Bruce Dowbiggin
No Tanks: The Draft Lottery Is A Losing Proposition

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The race for the NFL’s biggest prize is almost half over. In the NHL and NBA the hunt is just starting. The race to the top?
Uh, no. We’re talking about the NFL race to the toilet for Alabama QB Bryce Young. In the NHL it’s tanking for phenom Connor Bedard. Over at the NBA it’s chasing 7-foot-4 Frenchman Victor Wembanyama. The chance to change your franchise’s fortunes in a single pick has produced a vintage season for tanking. And a shocking number of teams are preparing to go that route.
And it’s making the people who run sports leagues talking draft reforms and— gasp— relegation. Put simply, the salary cap/ draft system implemented for half a century at great labour strife in the major sports leagues has incentivized two things. Winning it all. And losing a lot— to recruit the talent you need to win it all. It’s a case of be careful what you wish for if you own a pro sports team.
Tanking can be defined as losing without blatantly appearing to lose. So Carolina Panthers have started a fire sale, sending star RB Christian McCaffrey to San Francisco 49ers and receiver Robbie Anderson to Arizona. (Then winning this weekend.) In the NHL Montreal Canadiens fans are cursing every win that lessens their chance for Bedard, who despite a French name is from Western Canada. In the NBA a handful of clubs are already starting terrible lineups in hopes of landing Wembanyama.
We did an exhaustive history of tanking in our 2019 book Cap In Hand. For the sake of simplicity just study our chapter on the 1993 Ottawa Senators tanking to get Alexandre Daigle, who turned out to be a dud. Or check out how the GM of the 2010-2015 Philadelphia 76ers launched a multi-year tanking campaign that brought them franchise stars Joel Embid and Ben Simmons.
Alarmed, leagues have tried reducing the odds of tankers from getting top picks in the draft. Which only convinced more underachievers to pound sand. Teams can now jump up three, four or five picks to leap-frog the worst tankers. Making the end of the regular season into loser-palooza, (in the words of VSIN host Gill Alexander). Great for bettors and teams courting a superstar.
But lousy for fans. Which makes the suits nervous. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has told employees of the Phoenix Suns that his league has “put teams on notice” and will pay “particular attention” to tanking this season. “It’s something we have to watch for,” Silver said. “A draft is, in principle, a good system. But I get [tanking], especially when there is a sense that a once-in-a-generation player is coming along, like we have this year…
“Teams are smarter, they are creative, and they respond — we move, they move — so we’re always looking to see whether there’s yet a better system.” One of the ideas considered is the possibility of implementing a promotion/relegation system like the one in European soccer. The three worst teams each year are dropped to a lower league while three are promoted. Games— and big money— ride on finishing the season strong.
Silver says that relegation and dramatic changes to the draft are a bridge too far for his league. For now. But as we write in Cap In Hand, with expansion and the changing economics of pro team sports, leagues are faced with a very different economic model than they faced in the 1970-2000 period. In those days franchising was the byword. Get a team— and a broadcast network— in every large market.
That model is shot. Fans of global sports like the NBA want to see best-on-best, not Sacramento/ Oklahoma City or Winnipeg/ Columbus in the NHL. And they’re willing to bet on it. Commissioners and owners now understand that if they lost or relegated their six smallest markets they’d get the same money for their broadcast/ digital/ logo rights. Betting companies would still flock to them.
A perfect example of this sea change is the fracturing of NCAA college football. Long the purview of about 20 rich, elite schools who carried their conference partners, it’s now seeing a dramatic re-ordering with all the big dogs concentrating in the SEC and the BIG10. Old partners and bowl games are being cast aside. Networks are honing in on the brands they can sell.
Importantly the top NFL (and NBA) prospects are using the new transfer portal to get to teams that have a higher profile. It’s The Ohio State University, not North Texas or Vanderbilt for young athletes looking for to cash in on their name, image and likeness (NIL) cash.
The same demand to see the best is what led to the messy PGA Tour / LIV Golf schism. After decades of ignoring the demands from stars such as Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson to promote and pamper the top tier of the Tour, those stars decamped to a rogue league funded by the Saudis. Tellingly, the PGA Tour— afraid of losing more of the elite— has now scrambled to deliver on Greg Norman’s wish list that caused the split. Too late.
In our book we foresee an industry based on the European soccer model of “let the big dogs eat”. No salary caps. No tanking. No driving up the price of talent with 7-round drafts. Keeping all the present teams and adding more— but dividing leagues into divisions based on market factors.
Traditionalists won’t like seeing their team relegated to a second division. Like the soccer or NCAA football fan they’ll have to get used to seeing players on the way up then go to the biggest markets. But if it does away with losing on purpose it’ll be worth the heartache it’s causing Adam Silver and his fellow commissioners.
The bus is leaving the station. It’s just a question of who will be left behind when all the seats are filled.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). 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 YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
2025 Federal Election
How Canada’s Mainstream Media Lost the Public Trust

