Bruce Dowbiggin
Double Jeopardy: How The West Let Putin Off The Leash

You get the enemy you deserve. So if Vladimir Putin is what the West deserves then what does it say about the West today? It says they’re in the basement watching Netflix after leaving the front door open and giving the burglars a map to where they hide the family jewels.
Translation: The Ukraine catastrophe is a byproduct of the West abandoning proven energy methods in place of utopian Green schemes. Now, too late, it sees the implications of the energy gap created by buying foreign products— the U.S. importing 600 K barrels of Russian oil a day.
But in this climate of nuclear brinksmanship the Media Party can’t report that. Not if you’re invested in the legend of intrepid western-intelligence. So instead of truth we have Ukraine: The Musical where the poor locals being slaughtered by Putin are turned into plot devices, noble victims of the evil Russian tyrant; their own blundering leaders are shown kitted out in flak jackets and helmets, porting what liberal media call “assault weapons”.
In the comic-book narratives beloved by CNN and CBC, the plot lines were fed to a waiting world about a Ghost pilot picking off Russian jets like so many quail. About 13 brave sailors who gave the FU to Russians and were massacred to the man. About soldiers sacrificing themselves to blow up a bridge. Soft-hearted liberals— the core CBC/ CNN crowd— ate it up.
All of it fog-of-war BS. But with Putin’s brigades inexorably bearing down on Kiev and Lviv there’s no time for the skeptical to do fact checking. Or remind how Western experts caught with the pants down and their hands in someone else’s pockets need cover. Fast. So their willing media partners have served up Putin fury by the shovel full. Don’t hold your breath for the truth on how this went wrong.
That’s what happens when you do business in the ninth-most corrupt nation in the world. Truth is fungible. The Canadian deputy PM, whose roots in Ukraine spring from her Nazi-loving grandfather in WW II, is a crusader for truth. The woman who said Putin would make the west fall “in love” with Russia again is now the tip of the righteous Canadian spear. Print it. (Not the photos of Freeland porting a neo-Nazi banner.)
Independent voices such as Mark Steyn , Matt Taibbi and Lee Smith have tried to remind readers that the rapacious 2022 Putin is a product of Western intelligence’s wishful thinking and political negligence 25 years ago. Taibbi— who was working in Russia at the time— reminds us NATO and the dormant press allowed Putin to achieve the daily double: rape the post-Soviet economy with a few hundred oligarchs while establishing a Mafia state within the government.
Here’s Freeland writing in 2000: Some critics have lamented Putin’s support for the bloody second
war in Chechnya, accused him of eroding freedom of the press… and worried aloud that his KGB background and unrepenting loyalty to the honor of that institution could jeopardize Russia’s fragile democratic
institutions. But many of even Putin’s fiercest prosecutors seem inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the economy…”
As Taibbi says, “He was going to be our bastard. Now he’s become his own bastard”.
What the Ukraine fiasco also reveals is yet another product of Donald Trump’s upset win in 2016. (A product that must stay unreported by the Media Party.) Having bought into the U.S. State Department’s blandishments about U.S. security from Russia and having paid serious cash to Joe Biden’s son as protection for the rest of the decade, the Ukrainians made a rude discovery.
Instead of Hillary Clinton extending the Obama doctrine—and their protection— for anther four years, they got Trump on the phone asking WTF was going on with the Biden protection grift. Trump had seen video of Biden publicly shaking down the Ukrainians for a billion dollars. Unless they got a prosecutor off of Hunter’s company The Big Guy wasn’t giving them the cheque.
Trump wanted to know what happened. When Democrats moles inside the U.S. bureaucracy (Col. Alexander Vindman, come on down!) got wind of Trump’s inquiries the red light went off on Nancy Pelosi’s Bat Phone. If Trump got to the bottom of Biden’s deal he was likely to find a whole lot of other DC critters’ payola, too.
Faster than you could say Lying Adam Schiff, the Democrats and their friends in the Swamp cooked up an impeachment witch hunt, accusing Trump of interfering in the sovereign business of another state. The stage managers of Never Trump, who’d been shut out by the Mueller Inquisition, rallied the troops for another show trial.
To anyone who could count Senate members the whole enterprise was doomed to fail. Except that distracting people about Trump’s bulldog intrusion into eastern Europe kept them away from unravelling the State Department’s Ukraine policy. The one that has resulted in the current disaster.
The mystery Trump hinted at— and being asked by too few in the Beltway— is why did the supposed old-hand state geniuses allow a corrupt nation where the average income is $200/ month to become a political fulcrum for nuclear war?
Steyn puzzles it out: “The Trump impeachments? Ooh, he telephoned …Ukraine! The “Russia investigation”? Putin wanted Trump to win why exactly? Oh, no problem: because he’ll roll back sanctions imposed for Moscow’s actions against …Ukraine!
Do we have any witnesses to any of this? Yeah, sure, the really good guy’s some Colonel Vindman. He’s an immigrant from …Ukraine! On the other hand, Obama made Biden his point-man in …Ukraine!Biden told the Ukrainians they had to clean up all the corruption. They took the hint and put Hunter on the board, and Joe, Jim and the rest of the mob family suddenly acquired extensive “business interests” in Ukraine. Oh, and the biggest source of foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation is …Ukraine.”No one pays that much attention to a failed state unless the big players have their fingers in the pie. As Lee Smith remarks of the same big players who’ve left the poor of Ukraine open to the Putin War Machine: “So long as the media continued to bark that the 45th president of the United States is Putin’s stooge, no one would be held accountable for anything.
Except, as it turns out, D.C. political operatives aren’t the only people who can make history. Putin can, too. And the people of Ukraine will come out much the worse for both of their efforts.”
Set that to music.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author was nominated for the BBN Business Book award of 2020 for Personal Account with Tony Comper. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book with his son Evan Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
The Game That Let Canadians Forgive The Liberals — Again

