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
2025 Federal Election
Will Four More Years Of Liberals Prove The West’s Tipping Point?

The 1997 political comedy Wag The Dog featured a ruling president far behind in the polls engaging Hollywood to rescue his failing ratings. By inventing a fake war against Albania and a left-behind “hero”— nicknamed Shoe— the Hollywood producer creates a narrative that sweeps the nation.
The meme of hanging old shoes from the branches of trees and power lines catches on and re-elects the president. In a plot kicker, the vain producer is killed by the president’s handlers when he refuses to stay quiet about his handiwork. The movie’s cynicism over political spin made it a big hit in the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky days.

In the recent 2024 election the Democrats thought they’d resurrect the WTD formula to spin off senile Joe Biden at the last minute in favour of Kamala Harris. Americans saw through the obvious charade and installed Donald Trump instead.
You’d think that would be enough to dissuade Canadians who pride themselves on their hip, postmodern humour. But you’d be wrong, they don’t get the joke. Wag The Carney is the current political theatre as Liberals bury the reviled Justin Trudeau and pivot to Mark Carney. If you believe the polling it might just be working on a public besotted by ex-pat Mike Myers and “Canada’s Not For Sale”.
As opposed to Wag The Dog, few are laughing about this performative theatre, however. There are still two debates (English/ French) and over three more weeks of campaign where anything— hello Paul Chiang—can happen. But with Laurentian media bribed by the Libs— Carney is threatening those who stray— people are already projecting what another four years of Liberals in office will mean.
As the most prominent outlier to Team Canada’s “we will fight them on the beaches…” Alberta’s premier Danielle Smith is already steering a course for her province that doesn’t include going to war with America on energy. She asked Trump to delay his tariffs until Canadians had a chance to speak on the subject in an election April 28. Naturally the howler monkeys of the Left accused her of treason. She got her wish Wednesday when Canada was spared any new tariffs for the time being.

Clearly, she (and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe) have no illusions about Carney not using their energy industry as a whipping post for his EU climate schemes. They’ve seen the cynical flip in polls as former Trudeau loyalists hurry back to the same Liberal party they abandoned in 2024. They know Carney can manipulate the Boomer demographic just as he did when he called for draconian financial methods against the peaceful Truckers Convoy in 2022.
Former Reform leader Preston Manning is unequivocal: “’Large numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it.’“ So how does the West respond within Confederation to protect itself from a predatory Ottawa elite?
Clearly, the emissions cap— part of Carney’s radical environmental plans— will keep Alberta’s treasure in the ground. With Carney repeating no cancellation of Bill C-69 that precludes building pipelines in the future, the momentum for a referendum in Alberta will only grow. The NDP will howl, but there will be enough push among from the rest of Albertans for a new approach within Canada.
In this vein Smith even wants to approach Quebec. While it seems like odd bedfellows the two provinces most at odds with the status quo have much in common . “This is an area where our two provinces may be able to coordinate an approach,” Smith wrote this week. That could include referendums by the middle of 2026.
Perhaps the best recipe for keeping the increasingly fractious union together is a devolution of power, not unlike that governing the United Kingdom. While Westminster remains the central power since 1997, there are now separate parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that put power closer to the citizen, so that local factors are better recognized in decision making.
With so little uniting the regions of the country any longer, devolution might provide a solution. What form could decentralization take within Canada? A Western Canada Parliament could blunt predatory federal energy policies while countering the imbalances of Canada’s equalization process. Similar parliaments representing Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Ontario and B.C. would protect their own special interests within Canada. Ottawa could handle Canada’s international obligations to defence, trade and international cooperation.
While the idea is fraught with pitfalls it nonetheless remains preferable to a breakup of the nation, which four more years of Liberals rule under Mark Carney and the same Trudeau characters will likely precipitate. Smith’s outreach case would be the beginning of such a process.
None of this would be necessary were the populations of Eastern Canada and B.C.’s lower mainland remotely serious after snoozing through the Trudeau decade. The OECD shows Canada’s 1.4% GDP barely ahead of Luxembourg and behind the rest of the industrialized world from 2015-2025. As we’ve said before the Boomers sitting on their $1 million-plus homes are re-staging Woodstock on the Canada Pension and OAS. As with Wag The Dog, they’re not getting the joke.

When the Boomers award themselves another four years of taxapalooza and Mike Myers and the other “Canada Not For For Sale” celebs head south to their tax-avoidance schemes how will the Boomers say they’ve left Canada better off for anyone under 60? We’ll hang up and listen to your answer on the TV.
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.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Are the Jays Signing Or Declining? Only Vladdy & Bo Know For Sure

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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