Bruce Dowbiggin
New Sens Owner Discovers Bettman’s Joke Is On Him
If there’s a Hall of Fame for cringeworthy sports press conferences, Michael Andlauer just put a bust of himself on the wall. The new Ottawa Senators owner had to explain his Gary Bettman “Thanks For Playing Our Game” prize to a waiting media mob. He’d just won a choice of losing a No. 1 draft pick in 2024, 2025, 2026 or what Bill Daly is holding in a box on the stage.
To say he was pissed is an understatement. Actually we know he was pissed, because he used that word while otherwise reading a legally crafted statement from his lawyers on what not to say about how former GM Pierre Dorion had hamstrung a team that lives and dies by the draft. Alternately wringing his hands and rubbing his neck, the man who’d gotten the keys to the building just six weeks ago was… well, pissed.
Dorion had “neglected” to supply proper no-trade documentation in a botched deal to Vegas involving Evgeni Davydov. “It’s not that complicated,” Andlauer fumed. “The no-trade list was not provided.” In case Andlauer quibbled over the details, the NHL handed him a 73-page document outlining Dorion’s ineptitude. “The 73-page report that the NHL shared with me this week showed that the actions were negligent in nature by our hockey club. This set off events that embarrassed the league and pissed off two hockey clubs.”

This came after “Suits” Dorion (in-joke for Montrealers) had mangled the salary cap so badly that Sens property Shane Pinto could not be signed in time for the start of the 2023-24 season. (Ottawa had just 19 actives for Game One.) And that Pinto was later suspended 41 games by the NHL for sports gambling.
You could tell how rattled Andlauer was over the “two phone calls” from NHL HQ that told him he was no longer in Kansas or Kanata any longer. First he said Dorion “has resigned” and then he “has been relieved of his duties as general manager.” Later in the press conference, Andlauer clarified his language and stated it was a “mutual decision” to part ways.
About his only talking point was why he was handling all the garbage from an incident that occurred in March 2022. “Why I inherited this is beyond me. There is no reason for this to last this long,” Andlauer said. “That’s a question you’ll have to ask the NHL, why it took a whole year since the hearing. The commissioner had a lot of time to deliberate.”

Oh, you can be sure he deliberated, Michael, and he will now deliberate over how to revisit your impertinence. (Don’t hold out hope for a fruit basket.) Expect to be told that you’ll speak when the Commish says you’ll speak. Ask prospective Penguins and Coyotes buyer Jim Balsillie how that felt. Not good. Next freewheeling Andlauer presser? The twelfth of never.
As for Andlauer’s legitimate grievance with the league over dumping this mess on him after he shelled out almost a billion dollars for the franchise, maybe Bettman didn’t want to trouble former owner Eugene Melnyk as he dealt with a terminal diagnosis Or perhaps Bettman just wanted Mike to get a taste of how far down the NHL food chain you are when you own a team in a tiny Canadian market that has a very unstable, checkered past when it comes to owners.
What better way to do that than hiding this stink bomb from him as he negotiated the sale. “Maybe because the club was for sale, and they didn’t want to dispute the sale, and making sure the seller got the biggest price possible,” said Andlauer. “I don’t know.” If you weren’t so hot already, Michael I’d say you’re getting warm.
Because a Bettman omertà is absolute, don’t expect Andlauer’s fellow owners to commiserate on him being docked a first-rounder when Chicago, knee deep in its sexual abuse scandal, was simply fined and then allowed to draft uber-prospect Connor Bedard. As long timers know, NHL justice is swift and sure. Except when it serves the Commish to string its out for a decade or so to punish a lippy owner.
The court of Bettman is a lot like Alice In Wonderland’s court of the Queen. “Sentence first. Verdict afterward… off with his head.” Or in this case, off with a needed, lucrative first rounder. Thanks for playing our game, Michael. It’s been swell.
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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 http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
Be Careful What You Wish For In 2026: Mark Carney With A Majority
“The unifying theme that enables the Liberal party to maintain its hold over Canada is persistent anti-Americanism…I hope Canadians finally mature, acknowledge that we are neither superior nor inferior to the United States, and abandon our collective national inferiority complex.” Conrad Black quotes a friend.
Canadian media have almost always been reflexively anti-American. Fair enough. Abandoned by Britain they needed to push back. But the real fear of being consumed by the rebel colonies to the south has morphed into a fear of Donald Trump reminding Canada that it has been riding first class while paying economy.
Bashing noisy, bumptious America has always been good business if you owned a Canadian newspaper or television/radio network. The performative worship of Canadian leaders who cocked a snook at the Yankees led, in recent times, to the open-mouthed support for the fatuous Trudeaupian line of monarchs. As Ray Davies sang, “each one a dedicated follower of fashion.”
Since Pierre “The Bold” Trudeau succeeded Lester Pearson and ascended to the throne of the Family Compact in 1968, Canadian policy from Viet Nam to Trump has become “What are the Americans doing? Then let’s do the opposite”. Sample of spite: CBS TV pulled a controversial 60 Minutes news story —but it aired in Canada after being leaked by pissed-off CBS employees.
Yes, there was the brief Harper interregnum when Canada actually fought a military campaign alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan. But mostly it was Jean “Golf Balls” Chretien sitting out the Iraq War.
Alas, all good things must end. Or at least pause. People were starting to notice that Justy was a Chinese trusty, his Montreal riding campaign funded by hundreds of Chinese “businessman” from far away. The tragi-comic Trudeuapian succession hit a speed bump with Mark Carney being brought in to domesticate Canada in manner satisfactory to Brookfield and the EU.

