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Bruce Dowbiggin

Sports Tests Negative On Many Fronts In 2021

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You have to concede this about 2021: At least it was consistent. The year started out miserable and soul destroying and continued that way till the final days of this misbegotten year. It’s a wonder any sports were played at all.

From draconian lockdowns over Covid-19 to draconian lockdowns over the Omicron variant, we never knew who was playing, where they were playing and whether anyone would be there to see them play. Some jurisdictions applied a lighter hand (Florida, Sweden) while others produced dystopian scenes of imprisonment and rejection (Australia, New Zealand).

Here is how I Don’t Like Mondays saw the year: In February our piece We Interrupt This Lecture To Bring You A Football Game noted the downbeat tenor of the knowledge class harshing everyone’s vibe with Bruce Springsteen in the starring role. “Only at the end of the Boss’ litany of Woody Guthrie dirges about the soil and churches in Kansas did we find out this paean to Woke America was for Jeep— a company owned by French and Italian interests. The guy who was Born To Run now cruises the streets of privilege.”

With the NHL resuming its regular winter slot, the monotony of modern goaltending excellence became apparent. In Ken Dryden: Mr. Bettman, Bring Down These Walls the HOFer observed: “While scoring remains near its typical levels, the art of scoring them is more luck than skill. In short, if today’s padded-up giants can see the puck they’re going to stop it. “This game, one that allows for such speed and grace, one that has so much open ice, is now utterly congested… Never in hockey’s history has a tail so wagged the dog.”

Wayne Gretzky’s celebrated father/coach Walter died in early March. We reflected on his impact in How Walter Gretzky Raised The Bar– And The Cost– Of Training Hockey Stars “With the success of Gretzky’s training model— plus the importation of European skill training— families realized that if their sons and daughters wanted to be world-class athletes they were going to have to reject the Don Cherry ”Try Harder” school and imitate the techniques Gretzky had used on his son. Within a decade, getting the proper coaching and fitness to become a star became a growth industry.”

While on the Gretzky theme we excerpted the 1979 amateur draft from our book Inexact Science: The 6 most compelling drafts in NHL history. Because Wayne Gretzky: The Great One Was A Draft Dodger

The recent debate over transgender swimmer [Will] Thomas harkens to our March column Why Trans Athletes Spells Bad News For Your Grandma’s Feminism “The current fetish for pretending trans men can menstruate or bear children— previously the sacred domain of women— is an existential challenge to the women who transported radical gender politics from higher education into the public sphere. The blurring of this line— adopted by the same liberals who once supported them in establishing feminist laws— leaves women as just one of myriad grievance groups now being accepted by government and (gasp) corporate friends.”

CFL On Line 1? Tell Them I’m Out. Kielburgers? Put Them Right Through” was our summary of a government showering its foreign pals with money while allowing a national tradition to wither.

A Super Soccer League in Europe never got out of the starting blocks. But we observed: Super Leagues Aren’t Dead. They’re Only Resting. “As I wrote in Cap In Hand  the long-term solution is to allow clubs to play at the level their market can afford— something soccer in Europe currently does. How can a fan In Edmonton or Kansas City or San Antonio pay the same prices as fans in NYC, LA, Chicago or Toronto? How can they keep their young stars when a super franchise comes calling with lucrative opportunities? Ultimately they can’t. The money will be too big.”

The whack-a-mole quarantine regimes of the leagues— with their test-and trace efforts— savaged lineups, forced cancellations and delayed Olympics. In our May column PCR Tests: Fudging The Numbers To Suit The Narrative we called it hopeless. “For much of the pandemic 40 cycles has been the standard PCR level. Using a standard of 32 cycles, as much as 60 percent of the positives announced in Canada (1.3 million at this moment) produce traces that can neither produce illness nor transmit the virus. Do the math on 60 percent of 1.3 million and you realize the daily counts vomited out on TV and social media have deliberately been used more to scare than to enlighten.”

