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Bruce Dowbiggin

Inherit The Wins: Hockey Has Its Privileges

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It might not have exactly been Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, but Florida Panthers glitter boy Matthew Tkachuk sitting in with the TNT NBA panel of Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith might have been close that magnitude of collision between cultures.

Tkachuk has become the NHL poster boy in the U.S. by leading the sad-sack Panthers to the Final. In his casual Elbo Room T-shirt he was the epitome of the Fort Lauderdale hip cross-over star as he met the panel. While Barkley has become a hockey-fan-of-the-moment, Shaq professed total, wilful ignorance of the sport beyond its fighting. Smith was not much more puck savvy.

The highlight of the chat was Sir Charles suggesting he’d like to play hockey just once because he could only get a two-minute penalty for slugging Shaq. The two men did a little faux-theatre for the cameras to promote TNT’s coverage of the NHL Final.

The other nugget from the chat was the revelation that Tkachuk went to high school in St. Louis with Celtics star Jason Tatum, whose team was about to force Game 7 against the local Heat. Talk about a sports hothouse. Host Ernie Smith also showed pictures of Tkachuk with his legendary father Keith and his brother Brady of the Senators, marvelling at the genes involved in a 527-goal scorer siring two NHLers..

It’s both a wonder— and a concern— for the NHL, as we wrote in August of 2021. Because the brothers Tkachuk are part of a trend away from random selection and more to expensive grooming of elite athletes in the sport. Is equal outcome a lost cause?

“The NHL faces a question of opportunity at the moment. But this is not a racial or gender issue. The question facing a league renowned for its blue-collar roots is ‘has hockey become a rich person’s sport, a league where being an insider has extra clout?’ 

Are today’s superstars a product of more than talent? Are they also the products of an expensive, exclusive grooming process that leaves the Gordie Howe farm boy archetype in the dust? 

One hint of the benefits of having access to resources and people within the hockey industry is the annual spate of sons of former NHLers now being drafted each summer. In the recent draft, there was a plethora of progeny selected, many at the very top of the draft. No other league has such a high percentage of sons being selected. 

There have always been a few NHL father/ son duos. Gordie Howe’s boys and Bobby and Brett Hull spring to mind. But they were not as pervasive in the league as they are today. Witness the just-passed (2021) Draft that saw a host of familiar family names getting new surnames. 

Cole Sillinger (Mike), Tyler Boucher (Brian), Josh Doan (Shane), Redmond Savage (Brian), Ryan St. Louis (Martin); Shane Lachance (Scott); Nick Malik, Marek), Justin Robidas, (Stephane), Jackson Blake (Jason) and Chase Stillman (Cory) were among the sons of famous fathers drafted. Others were signed as free agents. 

It was no fluke. A glance around the NHL shows many sons of former stars getting steady work. Matthew and Brady Tkachuk (Keith), Kasperi Kapanen (Sami), Brandon Sutter (Brent), William and Alex Nylander (Michael), Sam Reinhart (Paul), Max Domi (Tie), Samuel Poulin (Patrick), Tag Bertuzzi (Todd), Ryan Johnson (Craig), Tyson Barrie (Len), Landon Ferraro (Ray), Marcus and Nick Foligno (Mike), Nolan Foote (Cal), Ryan MacInnis (Al)  Brendan Lemieux (Claude),  Ryan Donato (Ted),  Daniel Audette (Donald) and Dominic Turgeon, (Pierre) are just a sampling of the direct relationship between father and sons..

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.

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 make the league or the Olympics. 

NHL veterans in both the U.S., Europe and Canada know the inner workings of agents, independent training academies and skill trainers to help their sons past some of the highest hurdles in development. If they handled their millions properly they also have the funds to open doors for young stars.”

Author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the notion of taking 10,000 hours to translate talent into the finished product of a genius. It takes money to allow a young person that time, money that only a select number of families can provide.  If you are a child in a single-income home or in a remote part of the country away from facilities, equipping and training a young prospect quickly gets out of the reach of parents of modest means.

Perhaps the most telling development story was that of Montreal goalie Carey Price, whose father bought a $13,000 four-seat Piper Cherokee plane to fly young Carey back and forth 320 kilometres to hockey practices all winter in northern B.C.

Where the NHL was predominantly players from blue-collar backgrounds till the Euros arrived in the 1970s, today it is often constituted of young  men from families of means and education. Often, like Tkachuk, they’re in training academies with future stars in other sports. The idea of the farming

In that way, through no fault of Walter Gretzky, the super coach, hockey has become a sport for families of means or friends with means. He taught parents that the proper training and equipment was imperative. And that doesn’t mean simply the rink in your backyard. With a new pair of skates costs $500, a stick costs $125  or a set of goalie equipment runs into a few thousand dollars you are losing a segment of the population to financial costs. And so Walter’s legacy of training development is forever tied to a big price tag.

