Bruce Dowbiggin
So You Say There’s A Chance? Watering Down The Product

Legendary Boston Bruins coach/ GM Harry Sinden put his finger on the dilemma of NHL competitive balance when we interviewed him for our book Money Players. The problem with teams in the league, said Sinden, Is that there were (then) 20 teams who all think they are going to win the Stanley Cup and they all going to share it. But only one team is going to win it. The rest are chasing a rainbow.”
And that trenchant observation was before the expansion Vegas Golden Knights won a Cup within five years while the third-year Seattle Kraken made a run in those same 2023 playoffs. There are currently 32 teams in the league, each chasing Sinden’s rainbow of a Stanley Cup. That means 31 cranky fan bases every year. And 31 management teams trying to avoid getting fired.
Maybe we’ve reached peak franchise level? Uh, no. If you believe the innuendo coming from commissioner Gary Bettman there is a steady appetite for getting a piece of the NHL operation. “The best answer I can give you is that we have continuous expressions of interest from places like Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City, Salt Lake City, but expansion isn’t on the agenda.” In the next breath Bettman was predicting that any new teams will cost “A lot, a lot.”
So you say there’s a chance. The mention of twice-failed Atlanta (see; Flames, Thrashers) getting a third try drew guffaws from those who’d seen the failures of the past in Dixie. But deputy NHL commissioner Bill Daly says, “I think some of the challenges that we’ve seen in the past in Atlanta can be overcome” Other scoffed at the idea of small-market Quebec City cutting into Montreal’s provincial monopoly.
Daly echoed Bettman’s caution about a sudden expansion but added, ”Having said that, particularly with the success of the Vegas and Seattle expansions, there are more people who want to own professional hockey teams.” Translation: If the NHL can get a billion for a new team, the clock might start ticking sooner. After all, small-market Ottawa just went for $950 M.
Houston is planning a renovation of the Toyota Center in the hopes of adding a second Texas franchise. If anyone can pat a billion it’s America’s energy capital. Why are people ponying up for the NHL and its mediocre media footprint? One very good reason— one for which Bettman fought long and hard— is payroll control. The league’s punitive salary cap forces players to guarantee a profit to owners before they get their full salary. As a result a mega star in the MLB, NBA and NFL can fetch over $40 M a year. In the NHL Connor McDavid tops salaries at just $13.25 M.
It’s not just the expansion-obsessed NHL talking more teams. MLB is looking to add franchises. This even as it decides about moving the neglected Oakland A’s to Las Vegas. As a result Tom Brady’s recent appearance wearing an Expos jersey—he was drafted by Montreal in 1995 before choosing football— at an MLB store drew cautious interest in Montreal So did his passing comment about perhaps taking an ownership position in any future Montreal franchise.
Now, abandoned Montreal is once more getting palpitations over rumours that the league wants to return to the city that lost its Expos in 2005. Recent reports indicate that while MLB might prefer Salt Lake City and Nashville it also feels it must right the wrong left when the Expos moved to Washington DC 19 years ago.
The city needs a new ballpark to replace disastrous Olympic Stadium. They’ll also need more than Brady to fund the franchise fee and operating costs. And Quebec corporate support— always transitory in the Expos years— will need to be strong. But two more MLB franchises within five years is a lock.
While the NBA is mum on going past 30 teams it has not shut the door on expansion after seeing the NHL cashing in. Neither has the cash-generating monster known as the NFL where teams currently sell for over six billion US. The NFL is eyeing Europe for its next moves.
The question that has to be asked in this reported rush to expand is the one Harry Sinden put to us years ago, WTF, quality of competition? The more teams in a league the lower the chances of even getting to a semifinal series let alone a championship. Fans in cities starved for a championship— the NFL’s Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns are entering their seventh decade without a title or the Toronto Maple Leafs title-less since 1967— know how corrosive it can be.
Getting to 34, 36, maybe 40 teams makes a short-term score for owners but it could leave leagues with an entire strata of loser teams that no one—least of all networks, carriers and advertisters—wants to see. Generations of fans will be like Canuck supporters, going their entire lives without a championship.
In addition, as we’ve argued in our book Cap In Hand: How Salary Caps Are Killing Pro Sports and How The Free Market Can Save Them, watering down the product with a lot of teams no one wants to watch nationally or globally seems counter productive. The move away from quality toward quantity serves only the gambling industry.
But since when has Gary Bettman cared about quality of the product? So long as he gets to say, “We have a trade to announce” at the Draft, he’s a happy guy.
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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
Bruce Dowbiggin
Is HNIC Ready For The Winnipeg Jets To Be Canada’s Heroes?

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.
2025 Federal Election
What Trump Says About Modern U.S. And What Carney Is Hiding About Canada

“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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