carney, but Carney and the Gerry Butts braintrust are running against the U.S. president.
And not just POTUS 45/47. They’re running against the SNL cartoon figure embraced by Canada’s mainstream media outlets. Depending on the day the Toronto Star/ CBC/ Ottawa Citizen iteration of Trump is “stupid”, “racist”, “sex fiend” and, for this campaign, the boogeyman who will swallow Canada whole. While these scribblers and talking heads themselves are going broke, they imagine Trump as an economic moron collapsing the western economy.
All the clever Conservative ads, all the Carney flubs, all the revelations of election rigging by Chinese operatives— none of it matters to Canada’s Boomers huddled against the blustering winds of Trump. They call it Team Canada but it might just as well be Team Surrender to people who are willing to keep the Liberals’ Gong Show going for another four years.
As they say, you’re welcome to your own opinion, you’re just not welcome to your own facts. And the facts are that Trump and Carney are representative of their separate nations in 2025. Before we address the parachute PM Carney let us suggest that CDNs weaned on Stephen Colbert and John Oliver have little idea why Trump is the most impactful American politician of the century so far.
But don’t take our word for it. Here’s Democratic comedian Dave Chappelle explaining why so many remain loyal to the former Democrat and reality TV star in the face of impeachments, criminal charges and yes, bullets. Chappelle, who lives outside the Hollywood bubble in Ohio, said, “I’m not joking right now, he’s an honest liar. That first (2016) debate, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen a white male billionaire screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘This whole system is rigged.’
“And the moderator said, ‘Well Mr. Trump if, in fact, the system is rigged as you suggest, what would be your evidence?’ He said, ‘I know the system is rigged because I use it.’ I said ‘Goddamn’.
“No one ever heard someone say something so true. And then Hillary Clinton tried to punch him on the taxes. She said, ‘This man doesn’t pay his taxes,’ he said, ‘That makes me smart.’ And then he said, ‘If you want me to pay my taxes, then change the tax code. But I know you won’t, because your friends and your donors enjoy the same tax breaks that I do.’…
“No one had ever seen anything like that. No one had ever seen somebody come from inside of that house outside and tell all the commoners we are doing everything that you think we are doing inside of that house. And a legend was born.”
In short, Trump is what we want politicians to be. Aspirational, yes. But willing to act. We can take it. Yes, his truth is wrapped in multiple layers of balderdash and folderol. There is a preening ego. Self serving. Vainglorious. Opportunistic. Bombastic.
But he recognized that no one— GOP included— wanted anything to do with closing borders, ending foreign wars, levelling the trade barriers. So while Canadians whined, he took them on, and for that he’s been given two terms in the White House. You can understand why people wanted him dead last summer. He’s bad for the business he exposed in that debate with Hillary.
So Canadian liberals might sneer and condescend, but Trump’s answering to a legitimate voice in an America that was deceived and abused during Covid. And had a senile man as POTUS being manipulated by unseen characters behind the scenes.
Which begs the question: What in the Canadian character is Mark Carney answering to as he is dropped into the seat formally occupied by Justin Trudeau? The most obvious answer is Trump’s 51st state musings as he seeks to re-order the world’s tariff system. But what about repudiating everything he and his party stood for the past decade? How does that fit into the Carney identity?
While Trump has a resounding mandate to pursue the issues he campaigned on, Carney has a manipulated Liberal leadership contest, no seat and Mike Myers. Plus a media that owes its living to his party’s bribing them.
It would be hard to imagine more own goals than Carney’s record since the Liberals rigged his nomination. The China denials, the offshore tax evasions, the three passports, the renunciation of his entire work history, the re-hiring the worst of Trudeau’s cabinet, the bad body language… yet every gaffe increases his numbers in the purchased polls and the bought media. It will be an amazing story when it’s written.
But it’s not being written that way now. Because Donald Trump has activated Canada’s passion for authority and the expert class. While the rest of the world has awakened to the government’s deliberate manipulation of fear and white-coat reverence during Covid, Canada’s Boomers are still in awe of people like Carney. They still think the vaccines work. That The Science was behind it all.
So prepare for another 15 rounds of being slugged in the head by people who don’t have your goals in mind. Don’t say you we weren’t warned.
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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