To say nothing of the progeny of NHL stars like Keith Tkachuk helping give their kids a hand-up in making it to the league and its vast piggy bank.  

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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 Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Are the Jays Signing Or Declining? Only Vladdy & Bo Know For Sure

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We were watching the Los Angeles Dodgers home opener on Thursday. The defending World Series champs came from behind to beat Detroit 5-4. The big hit was a three-run homer from a player named Teoscar Hernandez off AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal

If that name sounds familiar, Teoscar was a Toronto Blue Jay from 2018-2022. He pounded 121 homers in the span as part of the Jays’ order. But when Toronto decided it needed bullpen help he was traded to Seattle in 2022 for pitchers Erik Swanson and Adam Macko. While Swanson has battled injuries and Macko is no-go, Hernandez keeps pounding the ball.

In his one year in Seattle he had strikeout problems but did hit 26 homers with 93 RBIs. In the winter of 2023-24 he signed as a free agent with the aforementioned Dodgers. Batting behind Shohei Ohtani he launched 33 homers and 99 RBIs. He won the All Star Home Run Derby. His key hit in Game 5 of the World Series propelled L.A. to the title. The stacked Dodgers liked him enough to give him a three-year, $66 million contract.

Why are we telling you this? Because the Blue Jays also started their 2025 season at home, matched against the Baltimore Orioles. And while there are reasons to believe the Jays will not replicate their 74-win disaster of 2024, there remain the old bugaboos of injuries and pitching. In the four games against the division rivals they need to beat, Jays’ pitching gave up 24 runs while scoring 18—nine of them in one game.

The splashy acquisition of 40 year old HOF pitcher Max Scherzer has already gone sideways as a bad thumb has put him on the IL. The new stopper, Jeff Hoffman, was rejected on medical grounds by two other teams before Toronto’s money made him healthy. The rest of the bullpen— a disaster in 2024— got off to a rocky start with Orioles hitters playing BP against them. They’ve already DFA’d one pitcher and called up two more from the minors. The re-made pen performed well in Game 4, but how it holds up in their next 158 games is a mystery.

On offence, while their rivals in Boston and New York added sexy pieces to their rosters the Jays were only able to acquire veteran switch-hitting Baltimore slugger Anthony Santander. More typical of their other signees is ex-Cleveland 2B infielder Andres Giminez who in 2023 had the lowest average exit velocity of all AL batters (84.8 mph), and led the AL in percentage of balls that were softly hit (21.7%). He does play a slick second base.

The winter story line for the Jays offence was what to do about Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, the erstwhile star-dust twins who were— along with Cavan Biggio— supposed to guarantee titles when they emerged in 2019. Biggio is gone, so the other two carry the credibility of the management team of Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins. From the outside the Jays seem paralyzed to act.

While the Jays dithered, the price for players like Guerrero and Bichette soared. Using Juan Soto’s Mets $765 M deal as a yardstick Guerrero turned down a Jays offer of just under $600 M, saying he was done talking during the season. If Shapiro/ Atkins had anticipated the market Guerrero would have cost a lot less in 2023-24. If there is no progress by the trading deadline the Jays will be forced to get what they can in a trade.

Shortstop Bichette— a gifted player who battled injuries in 2024—is likewise up for a new deal. He has started strong in 2025 and would command a handsome return in a trade. He says the Jays are waiting to see what happens with Guerrero first.  Having sold the pair for years to their loyal fans, having to trade them will be a massive PR blow. And while Jays’ national audience can be an advantage, having a whole country pissed with you is devastating.

The rest of the secret sauce for a Toronto comeback revolves around one of their hitting prospects taking a step forward. Any/ all of Will Wagner, Alan Roden, Addison Barger or Leo Jimenez can have a job if they show their bats are for real. Otherwise Shapiro and Atkins will hope that Dalton Varsho, George Springer and Alejandro Kirk can find a little magic in their aging bats.

A failure to retain talent may prompt fans to recall that Rogers decided that Shapiro and Atkins, who dumped Teoscar, were worthy replacements for the previous GM who’d walked away. The man Schneider and Atkins were hired to improve upon— Canadian Alex Anthopoulos— has made the Atlanta Braves a dominant team. Since AA moved to Atlanta they’ve won 90, 97, 38 (Covid year), 88, 101, 104, 109, 89 games. They’ve won a World Series and two other playoff series. They won six straight NL East titles before injuries sank them last year.