But no one is betting the Libs won’t turn to a third generation of Quebec fashionistas— in the form of another Trudeau progeny— when all else fails.
As usual caustic Conrad Black sums up Canada best. With Quebec and Alberta talking separation he quotes a friend on the state of the nation. “What exists instead is a Liberal Party that manages — often quite poorly — the finances of a collection of provinces and territories, while relying on its media apparatus to shape and safeguard its narrative. It resembles a hedge fund supported by an image consulting firm.” (Insert your convict felon/ anglo wannabe reference here.)
There is no doubt that, as 2025 skulks out, the “image-consulting firm” painting rosy pictures of the Laurentian Elite is in for a a challenge. Justin thought using Trump as his pretext could achieve peace by buying up the lads and lasses of the fourth estate. It worked with Covid and the Truckers Convoy as the column writers/ panel hosts dutifully wrote it like he called it (even as the international press chided Trudeau.).
But even those good times didn’t last, forcing the Libs to do a presto-chango before Justin could lead them to a catastrophic defeat in the spring election. Once more, faced with Trump’s aggressive posture toward trade with Canada, the press closed ranks over Elbows Up, portraying CPC leader Pierre Poilievre as Dick Dastardly.
But new polling shows that the burst of enthusiasm for more Liberal pantomime is wearing thin. The new “new” trade deal promised with Trump has dissipated. The threat to private home ownership in B.C. by government’s indigenous land concessions has sent a chill through the middle class. The NDP fainting goats who bought Elbows Up are headed back to Crazytown, likely under Avi Lewis.
Now, at last, the reckoning promised by the Conservatives’ 20-point lead in polling this time last year may be at hand. While the diehards will go their graves mumbling land acknowledgements and 32 pronouns, there is hope that the under 60s— who emphatically support the Tories— will force change.
What change? Tristan Hopper in the National Post suggests that one place to start reforming the jalopy of Canadian government is in the oceans of money lavished on cause-related political leeches. Seeing the Bondi Beach slaughter by ISIS radicals many now question how long before Toronto or Montreal experiences a similar tragedy at the hands of jihadis who are lavishly supported by tax money.
Yes, not all Muslims in the West are terrorists. But almost all terrorists in the West are Muslim. Hate-spewing Hamas groupies from college faculty are regularly allowed major intersections with police protection as they promise to wipe out infidels. Till now it’s been poor form to even mention, let alone criticize, this pantomime.
Withdrawing financial aid to these groups and their academic fellow travellers would immediately rob these brigands of their impact. The cries of despair from cutting the cord would also expose those in the Commons who have coddled these vipers with grants and ministries.
Similar hacking at the slush money aimed at every other form of leftist posing— from trans to indigenous to illegal immigrants— would also mark the end of free money. Of course there will be caterwauling from the Elizabeth May Free Lunch crew. But with the threat of Canada coming apart with Quebec and Alberta/ Saskatchewan headed for the door those usual dissenting voices will be muted.
Only one thing stands in the way of this culling. That is PM Mark Carney coercing one more MP to cross the floor to his party, cementing its majority status for up to four more years. While the At Issue panels slap their flippers in glee at Poilievre’s demise, the rest of the nation will be less enthralled with the new realities of censorship, trade and housing.

As Stephen Punwasi states. “People in Canada can’t afford homes & prices can’t fall because debt was securitized with widespread fraud—so taxpayers will subsidize foreign speculation. It’s like they hired the mayor of Vancouver to run housing. Oh—they did, eh? Kids, run.”
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 2025 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 new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books at https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1069802700
Bruce Dowbiggin
Hunting Poilievre Covers For Upcoming Demographic Collapse After Boomers
For those not familiar with hunting seasons in Canada it may come as a surprise that the nation has a year-round hunting season. That would be the targeting of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre by the massed army of Liberals, their bots and the richly endowed media pack. Forget he’s never held power. He’s to blame for the ills in Canadian society.
It has been a good hunt. After floor-crossing by dissident CPC, the Liberals are one seat from the majority that Canadian voters denied them in the spring. (They’ll likely get the majority soon.) MPs who a day earlier were at Conservative Xmas parties suddenly sang the praises of Carney. MPs in ridings targeted by the Chinese suddenly joined Team Elbow Up.
All the while the media corps landed blows from their perch. Robert Benzie: “I know that Premier [Danielle] Smith is very unhappy privately with Pierre Poilievre because she thinks that [MOU motion] is undermining this [pipeline] project.” The nadir of the media dog pile was formerly eminent scribe Robert Fife who sniped, “Conservatives persist with cute legislative tricks, while the government tries to run a country.” Run a country. That’s rich.
From his lips to Liberal brains, however. “.@CBCNews and @AlJazeeraWorld viewers consider themselves uniquely informed, says @ElectionsCan_E report. The two TV networks were named by self-described “informed” voters when asked where they got their news. “
It is, seemingly, a great time to be a Liberal. Or not. While Operation Poilievre was gathering steam for Xmas polling revealed that Liberals and Conservatives remain locked in a tie, and Canadians continue to express ambivalence about the country’s direction, mixed feelings about their leaders, and sharp divides by generation, region, and policy concern. These generational discrepancies continue to be buried.

