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Bruce Dowbiggin

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: We’ve Been Here Before

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The news from the Hockey Canada sexual scandals keeps getting uglier. Sponsors are abandoning an organization thought beyond reproach just a year ago. Politicians are roasting HC executives. The IIHF is to determine whether it should withdraw tournaments from Canada till the mess is cleaned up. And the NHL is fretting that it houses sexual assault suspects— some big stars— from as far back as 2003.

The current parliamentary hearings over the 2018 WJHC champions have made HC toxic— its women’s team is expressing disgust with the organization. that represents them. The story is hampered by the fact that nothing has been proven or even alleged by police. The process has existed in a world of non-disclosure agreements and allegations and media distortions of the facts. (We’re told there are videos of the incident yet no one in the Ottawa hearings seemed to mention them.)

Faced with the uncertainties and player refusals to cooperate Hockey Canada threw up its hands and paid off the complainant.  The public is baffled. Who are the players involved? Who is innocent? Who is guilty? What is the evidence? Why did this stay hidden? How did Hockey Canada miss so badly?

So far the picture is opaque. Can we ever believe in the sports body again? Currently hockey is being used as a metaphor by all sorts of political actors to push narratives about male privilege and social inequality. What has been consistent is the excellent reporting (again) of TSN’s Rick Westhead and Katie Strang in The Athletic. Their dogged research and courage in exposing these stories is exceptional.

What’s also consistent is the tardy response of the mainstream hockey press that is now finally coming around to this story. There are hundreds of reporters and media outlets that seem to cover everything that moves in the sport. Yet a story that implicates the names of the current Conn Smythe winner and other young NHL stars— without vindicating them— is festering.

It’s not the first time in recent memory. In June of 2021— when sexual assault allegations on the 2010 Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks emerged— we asked, “Most damning is where were the dozens of hockey “insiders” in the media during this time? The people we are told have their ear to the ground on all things happening in the league? Why did it take till 2021 for Rick Westhead (TSN) and Katie Strang (The Athletic) to unearth the poorly hidden story during the NHL’s postseason semifinals. 

Isn’t this the same media that swore it would never ignore this sort of story— no matters how much it hurt friends and sponsors—  when the Graham James and Dave Frost stories emerged? Aren’t these the same networks that went wall-to-wall on the earlier stories when they surfaced, trying to make up for their negligence about sexual abuse in hockey during the past? 

Sadly, the hockey media culture is the same one we encountered in the 1990s when, along with Carl Brewer, Sue Foster and Russ Conway, we exposed the corruption between the league and NHL Players Association director Alan Eagleson on a range of subjects from player pensions to collective bargaining to Canada Cup fraud. 

That story had lain dormant for a generation despite the repeated calls by Brewer for investigations into the cozy relationship between the league and Eagleson. Media with NHL sponsorships or broadcast deals would rather have eaten glass than reported what they saw.

Thanks to the digging of Conway, Foster and CBC Toronto the truth emerged in the mid 1990s. Eagleson was convicted of fraud and NHL president John Ziegler was replaced by Gary Bettman. A familiar pattern then ensued. When the facts (about James or Frost) became too hard to deny the negligent media put on the hair shirt, condemning corruption and vowing to never allow its negligence to happen again. 

Later, they grew even tighter with the people they covered, inking enormous broadcast deals or sponsorship contracts that have drawn them ever closer to hockey power centres. 

The NHL (went) into omertà mode when asked how it countenanced the alleged behaviour of Chicago team management in ignoring a sexual predator and then giving him a letter of recommendation. Stan Bowman, the son of NHL Hall of Fame member Scotty Bowman, is not answering questions yet. But as general manager of the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey program for 2022 he will have to offer some explanations if he’s to keep the post. [he’s since been removed from both posts.]

Former Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin, who was a Chicago player at the time, says, “I was not part of any meeting & I was not part of any decision & I was not aware of what was going on at the time. You can go on the record with that.” Done.

One would like to take the league and their snoozing media at their word that they will do better in covering these abuse stories in the past. Sadly, there is little reason to believe this contrition after so many false starts in the past.”

As we are seeing, the false starts continue.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). 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. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft YearsIn NHL History, , his new book with his son Evan, was voted the eighth best professional hockey book of by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted seventh best, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

The Game That Let Canadians Forgive The Liberals — Again

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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.

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Bruce Dowbiggin

Don & Rick: Canadian Icons, Mixed Messages, Lasting Impacts

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“Well, Tim, this is our last show. . . . Thanks everybody for listening and toodaloo,” 91-year old Don Cherry allegedly on his final podcast episode.