The Braves have developed young everyday superstars like Ronald Acuńa Jr. who don’t get picked off second base. They have built a pitching staff largely from within, not splashy FA signings. They have swagger without cockiness. They are set for years to come.

The Blue Jays? Since AA left they’ve won 73, 67, 32 (Covid), 91, 92, 89, 74 games. They’ve won zero postseason games while missing the playoffs in four seasons. The players they traded are starring for other teams in the postseason. They are again employing an inexperienced company guy as manager.

While it’s true that the sun can’t shine on the same team every day, Jays fans believe it would be nice if the great orb would find their club as it did back in the 1992/93 World Series days. Instead of the reflected glory of past stars winning for other teams. Patience is thin. And time is ticking.

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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Bruce Dowbiggin

From Heel To Hero: George Foreman’s Uniquely American Story

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“The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.”— George Foreman

For those who thought Donald Trump’s role progression (in WWE terms) from face to heel to face again was remarkable, George Foreman had already written the media book on going from the Baddest Man in the World to Gentle Giant.

It’s hard for those who saw him as the genial Grill Master or the smiling man with  seven sons all named George (he also had seven daughters, each named differently) to conjure up the Foreman of the 1970s. He emerged as a star at the 1968 Olympics, winning the gold medal in heavyweight boxing. His destruction of a veteran Soviet fighter made him a political hero. In an age that already boasted a remarkable heavyweights Foreman was something unique.

Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Ron Lyle and Jimmy Ellis were still bankable household names for boxing fans— but on the downside of famous careers. They each had their niche. Foreman was something altogether different. Violent and pitiless in the ring. Unsmiling as he dismantled the boxers he met on his way to the top. He was the ultimate black hat.

With the inimitable Howard Cosell as his background track , he entered the ring  in 1973 against the favoured ex-champ Frazier, coming off his three epic fights with Ali. While everyone gave Foreman a chance it was thought that the indomitable Frazier, possessor of a lethal left hook, would tame the young bull.

Instead, in under two rounds of savagery , Foreman sent Frazier to the canvas  six times. Cosell yelled himself horse crying, “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!” This was a whole new level of brutality as the poker-faced Foreman returned to his corner as the most feared boxer on the planet. For good measure Foreman destroyed Norton in 1974.

Fans of Ali quaked when they heard that he would face Foreman’s awesome power in Africa in the summer of 1974. They knew how much the trio of Frazier brawls had taken from him. The prospect of seeing the beloved heavyweight champ lifted off his feet by Foreman’s power left them sick to their stomach. Foreman played up his bad-boy image, wearing black leather, snarling at the press and leading a German shepherd on a leash.

Everyone knows what happened next. We were travelling the time in the era before internet/ cell phones. Anticipating the worst we blinked hard at the headline showing the next day that it was a thoroughly exhausted Foreman who crumbled in the seventh round. The brilliant documentary When We Were Kings is the historical record of that night/ morning in Kinshasa. The cultural clash of Ali, the world’s most famous man, and the brute against the background of music and third-world politics made it an Oscar winner.

But it’s largely about Ali. It doesn’t do justice to the enormity of Foreman’s collapse. Of course the humiliation of that night sent Foreman on a spiritual quest to find himself, a quest that took the prime of his career from him. It wasn’t till 1987 that he re-emerged as a Baptist minister/ boxer. With peace in his soul he climbed the ranks again, defiantly trading blows in the centre of the ring with opponents who finally succumbed to his “old-man” power.

Instead of the dour character who was felled by Ali, this Foreman was transformed in the public’s eye when he captured the heavyweight title in 1994, beating Michael Moore, a man 20 years his junior. He smiled. He teased Cosell and other media types. He fought till he was 48, although he tried to comeback when he was 55 (his wife intervened)

And, yes, for anyone who stayed up late watching TV there was the George Foreman Grill, a pitchman’s delight that earned him more money than his boxing career. HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant commented that “There was a transformation from a young, hard character who felt a heavyweight champion should carry himself with menace to a very affectionate personality.”

There was a short-lived TV show called George. There was The Masked Singer as “Venus Fly Trap”. And there were the cameos on Home Improvement, King Of The Hill and  Fast ’N Loud, delighting audiences who’d once reviled him. He cracked up Johnny Carson.

Foreman’s rebound story was uniquely American. Where Canadians are enthusiastically damning Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky for political reasons, Foreman never became a captive of angry radicals or corporate America. He went his own way, thumping the bible and the grill. Rest easy, big man.

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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