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.

The biggest fear for those caught in the web of underworld gambling is exposure. They will do anything to avoid these problems becoming known to their families, their friends and, most of all, their employers. They think the best way to avoid exposure is to play along with mobsters, become a small pawn in crooked betting and poker rings. As if.

The 15-time Major winner has always said he’ll never be a ceremonial golfer. So unless this surgery works miracles we have seen the last of him playing at golf’s top events. Will Tiger’s disappearance spell the end for the PGA Champions, which has always counted on him joining?

For the forseeable future Poilievre scorn will be the order of the day. Just remember that Mark Carney is just a stop-gap, a guy to rag the puck for a few years till the Liberals have groomed Justin’s eldest for the PMO. Where he can complete the Woking of traditional Canada that Grandpapa Pierre started in 1968.

Somewhere along the way the suicidal empathy of progressives— combined with a need for low-income workers for corporations— loosened the expectations for those arriving in the West. In Canada, prime minster Justin Trudeau adopted Yan Martel’s diversity model of Canada as a travellers’ hotel. No longer would newcomers need to assimilate. Now it’s the old stock who must adapt.

Pitching cultural hate is the Left’s new party game. Writes law professor Jonathan Turley. “The key is to get voters to hate your opponent so much that they forget how much they dislike you. Only then can you hate completely without restraint or regret.” That old Democrat street fighter Nancy Pelosi understands the new rules. On the eve of her likely retirement announcement, a snarling Pelosi called President Trump "such a vile creature -- the worst thing on the face of the earth.” 

Canadian liberals shrug at this as all just words and theatre. But as political scientist Philip Kaufman explains, “If you keep saying you are on stolen land, don’t be surprised when judges give it away to the natives you said you stole it from.” There may be better ways to radicalize normally placid Canadians than them out of homes they’ve bought, but for the moment we can’t think of any.

While America roils in the dynamics of a Woke retreat, Andrew Kaufman points out that Canada remains entirely in the thrall of the feminized morality introduced by Justin Trudeau’s election ten years ago this month. “Liberals: Stop importing U.S. politics into Canada. Also Liberals: Hey look, the U.S is holding a 'No Kings' protest. Let do it too.” To stop Woke rejection Mark Carney wants to make Canada more European.

If America has a Trump fixation, it’s no less toxic in Canada where his intervention in the 2025 federal election shattered the polite conceits Canadians live with. Faced with the raw assessments of their nation as no better than a 51st state, Canadians rejected Trump’ and elected the nostalgia party of Mark Carney. Using the Trump derangement of Canada’s media the Liberals avoided all talk of the country’s perilous finances, indigenous claims and separation threats. And ran on Trump.

Skilled satire, adroit wit and whimsy combine with engaging

prose and intriguing characters to make Canadian author

Christy Climenhage’s debut novel, The Midnight Project, an

often-exceptional read.

Four dynamic poetic voices— each with distinct perspectives on spiritual enlightenment, trauma, pastoral beauty and the joys of the physical body— were highlighted at McClelland & Stewart’s 2025 spring poetry night held earlier this month.

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,