Breaking: CBC News admits that host Rosemary Barton was wrong on April 16 when she said “remains of indigenous children” have been discovered.
Call it the Panic Election. From The Handmaid’s Tale to Quebec alienation to plastic straws, the dynamic is citizens being stampeded in a brief six weeks by Big Brother. (There’s no Big Sister. That would mess with the narrative.) Prompting Covid Part Deux from the Laurentian media scolds.
Nowhere is this panic more keen than among aging Boomers who’ve pronounced themselves willing to ignore a decade of Justin Trudeau’s clumsy, unethical and sometimes criminal behaviour in the wake of Big Bad Trump. Even the threat of losing the country’s AAA credit rating can’t sway them from full-throated panic about being the 51st state.
The 51st state gambit is the window dressing. The real Trump panic is over him exposing the inadequacies of a Canadian society penetrated by China, dominated by globalist fanatics and more indebted every day. Specifically, Trump labelled Canadians defence dead-beats and entitled snobs who’d be crazy not to join the U.S. The insulting Trump framing has been a lifeline to those most recently in office— Liberals— to point at the Big Bad Wolf outside the door rather than the Frozen Venezuela inside its walls.
Integral to this panic is the role of Canada’s legacy media, a self-serving caste saved from bankruptcy (for now) by generous wads of public money. The 416/613 bubble ponies operate as if it were still 1985, not 2025. They’ve managed to preserve their status while society changed around them. For instance, CBC’s flagship At Issue panel features three people from Toronto and a fourth from Montreal.
It has worked perfectly in Boomer Canada. Until this past week, when the media guardians finally lost the plot. The combination of TV panel hubris and the incompetence of the Elections Commission exposed an industry more interesting in protecting its own turf than protecting the truth.
The meltdown was the notion that conservative social media— with its intrusive reporters and tabloid tactics— had no place in their sandbox. This hissy fit came after Wednesday’s French debate. Members of Rebel News, True North and other outfits dominated the party leaders’ scrums with obtrusive questions about Mark Carney’s opinions on same-sex sports and what constitutes a woman— questions the French moderator had neglected to ask.

For legacy reporters and hosts who take it as given that they be allowed the front pew this was an affront to their status. As purveyors of the one true political religion the talking heads on CBC, CTV and Global began speaking of “so-called journalists” and “far-right” intruders elbowing into their territory. Their resentment was all-consuming.
This resentment spilled into Debate Night Two when a shouting match ensued in the press room. A CBC source claimed (incorrectly) that Rebel Media leader Ezra Levant had been barred from the press room. A writer from the Hill Times screamed at members of their raucous rivals. The carefully chose panelists suggested that these outfits were funded by dark right-wing sources.
Before the debate had ended Elections Commission organizers— reportedly goaded by the Liberals— called off the post-debate scrum citing “safety” issues that seemingly included a Rebel reporter conducting a hostile walking interview with a furious Liberal official. This unleashed another torrent of Media Party vitriol about its position as the keepers of Canadian journalism.

In a show of irony, these complaints about right-wing misinformation came from people whose livelihood is dependent on Liberal slush funds or whose organizations have accepted government funds to stave off bankruptcy or whose union is an active shill for non-Conservative parties. The conflicts are never mentioned in the unctuous festival of privilege.
What makes this rearguard action against new media risible was the 2024 U.S. election where Donald Trump acknowledged the new day and rode the support of non-traditional media back to the presidency. His shunning of the legacy networks and hallowed print brands heralded a new reality in American elections. Poilievre has struggled to find this community in Canada, but for those with eyes it remains the future of disseminating political thought.
A perfect example of alternative media scooping the tenured mob on Parliament Hill has been the sterling work on China by Sam Cooper, a former Global employee who has independently demonstrated the ties between Chinese criminal gangs and the Canadian political structure going back to the 1980s. Working with others outside the grid he’s shown the scandal of a Liberal candidate urging Chinese Canadian voters to reap a bounty for turning his Conservative opponent to the Chinese Communist Party. A disgrace that Carney has forgiven.
Predictably Cooper’s work and the independent story by two retired RCMP investigators who implicated nine Liberal cabinet members in compliance with the Chinese communists has gotten the ‘tish-tish” from the Laurentian elites. Like the Democrats who buried the Hunter Biden laptop story to save his father in the dying days of the 2020 U.S. election the poodle media hope to delay the truths about China long enough to get the compliant Carney over the finish line.
For contrast to how it was— and could be— one only had to witness the moderator performance of journalist Steve Paikin of TVO. Largely unknown outside Ontario, Paikin overcame the skepticism of Westerners by playing it straight down the middle. Such was his honest-broker performance that Poilievre was heard telling him after the debate that he had no idea how Paikin might vote. (Ed. note: Paikin is a former colleague and longtime friend.) In other words, it’s still possible.
It’s a cliché that this election is a hinge point for Canada. Will it face itself in the mirror or indulge in more denialism about its true self? No wonder unaffiliated journalists joke that their stories today will be the lead on mainstream media in three months. Carney has promised to continue bribing the mainstream media, but their day is done. It’s simply a matter of fixing a date for the next panic.
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.
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.
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