Thankfully, some traditions never die. Oilers, Leafs Choke: Tanks For The Memories took time to honour the gag reflex in Edmonton and Toronto during the spring playoffs.

From Jon Rahm’s DQ at The Memorial for knowing someone with Covid to to depleted lineups across sports leagues we asked: Sports Cred: Can You Believe A Shred Of What You See? “The PGA Tour is no doubt under great pressure from its sponsors and political allies to keep promoting the Casedemic deception. The message of change on PCR testing in America and Canada will have to come from where it started: with the public and private ®Health experts who’ve zealously dissembled and deceived since early 2020 to deflect their mistakes and shift blame to the naughty public.”

The failure of the NHL and specifically the Chicago Blackhawks to deal with a 2010 sexual schedule was the subject of two columns. Where Was Media On The Latest Hockey Sexual Abuse Scandal? and Cleanse The Sport: These Men Need To Be Fired. “Either NHL commissioner Gary Bettman or NHLPA executive director Don Fehr— or both— need to be shown the door. Nothing better exposes the organizational failure of these two executives than their treatment of the Kyle Beach sexual assault case that spilled out this week.”

The Tokyo Summer Olympics had great moments for Canadians. But nothing can hide The Empty Games: The Olympics On Life Support. “Put bluntly, the number of cities able to afford the back-breaking cost of staging the Summer Games has dwindled to a few major cosmopolitan cities and to nations run by dictators, sheiks and autocrats. And even those parties have realized that it’s hard to justify ten billion dollars for a swanky party for jocks and sports hangers-on.”

There was some attempt to adapt the Canadian medal count to suit political memes. In Success Of Canada’s Women Does Not Mean Men Failed. “In about half the nations in the world women are not allowed to compete at all or are severely hampered by religious doctrines or cannot get funding for the rigorous training needed to make an Olympic final. In short the talent pool that Canadian women swim in is clearly smaller by a large factor than that in which the make athletes compete. So when you’re watching an Olympic final in rowing or cycling or wrestling the odds that a Canadian woman gets on the podium increase exponentially over what can be expected for a man.”

With the introduction of vaccine passports to enter sports events we replied Civil Liberty: The Hard Is What Makes It Great. “The founders of democratic nations with liberal values understood the power of fear. The Declaration of Independence was forged in the midst of the American Revolution. Its authors would be hanged if it failed. They knew fear. That’s why they made it so damned difficult to circumvent the rights to person and privacy when people get nervous. They knew “easy” would get a lot of traction in a moment of stress.”

As the NFL started in September we did a little prognostication. NFL QBs: The More You Pay The Less They’re Worth? “Unless Tom Brady wins yet another SB, the team hoisting the trophy is most likely going to be a team with a QB on a manageable salary-cap number. Outside of Brady’s SB wins the past decade, the teams that have won the NFL’s top prize— or played in the big game—  have had QBs on entry-level contracts at a fraction of what the big boys make.”

Endless MLB postseason games were one traditional feature that hasn’t disappeared. While We’re Young: Putting MLB On The Clock. “We’ve seen the PGA Tour hustle players back into timed pace and tennis officials penalize players for not serving before their 25-second clock expires. Baseball remains stubborn on using the clock. The question is, how to sell MLB stars that a ticking clock will not hurt their pre-pitch, in-between-pitch and after-pitch-rituals? Who’s going to tell Vlad Guerrero Jr. to pick up the pace or Max Scherzer to just release the damn ball?”

In our ongoing campaign to introduce real audio to sports we pleaded All Ears: Let Athletes Have Their Say. “The success of Netflix’s F1 documentary series Drive To Survive (now showing its third year) is a perfect example of the public’s demand for the inner sanctum of sport. Drive To Survive has plenty of the Nuke LaLoosh blarney from athletes and owners. But it also has enough free-wheeling about the bitchiness between drivers, the headaches of team managers and some of the greatest video from the pits to intrigue even the least serious fans.”

