Fighting the new way of watching was a losing proposition. The leagues the networks covered saw an obscene amount of profit from pairing with the corporations that ran gambling. Needing money to pay the sky-rocketing price of superstar talent they saw arms-length gambling as a solution. Don’t take money from betting, Take it from there people who run betting. 

If you’re waiting for the giant media pushback against entitled women hockey players  on SNL you’ll be waiting a long, long time. Somehow the targeted players on the men’s gold medal team bit their lower lip, took one for the nation on live from New York TV. And the frantic sports media corps could find nothing for which to blame Donald Trump.

Now Trump gets to host the victorious USA hockey gold medalists at the White House or— he’s sending a plane!—Tuesday’s State of the Union. He’s bringing in the women’s gold medal winners, too. While Carney nurses what could have been for Elbows Up. But hey, let’s go to Mexico. We hear it’s beautiful this time of year. If you don’t don’t mind the narco state drug wars.

Had it been like the 2010 Vancouver Olympics where Canada was running the medal table the entire stone touching episode might have been brushed off. Pun intended. But the first week of the Cortina/ Milan Games was a death valley for Canada’s medal hopes. Until Mikäel Kingsbury finally notched a gold in moguls on Sunday Canada had just eight medals, none of them gold. This was not what Elbows Up had been expecting.

Like the torn ACL that caused Lindsay Vonn to crash in Sunday’s downhill, the Cortina/ Milano Games are limping around in a politically charged atmosphere. Having been shut out on pithy quotes about Donald Trump at the Australian Open Tennis tournament, the world’s progressive sports media are fishing for gotcha’ quotes from athletes. And they’ve hooked a few.

If you need to ask what “stuff” happened this time last year you need to get a life. Stuff means the Four Nations tournament held last February Canada persevered over its goaltending and more to beat the USA for the title, one invented by the NHL to fill the All Star gap. If that formula sounds like a recipe for half-hearted effort you’d be wrong.  The first USA/ Canada showdown in the round robin is probably one of the Top 10 most memorable men’s games. Ever.

Remember that, until the Super Bowl era, the big American sports events were boxing matches, the Triple Crown, the World Series and college bowl games. (In Canada it was the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup and the Brier.) Most, if not all, have been pushed aside by the NFL marketing colossus. Why could the same not happen to the NFL ?

The latest argument for salary caps is the World Series winning L.A. Dodgers—who’ve won three of the five World Series in which they’ve appeared since 2017— signing prime free agent slugger Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million contract. (He’s reported to have turned down an even larger 10-year $300 million offer from Toronto). Added to the Dodgers already formidable lineup it seems unfair to baseball fans who still think fair is a concept in sports.

Shoresy is a love note to the segment of Canada being ignored by the current fashion of faux diversity. These people are diverse as hell, but no one in authority ot the media sees them. They don’t use their diversity as a lever tho extract more power. They’re cut-throat and conniving in favour of their own interests. And viewers love it.

There are many other factors in play. Access to elite training, cost, warmer winters eliminating outdoor rinks, cultural preferences for other sports— all play some part. But as we said in 2019, “the days when Canadiens GM Sam Pollock getting the top two French Canadians as protected draftees was considered a steal are long gone.”

There’s an observation that only two things bind modern Canada. The federal equalization scheme and hockey, The past year illustrated that equalization is on tenuous ground with talk of separation in Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Hockey, conversely, drew the nation closer at the moment that Donald Trump read the riot act to Canada’s elites.

In almost every realm outside male sports and the priesthood a gay hockey movie might be ho-hum. But in men’s hockey? The NHL? The omertà on LGBTQ content is the same as it was in the days of Rocket Richard and Gordie Howe. It’s stunning, in fact, that in the 50 years since gay came out of its closet no active NHL stars have taken the opening. Nor has anyone in the LGBTQ community outed anyone famous.

Perhaps if enough citizens spend an afternoon shivering in the stands of a wintertime football game we might achieve a small piece of sanity and learn that that , while climate is always changing, it’s not worth the price we’ve paid this century. Luckily some are doing just that.

There’s nothing like a well-run country, and Canada is nothing like a well-run country. To test the MOU on energy between Alberta and Ottawa the federal Conservatives (remember them?) put forward a motion to build the pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Even though the motion used the same language of the MOU, the Liberals and their hand maidens defeated the motion. Carney himself abstained because, hey, look at that shiny object.

Bitter Canadians could put up with Wayne Gretzky sucking up to Donald Trump, but failing geography is unforgivable. The week that started with Gretzky in a photo golfing at POTUS’s Jupiter, Florida, golf course was ending with him pummelled for his abuse of nations with different-sounding names.

A new photo has emerged of the greatest offensive star in NHL history playing golf with the president at his Jupiter, Florida, golf course— the one where Ryan Wesley Routh tried to assassinate Trump.  This led to the same predictable rending of garments and clutching of pearls that greeted Gretzky’s earlier declaration of loyalty to The Worst Human Being Ever®. Traitor is now the mildest description of 99 chez nous.

If the NHL playoffs were to begin next week (we wish) then it would be a cold breakfast for teams in Elbows Up. Just two clubs—Winnipeg and Montreal— would even qualify for the postseason. And the Jets have just found out their star goalie Connor Hellybuyck is unlikely to play much before mid-January. That will be hard to blame on Trump.

The public should know just how much of the prize money they’re donating goes to the charity. Because you won’t get it from listening to the team games on TV which marvel at the 50/50 amounts. It’s worth noting because there have been questions raised about other large sports 50/50 draws. The charity in charge of the Edmonton Oilers 50/50 raffles paid more than $81 million in lottery funds over four years to Win50, a sports betting and gaming company controlled by the Oilers Entertainment Group.

Fans who purchase tickets when the schedule is announced to see LeBron James or Zion Williamson have no recourse months later when the coach sits a player on maintenance nights. TV schedulers also see their feature primetime games blown up. According to surveys, 65 percent of fans express disappointment when they attend a game without the expected stars. 

We are with all baseball fans who resented the first nighters, red-carpet snobs and jock-sniffing politicians horning on on the fun of baseball. For true hardball savants it was a “did you see that?” to remember, one that will linger long after the Elbows Up crew disperse. For now, go Oilers, Habs, Senators, Jets, Canucks, Flames and (gasp) Oilers.