As we head to this weekend’s Super Bowl, a demographic that doesn’t know a touchdown from a touch-up will be closely following Taylor Swift’s travels over a 72-hour span as he she exits a concert in Japan, flies across the Pacific to Las Vegas, site of the Super Bowl, to see Travis Kelce play and then depart for her next concert in Brisbane Australia. (Points deducted if you mention carbon footprints,) 

This case is about power, stardom, exploitation. Ugly, yes. Life-wrecking for some. But trying to pigeon-hole the sport of hockey as the unique engineer of the tragedy is ignorant and irresponsible. 

The Patriots’ owner has a season-ticket base that is overwhelmingly white. But his new coach doesn’t care. His priority is dressing-room politics and the love of ESPN. Robert Kraft, too, has put NFL DEI compliance ahead of his fans’ priorities. 

Like people who’ve had root canal surgery or women who’ve gone through childbirth, the fans’ awful pain of being robbed by NHL refs teams does fade quickly. To help prepare fans for the inevitable miscarriages of justice we harken back to last May when we provided our Playoff reffing primer: 

While Miami contemplates either arsenic or strychnine in its Tua dilemma, they can look out and see a team that played the QB Casino perfectly. Houston’s C.J. Stroud— selected second in the 2023 Draft— lit up the Cleveland Browns in his first playoff game, looking every inch the Sure Thing NFL clubs crave. 

Make no mistake, the DEI hires aren’t going away. They’ll remain in organizations— even if they fail. Which leaves us with the conclusion that the North American economy may not right itself until the hires of today are retiring.

The key to their success, as we have written on several occasions, will not be glowing media stories, feminist narratives or even traditional hockey fans. The success will be predicated on whether their fellow women decide to grasp this league in a way they have not done for other female sports leagues. 

Borje. You know you’re famous when you can go by a single handle. In Canada, that was the legacy of Borje Salming. The publicity has begun for the six-part TV series Borje: The Journey of a Legend— a dramatic tribute to HOF defenceman Salming who died of ALS at age 71 in late 2022.

It is a cliché in city planning that, adding roads to prevent congestion, in fact ends up in more cars and more congestion. IDLM was reminded of this seeming contradiction while watching another episode of Law & Order: NFL Crappy Refereeing. In this week’s episode, what was considered pass interference on Thursday is Saturday’s “let ‘em play”’

As we know now, the private jet awaited by breathless media contained not Ohtani but Canadian TV star/ entrepreneur Robert Herjavec. Ohtani was instead in his home in southern California. The Blue Jays were, alas, not getting the Japanese Babe Ruth. They were getting another phantom handshake from fate. And a Shark Tank dude.

Which brings us to the worst news for the Tiger Tour: Spaniard Jon Rahm, arguably the No.1 player of the Tour, is taking his act to the dreaded LIV Tour— perhaps as soon as this week. After fervently committing to the Tour earlier this year, Rahm has apparently tired of the Woods/ McIroy cabal that dominates the Tour.

Justin Trudeau is well on his way to creating an apparatus for regulating both public and private speech. The past week it announced that it was extending its grant money though 2029 to failing media outlets, up to about $30,000 per employee. Not to be outdone, Heritage Canada is putting $40,000 per journalist as a target to promote “diversity”. On top of CBC’s $1.5 B annual haul. No wonder so many CDN media legends rushed to defend a hapless CP reporter who was verbally upbraided by Poillievre. 

The AI variations extend past music. Can some clever soul create a new Humphrey Bogart movie using previous material? What about reviving Katherine Hepburn from her many films? Could Glenn Miller suddenly emerge from the mists to lead his band in Fredericton?  The ramifications in the arts, sports and politics are endless.

Buckle up. Toronto has one of the top teams again this year. A Stanley Cup would not defy reason. Except… don’t you always satisfy your customers in business? It would appear that Leafs fans love losing. Why mess with a good thing?

If you bet the chalk on who would win the Stanley Cup next spring you’re probably a little nervous at the moment. The betting favourites Toronto (+750) and Edmonton (+900) have been shaky at best. In both cities there are already goalie changes and coach firings. 

If there’s a Hall of Fame for cringeworthy sports press conferences, Michael Andlauer just put a bust of himself on the wall. The new Ottawa Senators owner had to explain his Gary Bettman “Thanks For Playing Our Game” prize to a waiting media mob. He’d just won a choice of losing a No. 1 draft pick in 2024, 2025, 2026 or what Bill Daly is holding in a box on the stage.

No one in the chattering class wants to take on equal opportunity, of course. They don’t  see that rights that work for them also must work for people they consider heretics. Your betters want everyone to wear the ribbon. Or take a vaccine. Or wear a mask. And in this case they exhibited enough buying power to cause the NHL to double back on tape jobs.

If CPC comms folks had tried to stage an episode to expose the herding instincts of Canada’s cloistered legacy media trying to stay relevant on the public purse, this was it. 1) Assumption that his back was protected if he just used approved “far-right-wing” buzzwords 2) Assumption that everyone hates PP already. 3) Incompetence tolerated by corrupted, failed outlets. 4) Truth its dependent on what jersey you wear. 5) Lather, rinse, repeat. 

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 a World Series and two other playoff series. They’ve developed young everyday superstars who don’t get picked off second base. They have built a pitching staff largely from within, not splashy FA signings. They are set for years to come. That's the measuring stick, Mr. Shapiro.