In a time of surrender Why Black NBA Stars Don’t Buy The Vax outlined a point of resistance to mandated behaviours. “Canadian NBA star Andrew Wiggins was supposed to be known as a superstar when he was drafted No. 1 overall by Cleveland in the 2014 draft. Now, after seven seasons of mixed playing results, he may instead be best known as the guy who said no to the NBA on their mandatory vaccination rules”.

In another Book Excerpt: The Price Was Right– Even Without A Cup. “NHL teams seem content to find goalies when they need them— not necessarily in the draft. Since 2000, just two first-rounders— Marc-André Fleury and Martin Brodeur— have won the Cup for the team that drafted him. Carey Price’s greatest legacy may be the absence of goalies being selected at the top of the draft.”

Frustration with strike zones coloured the World Series. Punch Out: Time To Go Virtual On Balls And Strikes “But the virtual stroke zone shows MLB can have 100 percent accuracy to a defined strike zone. Not to put @umpscorecards out of work, but with a virtual strike zone MLB has the power to remove doubt about the strike zone, end arguments and conspiracies about certain umps and make the games move faster.”

There’s not much new in broadcasting sports events. But. Manning The Broadcast Booth Proves A Winner may have shifted the NFL experience. ”Call it other revenge of the little brother. Or “pipe down, I’m watching the game:” However you characterize it, the emergence of the Manning Brothers, Peyton and Eli, on Monday Night Football has breathed life into a stale broadcast format and shown that All In The Family doesn’t always mean Archie Bunker calling Mike Stivic a Meathead”.

Finally, year-end showed voices within the sports establishment saying the draconian Covid testing and quarantine rules don’t work. Testing The Covid Narrative: Stevie Y Says Enough ”At the end of the day, I think — and now I’m getting political — but at the end of the day our players are testing positive with very little symptoms, if any symptoms at all. I don’t see it as a threat to their health at this point. I think you might take it a step further and question why are we even testing, for guys that have no symptoms,” Yzerman said on Saturday.

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 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

Hyperbole Is Dead. Big Brother Killed Him

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Antietam, Maryland: On Sept 17, 1862, the combined forces of the Union Army (under George McLellan) and the Confederate army (under Robert E. Lee) met on sleepy farmland west of Washington. When the ten hours of vicious fighting was done, there was an appalling 22,717 casualties. It still stands as the most lethal day in American military history.

History records it as a draw, although the Union army stopped an attack by Lee’s 30,000-man army on the U.S. capital. Walking the rolling lands alongside the Potomac River with Matthew Brady’s grisly photographic record in mind a modern visitor would ask how did it come to this slaughter? What issue was so divisive that it led to this?

The issue as seen today was slavery, although the Confederates would say it was states’ rights. From the day the ink dried on the Declaration of Independence the issue of slavery pointed to that day in 1862. Attempts to reconcile the issue of the South’s dependence on slavery produced failed compromises (The Great Compromise of 1787) and the creation of the Republican Party.

It all failed. The reason? For 75 years, the two sides divorced themselves from one another, demonizing and distancing in escalating rhetoric and political corruption. With the election of Abraham Lincoln, an abolition-sympathetic Republican, war was on. Before it ended in 1865 there were 828,000 Union casualties while the South experienced 864,000 casualties. There were almost a million civilians and free slaves left dead as well.

This ominous historical note is relevant today as the two sides in the American and Canadian debate slide inexorably toward a schism. With a presidential election this November and a Canadian federal election likely next year, the sides have given up on policy. Oh, they still make a show of plans for the economy. Or housing. Or the military.

But the real battlefield is the war on information. Who will be censored? Who will write history? As a picture of intolerance it has reached DefCon 4. No better example exists than the hissy-fit from employees of the NBC News department at the attempt to hire Rona McDaniel, former RNC chairwoman as an employee. The sanctimonious stars of NBC and MSNBC news— several of them Obama-era employees or Democratic fundraisers— launched a collective insurrection against the hire, saying McDaniel was a purveyor of lies and disinformation in the service of Beelzebub aka Donald Trump.

