The recent appearance of Liberal-leader-in-waiting Mark Carney on the Daily Show has delighted a small segment of the Canadian voting pool and enraged a goodly part as well. During his nuzzle session with a highly uncritical Jon Stewart Carney announced that he was running to replace Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and then prime minister for however long that lasts.

(If this distinction seems trivial we would recall that then-CBC vice president Kirstine Stewart once upbraided us for saying her actor husband was supporting Trudeau’s bid to be PM. A choleric Stewart said we’d got the story wrong. How so, we asked? He’s supporting him to be Liberal leader, she thundered. Not the PM. As if this were a distinction worth making.)

Back to Carney. To understand the gravity of his announcement on the Daily Show one must remember that for a generation of concussed Liberals and NDP hacks Stewart’s show from 1999 to 2016 was the Yankee Stadium of talk shows. In their estimation, Stewart was Reggie Jackson, mashing the fastball, while CBC’s At Issue panel was Jesus Ramirez, striking out on the curve in A Ball.

So for Stewart to grant time to an unknown Canadian banker who still thinks Greta Thunberg is relevant was intriguing. Or someone paid someone. In any event, the gotcha’ line from the chat was Carney, formerly governor of the Banks of Canada and the UK and now advisor to PMJT, repeating Stewart’s suggestion that he was the “outsider” in the race to succeed Trudeau.

For most sentient Canadians this was an epic humblebrag for the billionaire son of a former governor of the Bank of Canada whose wife does investment business with Trudeau eminence gris Gerry Butts. If Carney was an outsider what constituted an insider? It was to laugh.

Social media— that part not consumed by the visit of Alberta premier Danielle Smith and gadfly investor Kevin O’Leary to Mar A Lago— boiled with sarcasm and dismissal. Those wily Liberals aren’t going to fool us now, just as we are on the cusp of Pierre Poilievre taking power. No doubt Carney’s team— including PMJT— laughed in derision.

The Liberals culture club think that, if they could pass off Skippy as remotely capable, they can dress up Carney as an outsider for gullible Canadian voters.

But Carney may have accidentally have tripped over the truth. He is now an outsider. You see, the dotty Libs think the machine that selected/ elected Skippy in 2015 still works. CBC, G&M, Macleans, TorStar would decide the candidates and curate the process. Sadly for Butts, Telford and Skippy the Family Compact has been supplanted by social media both here and in the USA.

The turning point of Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential race was him pivoting away from the staged debates and ponderous Sunday morning shows of legacy media toward not just podcasts by Joe Rogan but also those of under-30 stars such as Theo Von, Adin Ross and Lex Fridman, among many. The cred he gained from the Gen X demo helped him sweep the Dems away. Elon Musk breaking the DEMs censorship strategy on Twitter (now X) also sent a shot at Team Kamala that the game had changed.

While Canada doesn’t have as many counter-culture podcasts as the U.S., there are enough young voters ignoring Canada’s chattering class to bury the Libs under Carney or the rest of the Goof Troop. No one with a pulse and a vote under 50 buys the old rag bag. It’s over for guys as exciting as a carrot expecting to harvest younger Canadians. They’re playing to an empty hall with the bespoke Carney.

This ironic twist is that all this is lost on Woke nobs who brag about their hip sense of humour. Who follow Stewart and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to keep up with Trump Derangement. Who record SNL Update to hang on the sophomoric stylings of Michael Ché and Colin Jost. Who can recite extended bits from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Now they are the punch line. The outrage over the Mar A Lago visit by Smith and O’Leary is a perfect example of their dissociative thinking. The staged pictures had “blood boiling” in many progressives. “@OrbitStudios Jan 13 So… Kevin O’Leary is arrested immediately for treason the next time he sets foot in Canada, correct? I’m absolutely being serious here.” And that’s a mild response.

These armies of Liberal bots fumed over the treachery of talking about the economy with the man about to become the U.S. president again. Awareness much? None of the howler monkeys reacted this way when heroes like PMJT and his cabinet burned clouds of carbon to lobby the eunuchs of WEF, EU and Davos in Europe. They were hot on selling out Canada to the globalist gang’s climate narrative, and they couldn’t get there quickly enough. Crickets from the bot community.

But this is different, of course. Sure. In the past their pals in the Ottawa Press Club could protect these hypocrisies, burying unfortunate stories by segueing to David Suzuki saving seals or Margaret Attwood decrying the medieval treatment of Canadian women in the 21st century.

But social media obliterated the insider game. So much so that Trudeau and his cabinet cronies began banning speech as fast as possible. But it’s too late. Like the ghost leg syndrome, the script to shove an unelected climate crazy into the PMO will seem real to the Libs. But don’t be fooled. The end is nigh for the old way. Just look at Stewart’s ratings to see just how dead it really is.