As was the case in the spring, the Liberals are supported only by the Boomer generation that swallowed Elbows Up nostalgia like a fat man on a donut. The under 60s demo at every level shows the current Carney agenda is a loser for them. In the segment of house-rich Boomers the Libs lead 50-31 over CPC. But in every other category it’s “how can I get out of here faster?”
The 45-59 demo it’s 46-36 Conservatives; 30-44 it’s a whopping 48-31 CPC; 18-29 it’s 40-39 CPC. A healthy chunk of Liberal supporting from the collapse of NDP vote. Where they used to poll in the 20s, the highest demo shows 11 percent support. Otherwise Poilievere would be PM.
Meanwhile, research now finds that 54 percent of Canadians say the growing number of newcomers to the country threatens our traditional customs and values— an increase of sixteen points since 2020. Over the same period, the share of Canadians who say immigration strengthens our society fell thirteen points to 35%
In short, the Carney Circus of marrying Canada to China and the EU is a card trick that will be exposed shortly. But where do we see the Ottawa press corps attention to this impending demographic snow plow? As we wrote in March “It’s not hard to see the (under 60s) looking at the Mike Myers obsession with a long-gone Canada and saying let’s get out of here.
Recently former TVOntario host Steve Pakin attended two convocations. The first at the former Ryerson University, (switched to Toronto Metropolitan University in a fit of settler colonizer guilt.) The second at Queens University, traditionally one of the elite schools in the nation. Here’s what he saw.
“At the end of the (TMU) convocation, when Charles Falzon, on his final day as dean of TMU’s Creative School, asked students to stand and sing the national anthem, many refused. They remained seated. Then, when the singing began, it was abundantly noticeable that almost none of the students sang along. And it wasn’t because they didn’t know the words, which were projected on a big screen. The unhappy looks on their faces clearly indicated a different, more political, explanation.
“I asked some of the TMU staff about it after the ceremony was over, and they confirmed what I saw happens all the time at convocations. Then I texted the president of another Ontario university who agreed: this is a common phenomenon among this generation at post-secondary institutions.”
At Queens, where Canadian flags were almost non-existent, O Canada was sung, but the message of unrest was clear: “Convocation sends a message of social stability,” Queen’s principal Patrick Deane began in his speech. “It is a ceremony shaped in history. You should value your connection to the past, but question that inheritance. Focus on the kind of society you’d like to inhabit.”
You can bet Deane is not telling them to question climate change and trans rights. As Paikin observes, “if we fail to create a more perfect union, we shouldn’t be surprised when a vast swath of young people don’t sing our anthem the way so many of the rest of us do.” So why are the best and brightest so reluctant to see as future in becoming the new professional class that runs society?
In the Free Press River Page searched the source of their discontent. “If the Great Recession, Covid-19, and the spectre of an artificial intelligence-assisted ‘white collar bloodbath’ has taught the professional class anything, it is that their credentials cannot save them. This insecurity, compounded by the outrageous cost of living in many large cities, has pushed the PMC’s anxieties to the breaking point.

“Add that to the triumph of identity politics in professional class institutions like universities, corporate C-suites, non-governmental organizations, and media—itself a byproduct of inter-elite competition as many have observed—and what you have is the modern left.
“… they’ve already come to the baffling conclusion that there’s no difference between class struggle and child sex changes. More to the point, the socialist mantra “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” has only ever stood the test of time in Anabaptist sects. It requires a religious devotion to self-sacrifice that is not characteristic of this anxious and hyper-competitive class—as many actual socialists have spent the last decade warning.”
The tsunami over immigration has caused severe dislocations— as PM Steven Harper predicted in the 2015 election debate. He was shouted down by the dopey dauphin Justin Trudeau who opened the sluice gates to every kind of progressive nonsense. Which is now evident.
Like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don’t want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” We’re now seeing the likely answer to that question everywhere in Canadian society.
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 2025 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 new poetry collection In Other Words is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca and on Kindle books
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