With the Americans winning the first game 3-1, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact.
“It’s also more political than the (1972) Summit Series was, because Canada’s existence wasn’t on the line then, and it may be now. You’re damn right Canadians should boo the (U.S.) anthem.” Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur before Gm. 1 of USA/ Canada in The 4 Nations Cup.
The year 2025 is barely half over on Canada Day. There is much to go before we start assembling Best Of Lists for the year. But as Palestinian flags duel with the Maple Leaf for prominence on the 158th anniversary of Canada’s becoming a sovereign country it’s a fair guess that we will settle on Febuary 21 as the pivotal date of the year— and Canada’s destiny as well.
That was the date of Game 2 in the U.S./Canada rivalry at the Four Nations Tournament. Ostensibly created by the NHL to replace the moribund All Star format, the showdown of hockey nations in Boston became much more. Jolted by non-sports factors it became a pivotal moment in modern Canadian history.
Set against U.S. president Donald Trump’s bellicose talk of Canada as a U.S. state and the Mike Myers/ Mark Carney Elbows Up ad campaign, the gold-medal game evoked, for those of a certain age, memories of the famous 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the USSR. And somehow produced an unprecedented political reversal in Canadian elections.
As we wrote on Feb. 16 after Gm. 1 in Montreal, the Four Nations had been meant to be something far less incendiary. “Expecting a guys’ weekend like the concurrent NBA All Star game, the fraternal folks instead got a Pier Six brawl. It was the most stunning beginning to a game most could remember in 50 years. (Not least of all the rabid Canadian fanbase urging patriotism in the home of Quebec separation) Considering this Four Nations event was the NHL’s idea to replace the tame midseason All Star Game where players apologize for bumping into each other during a casual skate, the tumult as referees tried to start the game was shocking.
“Despite public calls for mutual respect, the sustained booing of the American national anthem and the Team Canada invocation by MMA legend Georges St. Pierre was answered by the Tkachuck brothers, Matthew and Brady, with a series of fights in the first nine seconds of the game. Three fights to be exact ,when former Canuck J.T. Miller squared up with Brandon Hagel. (All three U.S. players have either played on or now play for Canadian NHL teams.)
“Premeditated and nasty. To say nothing of the vicious mugging of Canada’s legend Sidney Crosby behind the U.S. net moments later by Charlie McEvoy.”
With the Americans winning the game 3-1 on Feb. 15, a sense of panic crept over Canada as it headed to Game 2 in Boston. Losing a political battle with Trump was bad enough, but losing hockey bragging rights heading into a federal election was catastrophic for the Family Compact. As we wrote in the aftermath, a slaughter was avoided.

