Sometimes An Ingrate Nation Pt. 2: The Great One Makes His Choice

@PaulChampLaw So, Wayne Gretzky flew on an FBI jet in April 2025 with Kash Patel to watch the Capitals? We all make choices…

Canadians always liked to see themselves as a reflective people. Not hurried into extremes. Slow to anger, quick to act on danger. Humble guys like Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Orr.

If there’s one thing that pissed them off it was anyone sucking up to Americans. Unless… they make it BIG in the U.S.. There was a big exemption for Canadians like Gretzky or Orr or Mike Myers who went south to make a fortune. For them the standards didn’t apply. They were heroes of the nation.

Until Donald Trump. Any Canadian hero not calling him Cheeto or Orange Man Bad or Hitler can expect to receive the mark of Cain from the Left huddling in the Great White North. Anyone excoriating POTUS 45/ 47 , however, is given a lifetime hall pass. No exceptions.

As Gretzky has learned again. Sunday a new photo 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.

Give the Gretzkys credit, they didn’t disguise their decision. After Trump’s stunning (to some) win last November, Janet Gretzky cooed, “Congratulations Mr. President Donald J Trump ♥️🤍💙🇺🇸 You did it, You deserved it, you earned every bit of it. The world is a better place to have you as our Leader. Proud to be an American. Thank you for being such a great friend . May God keep watching over you ♥️🙏🏻♥️ Love our family to yours !”

The incensed Canadian left swung into action. “University of Alberta professor Robert Summers @RJSCity: “He’s been a pretty unlikable guy for a long time, this just further solidifies it. @ktownkeith: “Gretzky is disgusting and pathetic. I will celebrate when Ovechkin breaks his record. Also FYI, Mario was the best hockey player ever, not Whine Gretzky.” “People should burn all their old hockey jersey and cards of this guy. A shame”. And those were the nice ones. 

The bile harkened to Orr supporting Trump in 2020. In our column at the time we noted the furious aftermath from Canadian hockey worshippers. Canadian sports media called Trump a “monster”, a “racist” and “a totalitarian”. You could heat most of the GTA with the steam emitted by their indignation at Orr having the temerity to speak out politically.

Orr has taken a low profile since, as even some in his hometown of Parry Sound wants nothing to do with him. “Poor Parry Sound,” tweeted Mary Lou George on Oct. 31, 2020. “What a disgrace #BobbyOrr has turned out to be. Guess he believes bragging about assaulting women really is just locker room talk since he wants Trump on his team. Sad.”

As with everything in the current McCoys vs Hartfields feud between the countries the venom launched at Gretzky’s decision to support Trump is underscored by the quaint notion that Canada is anything like it was when Gretzky’s 1988 wedding was a national celebration in Canada. 

As the polling from the 2025 Canadian federal election showed young people are fed up with their Boomer parents’ nostalgia for the nation that smuggled the American diplomats out of Iran in 1979. They want economic opportunities and the ability to buy homes. What successive Liberal governments have given them is trans insanity, cities overrun by Hamas protesters and national debt backloaded on their shoulders. 

To say nothing of Chinese infiltration of the economy and trade. No wonder they keep trying to change the words to O Canada all the time.

The decisions by Gretzky and Orr, among many expats, is partially due to Trump’s contrarian stance. But it also reflects a distance from the land where they grew up. Mike Myers and Elbows Up played on this sentimental loyalty to help Mark Carney succeed Justin Trudeau. But as more and more financial and talent stacks head south for opportunity (see Nutrien’s decision to ship Saskatchewan potash via the U.S., ignoring B.C.) it’s becoming clear that a reckoning is coming.

Trump’s brusque brushoff of Canada as no better than a 51st state was like an intervention with a friend or family member who’s gotten lost. It was a chance for self examination as we said in this 2018 column, Sometimes An Ingrate Nation.

Instead they bought the fake line that Trump would “invade” the country. Canadians lamented their treatment of “loyal old friend Canada”. But since the Iran heroics what has Canada done to help the U.S.? America has guarded Canada militarily. It has protected the trade lanes where Canadian goods are shipped. It has accepted hundreds of thousands of health patients unable to receive timely treatment in Canada’s single payer system. 

It has encouraged Canada an automobile industry. It has allowed Canada’s film and TV industry subsidies. It has (so far) tolerated Canada’s dairy cartels. And it has welcomed Canadians by the millions to holiday or invest in America.

Now list the selfless deeds Canada has performed for America since Ken Taylor squirrelled the diplomats out of Tehran. Um… give us time. We sent Orr and Gretzky to the U.S. to jumpstart hockey. And all the SCTV folks. Canada also became the home for every foaming leftist in America seeking to escape Trump. Beyond that? Diddly squat.

So instead of the prolonged lamentations of the women and men and others of Canada, perhaps Elbows Up should listen to VPOTUS J.D. Vance. “And with all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame. The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.”

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.