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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

Canadians are still lamenting the pasting Team Canada absorbed at the World Junior Championships in Ottawa, won by the USA. Out of the medals, beaten by Latvia and Cechia, among others. There’s talk about the ongoing problems of the development system and the people at Hockey Canada.

Yes, Canada’s top eligible players (Macklin Celibrini, Connor Bedard) are in the NHL and unavailable to the team. And the massive feeder system— prospects spread out over the CHL, Junior A and NCAA— is inefficient at best. But the talent window is definitely narrowing.

As we wrote in August of 2021, “The hockey pipeline is full of young men whose fathers could give them a hockey education but who also knew many of right people to tap into. The sophisticated training and arduous diet regimes are getting more like Tom Brady and less like Gump Worsley. And they’re expensive— even in Howe’s home nation of Canada which honours its roots.”

What might be of interest is that people in the development system of American hockey are similarly distressed about the problems of developing players in their country. Cost, bureaucracy and the sheer time commitment for families is breaking a lot of people. “This discipline and access is reflected in the United States where the boom in hockey participation is resulting not in farm boys and rink rats but in privileged sons and daughters of highly paid NHL stars getting an inside track on making the league or the Olympics.” 

Topher Scott of The Hockey Think tank.com has posted about what he sees in American hockey culture. “I’ve talked to so many people in youth hockey about how to change the toxic culture – and it’s tough hearing so many good people saying they can’t do it the way they want (the right way) because everyone else is doing it the other way (the business way) and if they don’t do it that way they’ll lose their club.

I’m calling BS. If you are involved in youth hockey, please listen to this clip. And if you are a person of influence wherever you are at, stand tall and don’t cater to the crazy. The only way we’ll see positive change is if people of influence in youth hockey areas, who know better, go against the grain and lead the change.”

The comments on his post are familiar in the burgeoning hockey system that now has roots in most states in the U.S. “Such a scam to charge these families 5/6k in dues per year and then pay another 10/20/30k in travel expenses.”

—“It’s an arms race and you are not going to stop that. Make it fun for the other 90% of kids and families that aren’t part of the arms race.”

—“This system beyond broken. Organizations telling some kids In the contract we have the right to put you on the lower team, as we may find other players to replace you, along w/ we are flying players in to play.”

—“U14 has kids who live in central USA playing on east coast teams. Nj pa and ny loaded w aaa programs, many refuse to play each other because of rankings”.

—“…the hockey culture DOES not like disruptors- they are a THREAT to exposing bad things & bad people. Loss of power, control, money & damaging adult egos trumps what is best for kids.”

—“I find it unbelievable that travel hockey programs demand kids miss Fri and Monday school days to play wraparound weekend tournaments 5X/yr or risk being thrown off the team. Its gotta stop!”

Scott and his X followers are describing the same issues affecting hockey in Canada where a number of financial and social changes have created a system dominated by clubs, agents, schools and ambitious parents. The image he presents of the overbearing parent— in concert with team officials— who are stage managing a child’s progress is familiar. One that dictates needing to take out a mortgage to create a young hockey star.

As we have written recently, the NCAA decision to now allow players with service in the CHL to play at the U.S. college level has accelerated the meat grinder of development hockey in Canada. Again, delusional parents are now demanding that their child have extra ice time and a prime spot on a team so as to qualify for a pro career. Adding to the pressure is the NIL program now radically restructuring college sports in the U.S. After winning the rights to name, likeness and image in the U.S. Supreme Court athletes can now be paid millions in some cases to attend a certain school or transfer through the “portal” system,.

While NIL has not hit hockey as dramatically as other sports, it’s just a matter of time till schools wanting the next Connor Bedard to attend their school will be tossing alumni and sponsor money to over-18 prodigies. Parents seeing this will re-double efforts at the minor level to get their child on the prospect track, paying vast amounts for training and travel.

One problem in Canada, as mentioned, is the vast network of teams demanding players on the men’s side. For prospects to star on the first line or in goal there must be others to play on the third line or be a seventh defenceman. This creates a meat grinder. While clubs sometimes level with parents about ice time there are plenty who are in denial, hoping their son or daughter can still cash in on the riches in the NHL from the fringes of the roster.

Some of this has been alleviated by scholarships for players depending on their years in the system. Canadian University hockey is full of 22-26 year olds using their CHL grants to pursue education. But there are many who simply melt away to play in minor pro leagues across the country and in Europe.

In the long run this may make the CHL an elite league for under 18 players or those who can’t manage the scholastic record to switch to NCAA. The NHL likes the longer CHL schedule with its pro model, but there is much to be said for a prospect growing at an academic institution, broadening their horizons.

But, as always, parents will follow the money and the dream— even if they’re unattainable.

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. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.