Never mind that Racial Maddow and Joyless Reid and Chuckles Todd spent the past eight years carrying water for Hillary Clinton’s demented RussiaGate and Hunter Biden’s laptop hoax. Former Republican Joe Scarborough spoke of the “sacred trust” with viewers as grounds for forcing NBC to fire McDaniel after about 48 hours.

No one is now allowed to pollute the minds of Morning Joe viewers. A narrative is a narrative, and no niece of Mitt Romney is getting in the way of that carefully crafted line as we head to November. Trump World is a cesspool of Nazis and enemies of democracy, and they’re going to play that card.

Viewers of last Sunday’s 60 Minutes saw a more subtle version of demonizing the other. In the fusty Tiffany Network style they introduced  Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington and a leader of a “misinformation research group” created ahead of the 2020 election. Who gave her that title is left to the listeners’ imagination.

Naturally Ms. Starbird did a hit job on Jim Jordan and the GOP. Naturally, 60 Minutes neglected to mention Starboard is a longtime Democrat donor and foot soldier in the 2024 Biden Army. Naturally, the divide was widened further. The effect was achieved. Anyone voting Trump is a dedicated Nazi.

It will only ramp up from here because, with no successes to brag about and Biden’s polls plunging, fear is king. (Adding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to siphon left-wing votes is another threat.) They know Biden is a millstone in efforts to eradicate Trump. And 40 percent of the U.S. population thinks this is reality, much the way the opposing sides at Antietam saw the devil across the Bloody Ditch and Antietam Bridge.

The federal Liberals in Canada have been paying attention. With polls that even Biden would faint over, Justin Trudeau is ramping up the disinformation dodge with the same fervour as the MSNBC fainting goats. Skippy has added a little Russian sauce to his equation, claiming that Putin has Conservative leader Pierre Polievre in his control, manipulating the public to abandon Ukraine.

How Ukraine figures in Canada’s national interest isn’t explained, but if Canadians elect the Tories next year Western society will collapse, pace Trudeau. The PM’s lightweight posse is jumping in, too. Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, who applauds Nazis in Parliament, is predicting a bleak future for the country unless the evil-thinkers to the Right are brought under control.

Hence Bill-63, the Liberal/ NDP diktat to criminalize WrongThink on the internet and what’s left on the traditional media. Not only in the run-up to what may be the Waterloo for Trudeau and NDP fashion model Jagmeet Singh. Freeland’s bill gives faceless bureaucrats the right to criminalize future behaviour as well. Holy Karnak!

There will be many attempts to pretend that permanently silencing the opponent is not the key issue of 2024-2025. Don’t believe them. People who just a few years ago laughed at the images of Mao’s purges in the Cultural Revolution now have succumbed to a new Little Red Book. They praise their heroes Obama and Clinton and demand jail for Trump. Hyperbole is dead. Big Brother killed him.

circa 1970: Chinese Red Guards reading from the little red book of Thoughts of Chairman Mao before starting their day. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new 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

From Hall of Fame To Hall of Shame? Shohei Faces Banishment

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Holy Backtrack, Batman. With MLB Opening Day— the North American, not Korean version— days away, the sport’s biggest star is up to the bill of his new L.A. Dodgers cap in gambling controversy. Turns out that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani’s closest companion since coming to North America in 2018, has committed “massive theft” and stolen a reported sum of at least $4.5 million to pay off debts to an alleged illegal bookmaker.

At least that is one story. There are others. After the Dodgers’ first of two games in Seoul last week, Mizuhara admitted that his buddy Ohtani had “loaned” him $4.5 million to pay off a gambling debt which has a paper trail to California and possibly Japan. Sooner than you can say Cy Young, Ohtani’s lawyers said, nay, nay… he didn’t lend anything to Ippei, and Ohtani is severing his relationship with him.

