Auston Matthews’ commitment to Toronto means that a number of teams who’ve been delaying bold moves and hoarding trade bait in anticipation of his potential trade or UFA market can now move to Plan B. There were a number of U.S. teams poised to offer the Leafs the moon and stars— NHL version— at the trade deadline or to sign him next summer. This should now tell them to move on.

As long as you’re willing to re-locate frequently the job of NHL head coach has a fair degree of job security. Even when you get fired it seems there’s a ready appetite in some other town for a skill set you have just failed at.

In today’s sports journalism, where social media has replaced newspapers, scoops are governed by a protocol. There are the heralds— in the NHL it’s currently Johnston and Dreger— and then there are the disseminators. The days of a rabble of reporters all scrambling to get a story bigger than who-will-play-in-tonight’s-game are gone. Today, it’s a very narrow funnel for scoops.

Sure, Montreal had seen recent riots after Stanley Cups ,but there was little element of politics in the drunken behaviour. Not Vancouver. Not in 2011. Seeing the random anarchists and looters on Granville and Robson Streets the question was, “Why were the cops and elected officials so unprepared?” Because we are Canadian and we trust.

When this first-round ends in ignominy there will be plenty of questions from Keith Pelley, newly installed at the top of the MLSE pyramid. Such as, why should I keep this management team that teases Waygu beef in-season but delivers ground chuck in the playoffs? It’s long been said that the league the Leafs have been built for doesn’t exist in the postseason. So why keep pretending it does? 

The Arizona Republic naively fawned on Bettman for his many attempts to save the team. In fact, they were just attempts to buttress his grip on the league. While the Coyotes may have been a mess, Bettman has succeeded in preserving the investments of most of the business people who bought his NHL business prospectus.

The apogee of the trial was, of course, coarse actor O.J. not being able to put on the glove (if it don’t fit you must acquit). The stunned look on prosecutor Marcia Clark’s face was mint. For the hyper-liberal, mostly black  L.A. jury that was all they needed to cement the not-guilty verdict. CNN reverberated for weeks on the sugar high from the trial.

Women’s sports has been in search of a marketable messiah to change women’s sports from ESPN hype to mainstream. Too many fans were turned off by the strident soccer player  Megan Rapinioe and WNBA star Britney Griner who made every game into a referendum on the latest #LGBTQ talking points. But Clark is different.

The best part is that Mike’s show is he will talk to anyone civilly without inserting himself into the show, especially if the craic is good. We discussed that at length in Ep.1464 about the current media mania for demonizing people with whom we disagree. 

The greatest complaint about sports betting from people who don’t know a parlay from a chardonnay is the effect on young people seeing so much on wagering. Alert: In every jurisdiction it is illegal for anyone under 18 (sometimes 19) to bet legally. The image of 11-year-olds betting props on their own phones is a canard.

We are in a holding pattern as the media demand answers. Such as, will the biggest signing in the sport’s history now face federal charges that prohibit wiring money to an unlicensed sports gambling operation? Will MLB suspend him for life for dealing with an illegal gambling operation? Why is Ohtani’s name on the money trail? Also, are these payments about something else?

To most people who’ve watched tennis’ Hawkeye system or soccer’s goal-line system the response to all this is, What took so long? Fans watching games on TV at home have seen a virtual strike zone for years now, helping them and the homer announcers see accurate results live. The answer: Gambling.

it’s a reach to say that Flames fan watching the Edmonton playoff series in April of 2022 could have foreseen this teardown happening so fast and so brutally to a team that sped out to a 5-1 lead over the Oilers that night. But it did. The only thing making it worse will be an Oilers Stanley Cup win in 2024. 

It’s a sad state for golf fans being denied the best players on a weekly basis or—  even more disappointing— at the majors. There is little indication what format the so-called settlement will entail when it’s finally hammered out between the Tour and LIV. But one thing they can agree on is that none of this is doing anything to please fans or sponsors of the sport. 

While the players are trying for the umpteenth time to establish women’s hockey as a “thing” in the Canadian sports firmament, Canada’s progressive media are ready to use these attendance figures to make arguments for women’s hockey as “equal pay for work of equal value”.

Coming soon, our latest book “Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey”. With my son Evan, we look back to Espo to the Bruins (1967), Gretzky to the Kings (1988) , and St. Patrick to the Avalanche (1995), Deal With It tracks the back story behind the most impactful trades in modern NHL history. With detailed analysis and keen insight into these and five other monumental transactions, Deal With It recalls the moments when history was changed. Plus a ranking of the Top 25 Deals in NHL History.

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: