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.

There are currently 32 teams in the league, each chasing Sinden’s rainbow of a Stanley Cup. That means 31 cranky fan bases every year. And 31 management teams trying to avoid getting fired. Maybe we’ve reached peak franchise level? Uh, no. If you believe the innuendo coming from commissioner Gary Bettman there is a steady appetite for getting a piece of the NHL operation.

Thanks goodness #HatGate resurrected a bit of the old-fashioned bile that makes Ryder Cups so anticipated. For all the polite chumminess of today’s PGA Tour, a silly pissing match is a nice diversion. After all, as Conn Smythe once said after a brawl-filled hockey game, “Much more of this and we will have to print extra tickets for the next game.”

A whole new culture has grown up within the sport so that deals can be swung. As trades have become more complicated, they have concurrently become less of a burden on the moving parts involved. We’ve come off an offseason with a surprisingly modest number of intriguing deals.  With preseason games starting, to whet the ref’s whistle, here’s a list Rating The Top 25 Trades in NHL history from our next book Deal With It: The Most Impactful Trades In NHL history and How They Changed The Game (due later in 2023).

Clearly a little PR is always a good thing for celebrity owners. But sports team ownership has also become a lucrative equity play. As BMO reports, “The average compound annual growth rate since the last purchase price…  is 15 percent, a meaningful outperformance to the TSX and S&P.  Forbes estimates the Toronto Blue Jays are currently worth US$2.1 billion or roughly C$2.85 billion. 

Some will say a bronze is nothing to get excited about. The Americans played with only nine men Sunday. Perhaps. But remember when Canada was jokingly called the bronze-medal country because of its unwillingness to be nasty and hardbitten enough to deny someone else the gold medal?  The feeling we got from Sunday’s bronze is that this tournament will be a great memory for all involved, but winning the Olympic gold is where it ends up. 

In the bigger picture, Canadians and Americans have come to accept that the people who are entrusted to keep the criminal element in their place are not doing their job. Like the Rockies staff they show up late— if they show up at all. And the perps are quickly back on the street due to new bail laws and hyper-liberal judges and crown attorneys.

How cheap is the NHL? Matthews’ “dizzying” $13.25 as NHL No. 1 would make him the 113th highest-paid player in the NBA, the 103rd highest-paid player in the MLB and the 88th highest-paid player in the NFL. As one perspective, Toronto-born Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of OKC Thunder— now starring for Canada’s national team— pays about $13.25M per year in income tax.

There’s been no apology for the outright lies about 15 days to flatten the curve, PCR tests that showed 70 percent false positives, the hotel lockdowns, suspension of civil rights, anti-vaxx hysteria.  Just a brazen shrug of the shoulders and the determination to try again this winter to keep certain people in line.

The hysterics who wanted neighbours dead because they declined to join a cult urged by medical elites are still silent as vaccines sit unused by the millions. That includes Canada’s PM who locked returning citizens into hotel jails and then declared a public emergency when truckers didn’t sign up for his bogus agenda. Crickets from him.

Scarcity drives value, and the most scarce commodity is not excellent running backs. It’s excellent quarterbacks. Scarcity is why left offensive tackles make more than guards and centres. It’s why cornerbacks make more than middle linebackers. It’s why these positions are drafted in the first round while running backs and others slide to the later rounds. 

MLB is now talking about possibly returning to Montreal as an expansion club should they build a proper ball park. Although who in Quebec has a billion to throw at a baseball stadium is unclear. And how they’d get past the Blue Jays monopoly on broadcast rights in Canada is also a huge question. Just remember, however, that you needn’t look far to see who had a large hand in killing the Expos. It was the Toronto Blue Jays and their territorial rights. 

It would be interesting to see a film about how the NHL exploited— and then squandered— its Jordan Rules moment. Parallel to the Bulls star’s ascension the NHL experienced its own Jordan in Wayne Gretzky. A once-in-a century star, Gretzky possessed all the marketable qualities of Jordan in his NHL career that began in 1979.

“Ladies, name your top five WNBA players of all time. Name five WNBA teams. Name the WNBA team in your city. You can’t do it!” You’re playing in a 20,000-seat arena — 1,500 people show up. That’s not a good night!”

The only rule with Bob was Don’t Be Boring. That meant don’t talk about the Leafs power play or how will the Blue Jays do this weekend in Milwaukee. Or else you wouldn’t be back. He wanted a take, the big picture, business talk and a healthy dose of American references.The atmosphere was all snark, all the time. And his audience loved it (the panelists did, too, unless Bob got mad at you and banned you).