(Which is just as well, because the Dodgers were firing Mizuhara already.) Then Mizuhara did a complete reversal, telling ESPN that Ohtani had no knowledge of his gambling debts, and that Ohtani had not transferred money to a bookmaking operation in California, where there is no legal gambling. About this time someone got to Mizuhara and told him it might be a good idea if he 黙って (Japanese for damare or STFU).

Friday, reports emerged showing large amounts being bet in Japan on games played by Ohtani and his lousy performance in those games. While no one has been able to say the bets were placed by the pitcher or those around him, there are a few games that look highly suspicious. Monday, Ohtani sought to distance himself from his former buddy.

What is undeniable is that payoff money came from Ohtani’s account. And that for almost five years, a gambling addict had complete access to the inner workings of the California Angels dressing room. What injury insights and insider knowledge might Ippei Mizuhara have traded for gambling debts or favours? MLB and the police say they are investigating, but if it can be shown the Ohtani had any betting interest in his own team or other MLB games he will— based on the Joe Jackson and Pete Rose examples— be banned for life from MLB.

Also, are these stories exposing Ohtani about something else? Some believe the allegations may be revenge for Ohtani signing a friendly contract that backloads most of his compensation till after he retires— thereby depriving tax-hungry California of hundreds of millions in taxes.  Finally, why was MLB, which purports to have a security department, caught flat-footed here, and why are they only “gathering information”? Not a good look on any of these fronts for a business already struggling to re-capture lost audience share.

For those who like comedy we can only hope this mess has the entertainment value of the NHL when its greatest star ever was caught gambling with a shady character outside Philly. Okay, Wayne Gretzky never bet on sports , which was then illegal everywhere in North America outside Las Vegas. Never. Perish the thought.

When the Gretzky story broke in 2006 we were informed by people throughout hockey—including many sniffers in the sports media who still have jobs— that it was Wayne’s wife Janet and his pal Rich Tocchet who had the gambling problem. The walls around No. 99 went up quickly to protect him. There was concern about Gretzky’s eligibility to manage the 2006 Olympic mens hockey team.

VANCOUVER, BC – OCTOBER 20: Head coach Wayne Gretzky and assistant coach Rick Tocchet (R) of the Phoenix Coyotes discuss a play during their game against the Vancouver Canucks at General Motors Place on October 20, 2005 in Vancouver, Canada. The Canucks defeated the Coyotes 3-2. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/Getty Images)

For weeks the police and the NHL did a dance around the Gretzkys, placing most of the blame on Tocchet as the point man who financed and placed bets. Much was made of No. 99’s simon-pure record, even though wiretaps later showed his knowledge of the scheme and of Janet’s “involvement”.

Janet, who was taking the heat for hubby, later whined to Chatelaine Magazine. “It’s unfair that Wayne and I have had a great marriage for 20 years and a nice family, and the people in the media could care less if they are trying to cause friction in your marriage, trouble in your family, and make your kids feel a certain way. That was a little hurtful, because it was like, ‘Why? What have we ever done to you?’”

Um, as the wife of a hockey legend, you were, at the very least, dealing with illegal gambling when any such activity at the time was strictly verboten in the NHL and with the cops. That’s what you did. Your marriage had nothing to do with it.

Just to prove that Gretzky is not the type to get involved with the sleaze of gambling he immediately signed up to advertise sports betting as soon as it became legal in 2022. He’s done commercials with Connor McDavid yukking it up over parlays and teasers. He’s the hockey face of legal gambling. But he’s not a gambler.

This story was never going to be told straight in 2006 with Gretzky’s name involved. He’s just too big in Canada to be taken down for a silly betting scheme with a few goombahs in Tony Soprano’s old Jersey neighbourhood. You could tell by the indignation of Team Gretzky in the day that they were calling in their markers… er, discussing the issue with friendly media on burying the story.

MLB can just hope that it has enough lackeys of its own in the press and friends in the DOJ to keep the Japanese Babe Ruth out of trouble. But the bases are full and the runners will be in motion with the next pitch

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new 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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