“In the rematch for a title created just weeks before by the NHL the boys stuck to hockey. Anthem booing was restrained. Outside of an ill-advised appearance by Wayne Gretzky— now loathed for his Trump support— the emphasis was on skill. Playing largely without injured Matthew and Brady Tkachuk and McAvoy, the U.S. forced the game to OT where beleaguered goalie Craig Binnington held Canada in the game until Connor McDavid scored the game winner. “
The stunning turnaround in the series produced a similar turnaround in the Canadian federal election. Galvanized by Trump’s 51st State disrespect and exhilarated by the hockey team’s comeback, voters switched their votes in huge numbers to Carney, ignoring the abysmal record of the Liberals and their pathetic polling. From Pierre Poilievre having a 20-point lead in polls, hockey-besotted Canada flipped to award Carney a near-majority in the April 28 election.
The result stunned the Canadian political class and international critics who questioned how a single sporting event could have miraculously rescued the Liberals from themselves in such a short time.

While Canada soared because of the four Nations, a Canadian icon crashed to earth. “Perhaps the most public outcome was the now-demonization of Gretzky in Canada. Just as they had with Bobby Orr, another Canadian superstar living in America, Canadians wiped their hands of No. 99 over politics. Despite appeals from Orr, Don Cherry and others, the chance to make Gretzky a Trump proxy was too tempting.
We have been in several arguments on the subject among friends: Does Gretzky owe Canada something after carrying its hockey burden for so long? Could he have worn a Team Canada jersey? Shouldn’t he have made a statement that he backs Canada in its showdown with Trump? For now 99 is 0 in his homeland.”
Even now, months later, the events of late February have an air of disbelief around them, a shift so dramatic and so impactful on the nation that many still shake their heads. Sure, hockey wasn’t the device that blew up Canada’s politics. But it was the fuse that created a crater in the country.
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, 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.
Bruce Dowbiggin
What Connor Should Say To Oilers: It’s Not You. It’s Me.

This just in. Connor McDavid is on track to be the greatest hockey player ever. Apologies to the Gretz/ Orr/ Howe partisans. But if he stays healthy and gets the hell out of Edmonton he will be hands-down the best ever. He is equal measures of Gretzky’s intuitive genius, Orr’s 200-foot impact. Howe’s sandpaper attitude. It’s an honour to watch him.
We know, we know, if he is so great why couldn’t he get the Oilers over the hump, particularly the past two seasons against Florida? Gretz, Orr, Howe all won Stanley Cups while leading their teams. So did Mario Lemieux. Fair point. But Howe in his prime never played more than two series in the postseason. Orr often played just three. Gretz teams often bagelled opponents for years.
McDavid’s teams the last two years have had lengthy paths to tred. Just getting to a Final is a huge accomplishment. Repeating that feat (going seven then six games) in the Final is humungous. It’s exhausting, mentally and physically. That’s why so few teams do it.
Still, that’s not the point. We have been asking since 2018 how long McDavid will hobble his legacy by staying in Edmonton. Those early columns were talking about a team that missed playoffs or did a Maple Leafs fold early on. The current iteration of the Oilers has gotten to the brink. They have players who’ve been around a while. And fell short.

