The Phoney Hype For "Canada's Team" In The Stanley Cup Final

If you sometimes feel you’re being talked down to by your betters in mass media, there’s probably a reason. You are. From the forced demographics in films and culture to mandatory vaccines and lockdowns, the population are seen as daycare kiddos joined by a rope who must led in the ways of righteousness. Or, to be precise, leftishness.

Sometimes the massaging is blatant (do Canadian banks really want us to think all their employees are now black?) Sometimes it’s more subtle. Take, for example, the pizza restaurant commercials running incessantly during the NHL playoffs. They take the time to tell you that no Canadian team— repeat after us— has won a Stanley Cup since 1993 (ten points if you guessed Montreal). There are images of screens being crushed, balloons deflating. An unidentified Chris Cuthbert says, “It’s all over folks, the fun has come to an end.”

The dates of recent Final failures roll by showing walls that were punched, plates thrown through TV screen, transistor radios being tossed on the cement. So far accurate. But then Cuthbert pipes up. “Maybe it’s time we try something different?” (In case your hearing is deficient they scroll out “Maybe it’s time we try something different?”)

You’ll never guess their solution. Instead of booing our Canadian rival teams, maybe we should get behind whichever Canadian team makes it this far. “Let’s cheer with the fans we’ve always cheered against.” Pictures show people clinking glasses in camaraderie. (What happened to diversity?) Then the punch line.

“Team Up For The Cup”. This is the sort of pablum notion you get from people who drop in for the Final after spending the winter darning socks or attending NDP rallies. People we know actually believe it’s a government commericial. Even in the age of “Sinbad” Trudeau, this is inauthentic to the nth degree.

It all suggests “You fans are at fault.” A beer-soaked Kumbaya session is all that’s stood between Canada and a Cup since 1993. Of course the focus-group nimrods who think a Carbon Tax will change the weather could not be made to understand that the essence of fandom is 1) Our team wins 2) Your biggest rival loses.  No, with a little Liberal fairy dust we can all join hands behind Edmonton, now in the Final . That’s all it takes. As we say, inauthentic. Like dumping plastic bags for paper bags. 

It put us in mind of an exchange we had with the quintessential Chrétien-era Liberal, Sheila Copps, she of the one million Canadian flags without lanyards debacle. In 2007, the Ottawa Senators made it to the Final. Needless to say the home of Canada’s bureaucracy was in heaven. In our 2008 book The Meaning of Puck , we recalled what happened when we suggested in the Calgary Herald that we weren’t going to “Team Up For The Cup”.

Saying we wouldn’t go all Vimy Ridge for a team with a Trojan ad on their jersey, we asked why we should getting squishy about a team two time zones away. We added some gratuitous shots about Ottawa rolling up the sidewalks by 7 PM and Tulip Festivals. And praised the things we did share. Alberta’s oil money. Honk. Honk.

Before you could say Alfonso Gagliano, Ms. Copps, the pride of Hamilton, fired back in that quaint, understated style she’s known for. Using words like “despot” and a “dictator”, she accused us of using hockey to separate the nation.  Our “diatribe” was “hate-filled” as we mocked “tulips, tourists and the team… Dowbiggin’s message was a lot more dangerous than the separatists”, she railed. 

“Gussied up as a sports rant he thinks it’s perfectly okay to trash another part of Canada in the name of hockey.. Sports lynchers with a political agenda commit the worst kind of bigotry. In Western backhand ( note": we lived our first 45 years in Quebec and Ontario), Dowbigggin excretes the same bile that almost cost our country twice.” Sports lyncher. Wow.

You’re welcome Sheila. Suggesting that “more astute readers may have discerned a touch of sarcasm and mirth in our original piece” we replied that this pro-Canada stand was rich coming from the government whose Sponsorship Scandal tore apart the nation and left their party to trust-fund Justin “the Jester” Trudeau.

“I’m always amused by Quebec parvenus such as Ms. Copps who think a French immersion course and a particularly hot weekend at the Juste Pour Rire festival make them an expert in the culture of La Belle Province… the parlous state of Quebec within Canada speaks to decades of Liberal vigilance on the separatist file.

“In the end it’s hard to tell which is funnier: Ms. Copps’ vitriolic defence of her record as a champion of Confederation or as a sudden covert to the culture of hockey in this country. But then, Ms. Copps, like most Liberals, never were very good at getting a joke.  Maybe because its was about them in the first place.”

Sadly, they don’t make ‘em like Sheila anymore. Now they slap you with a hate crime and take away your financial records. So good luck to Edmonton. We mean you no harm. Your crayon-coloured unis look great. Just don’t come running to the rest of Canada if you sprain your ankle on the Florida Panthers.

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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.