Once upon a time in a public broadcaster far, far away there was an identity crisis. Who should we be as we enter the 21st century? We depend on government for our financing, but our audience relies on people who hate government.

At CBC that argument could be summed up by two figures on the TV network. Rick Mercer. Don Cherry. Both were brilliant communicators, masters of the craft of holding eyeballs. But they represented diametrically opposed audiences. Mercer was the glib political voice of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. Cherry was the bombastic voice of Hockey Night in Canada, as Canadian as the brown beer stubby.

Mercer was worshipped by the folks in the C suite and liberal media. With his searing walking shots he lanced egos and asked uncomfortable questions. He called out sacred cows. Yet there was never any doubt in CBC’s upper reaches about whose side he was on in the culture war at CBC. He was safe.

Cherry was the unpredictable occupant of Coach’s Corner, the bombastic voice of white anglo hockey culture. He was abrasive and unforgiving. His first-period rants beside his Topo Gigio Ron Maclean were must-watch for the demographic. They also, it seemed, constituted must watching for his critics.

[Confession: I was one of his critics, paid to be so. We tangled often over his act. He ripped me in the 2004 NHL playoffs, alleging I said he was insincere about kids with cancer. During the infamous 1987 World Junior brawl he said I was a coward who wouldn’t defend his own kids in a fight. etc. He sicced his bots on me. While I disagreed with much of what he said, I defended his right to say such things. My beef was mostly with HNIC which refused to allow any dissent to Cherry’s act on the show . It was a noisy one-note symphony.

Don was durable, holding his prime position for decades, putting himself above the title many Saturdays with headline material. In the sea of pearl clutchers at CBC he stood out. While the suits above recoiled at his Canadian Legion catechism, they also knew he was an asset they could play when they went for funding in Ottawa. “See, we have all sorts of political views on the network.”

When CBC lost its HNIC franchise to Sportsnet Cherry became someone else’s problem. Eventually the Woke folk at Rogers tired of telling him to knock off the politics and cultural stuff. He was let go in 2019 for saying what he’d always said. Maclean then put in the knife to save his own hide.

Mercer’s highly rated act continued unabated till 2018. One of his most popular gigs— the one most likely to appeal to posh Canadians— was talking to Americans about Canada. It was brilliant in its simplicity. Go to famous colleges and universities to plumb the depths of their Canadian knowledge. Likewise, buttonhole well-known American politicians.

The topics were many and ridiculous. Should Canada protect the famous location Joe Clark’s Hole? What should Canada do about its melting national igloo? Could they congratulate Jean Chretien on a rare political feat called a “Double Double” in which he received support from both sides of the Canadian parliament.

He asked Al Gore about Canada moving the capital city from Kingston, Ontario to Toronto (Gore thought it smart). He convinced tourists at Mount Rushmore that the mineral rights to the mountain had been sold to a Canadian firm that was getting ready to drill for oil in Lincoln’s forehead.

He asked Americans to condemn Canada’s practice of euthanizing senior citizens by setting them adrift on Northern ice floes. In a famous moment, future President George W. Bush failed to correct Mercer when he referred to Chrétien as “Jean Poutine”

Mercer always said he didn’t think Americans were ignorant. Eighty percent had the right responses and those never made it to air. For the rest it was just that they couldn’t resist an open mike and having a take on things they knew nothing about. He had affection for them.

For Canada’s Left, insecure in its northern faculty-lounge, that subtlety was lost. Mercer’s routines reinforced a smug anti-American attitude in the Liberals and NDP base. All they saw was a nation of nitwits. “Look, what bozos!” The orientation of the fashionistas turned away from the U.S. to supposed European sophistication and societal controls for climate, population growth and Covid. Hello, Mark Carney.

This bias was reinforced by the increasingly self-loathing voices on the cable news of the American Left. Every GOP figure from George W. Bush till Trump today became  a comic character. Canadian lefties adored it. As we’ve written often the snide attitude allowed Canadians to ignore that Americans were protecting them for free and keeping them rich.  And taking the overflow from Canadian’s prized healthcare system.

This arrogance culminated in the March election where the mere mention of Trump sent Canadians fleeing back to a Liberal administration that was moribund after a decade of incompetence. It has an echo in Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame again declining to award Cherry the Foster Hewitt award as a legendary TV journalist. Love him or hate him he’s earned it. It’s arguable whether the aging Cherry will even be around to be chosen next year.

For sure his political impact will resonate for long after he’s gone in the populist resurgence in western Canada and elsewhere. If only Rick Mercer were allowed back on CBC to cover it.

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.

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