It remains to be seen if a Canadian federal election held alongside the NHL playoffs will have any repercussions on the ice. But in the current manic mood of Canadians freaked out by Trump nothing is beyond possibility. 

In geezer news this past week 39-year-old Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals— who suffered a broken fibula in November— is at this writing within nine goals of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record for  most regular-season goals (894) in a career. Meanwhile, QB Aaron Rodgers is in search of a new perch after the New York Jets told him to scram. With available spots with the Rams, Raiders and Jets off the table, where will he land?

First Orr, now Gretzky. At this rate Canada may run out of hockey gods who decamp to America. And heaven forbid Canadians ask how it is that their stars who have a chance to look at the True North from a different view come away with a new perspective.

Only Game Eight of the 1972 Summit Series can match the explosive political and sports combination of Feb. 16, 2025.  Guesses are now being accepted over just what Canada and Canada’s hockey team’s program might look like by the end of the 2020s. Once certainty— if the game Saturday is any indication fraternal friendship between the U.S. and Canada will be on hold for a while.

When props first began to catch the public interest, they were a novelty. Snobs saw them as sucker bets for squares. In Vegas, books would stage a glitzy launch ten days before the game to announce their props. No more. The first props for SB LIX were out minutes after the conference final games were decided. The brushfire is now a conflagration.

The fate of hockey stars may be only a small piece of any future U.S. trade deals. But they will be very visible to Canada’s hockey fans. Not being able to satisfy them is a political price no politician wants to face. But given the current intransigence by Justin Trudeau scrambling to stay in office it is far from improbable.

There is a compelling cultural story surrounding non-binary Carney. Sasha is just one of a dramatic spike of young middle- and upper-class persons born as women who are engaged in a campaign of mass psychosis over dysphoria. With or without the help of parents many are hacking themselves surgically or castrating themselves chemically. It’s a demographic disaster.

Why are 43 percent of 18-36 male CDNs telling pollsters they would accept U.S. citizenship if they were guaranteed full rights and financial protections? These young men appreciate Canada but they don't share the Boomer nostalgia for the Canada of 1967-2000 that is powering the current patriotic spasm. And yet they’re being passed over.

In this collision of solitudes Canadians are putting aside Trudeau’s hypocrisies or Mark Carney’s ‘oopsises’ on the campaign trial to link arms with Myers and Kumbaya themselves to death. Already Trudeau, spun up by the EU globalists last week, is sniffing the rank air and hinting he might perform as a “caretaker PM” till Carney learns not to extemporize in front of open mikes. 

Watering down the product with a lot of teams no one wants to watch nationally or globally seems counter productive. The move away from quality toward quantity serves only the gambling industry. But since when has Gary Bettman truly cared about quality of the product? So long as he gets to say, “We have a trade to announce” at the Draft, he’s a happy guy.” 

Who needs debate? The Liberals have settled on their enemy and it’s not Pierre Poilievre. It’s Donald Trump. They’re convinced themselves that targeting Beelzebub Trump, not addressing the tariff crisis, is all they need to expunge the Trudeau Follies and win a March election. In Canada they’re walking into a minefield looking for a place to picnic.

Poilievre has to stop pretending that a heavily indebted and structurally crumbling Canada can withstand the next four years of Trump bombast. He must have an intervention with the Canadian public to bring them to the bracing reality they face. Only when they know which side is up, away from Trudeau, will they start to climb out of this mess.

Stephanie Cesca is a strong and capable storyteller. Her passion for detail and vivid imagination creates an authentic fictional world. Readers can see her characters in their mind’s eye. They can relate to their pain.

Throughout the book’s 384 pages, readers are kept guessing as to the killer’s motives. Could such rampaging violence be  a professional hit or a random act of madness? Or was the victim bludgeoned out of existence due to his shady business dealings and abusive, violent past?

Clewes is a sensory, effusive poet. Her lyrical words reflect a deep musical sense. In the third section, Calle Obispo, the poem of the same title, references Nobel Prize-winning poet and Polish-Lithuanian  author Czeslaw Milosz. The first stanza turns a plane trip into a spiritual experience.

Green’s complex, colloquial whimsy is grounded in a strong academic backbone and a broad knowledge base that references Wordsworth, Shakespeare and Sylvia Plath. And how she loves wordplay and puns,

Winning a literary award hikes a book’s profile, as the books are put on course curriculums, book club reading lists, and are listed as library best staff picks. This creates more profits for publishers, which is a boon for authors because it increases a book’s promotions budget.

I think books in this genre require a bright label along the spine: Beware. A second reading may be required to fully comprehend this book.