Now the Oilers are an old team, the oldest in the regular season, the oldest team in the playoffs this year. Teams carrying more than two plus-30 players have a miserable track record of winning Cups. And the Oilers have zero Grade A prospects in the pipeline. At 28, McDavid is a young guy on their roster. Not good.
As the hockey world knows he can sign an extension on July 1 to follow the contract he has now. Money will be no object as the NHL salary cap (finally) goes up. Term will be forever if he wants it. His running mate Leon Draisaitl is tied up till age 36. The Oilers desperately want him to stay after the Gretzky fiasco in 1988. So what is he going to do? He’s got national endorsements in Canada, but in the U.S.? Connor who? The sky is the limit.
Oilers fans palpitating over the future of their star were looking for hints as to his mindset when he met the media following the Oilers loss in six games to Florida. It was a chance for him to say he’s staying, he loves the place, his wife is committed to freezing every winter in the Alberta capital. He could have cried and said “Mess told me not to do that”.
What they got was a lot of maybe. Yes, he kept the doors open, but he said he needs time to see the landscape till the clock tolls on July 1. He needs to examine whether this veteran team has a future. Because in a few years they’ll be like Howe’s Detroit teams in the 60s, a played-out dynasty.
Under NHL rules no team can contact him about signing. But he will know that everyone will want him at a max deal. Some will offer no state income tax. Some will have teams on the cusp of the Cup he desires (see Matthew Tkachuk to Florida in 2023). Some will be giant U.S. media cities with the ability to make him what Gretzky became in L.A. Some will offer warm weather and anonymity away from the rink.
These are all knowns. For the impatient, teams can approach the Oilers now about a trade. So he’s holding all the cards. It’s prom night and he gets his pick. Unless Edmonton (gulp) jumps the gun on a trade.

Let’s play Peter Pocklington for a minute here and see this from the Oilers’ POV. Pocklington traded Gretzky, because Peter was broke. That’s not Darryl Katz’s problem. His problem is his team is about to get ancient. There is no McDavid for Draisaitl on the horizon. Plus, you’ve tied up several players (Nurse, Nugent Hopkins) to contracts they can’t hope to play up to. And youngish players coming into free agency.
He must address the other side of the 1988 Gretzky equation. How to get full market value for a superstar? Which means getting another star to help Draisaitl going forward. You could let the two play out the string together in Edmonton, of course. But with so many strong teams in Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, even Winnipeg that would be a hard slog. And by the time you realized that it would be too late.
The smart play, as Michael Corleone would say, is move fast. Trade McDavid before the start of next season for a boatload of young players to supplement Draisaitl. Take a short-term PR hit but live to compete another day.
Of course, Katz is not going to trade McDavid. He’s a fanboy owner. He’ll throw the Rexall kitchen sink at him and hope that’s enough. McDavid will be patient (if he’s smart). The “will-he-sign?” drama will bleed into the next season, a millstone for the team. The distractions will mount before Edmonton realizes that an unsigned McDavid is a liability. And Connor on a max deal with a minus team is no bargain either.
Remember the re-structured Oilers won a Cup in 1990 using Mark Messier and the players they got for Gretzky. Think about it, Edmonton.
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, 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.
-
Business2 days ago
Ottawa Funded the China Ferry Deal—Then Pretended to Oppose It
-
COVID-192 days ago
New Peer-Reviewed Study Affirms COVID Vaccines Reduce Fertility
-
MAiD2 days ago
Canada’s euthanasia regime is not health care, but a death machine for the unwanted
-
Business1 day ago
World Economic Forum Aims to Repair Relations with Schwab
-
Alberta2 days ago
The permanent CO2 storage site at the end of the Alberta Carbon Trunk Line is just getting started
-
Alberta1 day ago
Alberta’s government is investing $5 million to help launch the world’s first direct air capture centre at Innisfail
-
Business2 days ago
Municipal government per-person spending in Canada hit near record levels
-
Business1 day ago
A new federal bureaucracy will not deliver the affordable housing Canadians need