Great White North

Let’s talk about turning out the lights, the party’s over for Hockey Canada…a pit bull at TSN…Shania’s dog sled…jock TV’s ‘experts’ and ‘insiders’ have their say on the best of the best in the NHL and Ponytail Puck…female footballers at Wembley…the $2-million baseball…witchy woman Gisele?…and other things on my mind…

Top o’ the morning to you, Andrea Skinner.

Such a shame you had to be the first Hockey Canada domino to fall (okay, the second if we want to include Michael Brind’Amour excusing himself as board chair in early August). But, geez, after coughing up that great gob of twaddle during your fireside chat with the gang from Parliament Hill last week, it couldn’t have ended any other way but you stepping down as interim board chair.

You scored an own goal, Andrea. One of the worst in hockey history.

It’s one thing to drink the Kool-Aid, but your defence of Scott Smith was astonishing, and I don’t mean that in a positive way. I mean it was astonishing the way Joey Chestnut can eat 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes is astonishing. I swear, at times you sounded like a MAGA-hatted kook at a Trump rally.

I mean, you actually told the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage that every frozen pond in the Great White North is apt to go dark should CEO Smith and his cabal of minions exit—stage disgraced—and leave Hockey Canada in the hands of people who believe sex assault is a crime, not an inconvenience best kept on the QT while dispensing boatloads of Canadian coin to victims. And you said it with a straight face.

This was your exact quote, Andrea: “I think that there is a significant risk to the organization if all of the board resigns and all of senior leadership is no longer there. I think that will be very impactful in a negative way to our boys and girls who are playing hockey. Will the lights stay on in the rink? I don’t know. We can’t predict that, and to me that’s not a risk worth taking.”

To repeat: You, the interim board chair of Hockey Canada, said there’s a very real danger that the ouster of Smith and Co. would lead kiddies across our Frozen Tundra to pack up their hockey sticks and pucks, tuck them away in a closet and pursue the pleasures and rewards of—oh I don’t know—twiddlywinks perhaps? Oh, the humanity. What will we do with all the idle Zambonis?

Nothing was lost in translation, Andrea. Maintenance crews are still scraping jaws off floors.

Sad thing is, Andrea, you didn’t stop there. When asked to grade Smith’s work, you dispensed more flapdoodle, professing to be a “hard marker” yet scrawling an ‘A’ on his report card. Well, if you mean to say his mandate was to keep sexual assault and victim payouts hush-hush for decades, then, ya, he warrants an ‘A’. (If only I had such “hard” teachers. Mine insisted on giving me ‘C’s and ‘D’s’ instead of the ‘A’s you pass out like Halloween candy, so I grew up to become a lowly jock journo instead of someone real important. You know, like a hockey executive who pays off victims of sexual assault.)

Anyway, your support of Smith and cohorts was so unyielding, so cult-like that the leader of all the land, PM Trudeau II, said it “boggles the mind,” and I thought only Pierre Poilievre could do that to Trudeau the Younger. The PM later suggested Hockey Canada has “completely lost the confidence of Canadians,” but not you, Andrea. You told the politicos that those among the rabble demanding to see executive heads roll are “extremists.”

So that’s what we’re calling hockey parents these days, Andrea? Extremists? Interesting.

Maybe Tim Hortons is extremist, too, because it bailed as a major sponsor of the HC men’s program. Ditto Scotiabank and Telus and Janes Family Foods and Canadian Tire and Esso and Sobey’s and The Keg and Skip the Dishes and Nike. Oh, yes, financial partners skedaddled faster than scalded dogs. They made the Jamaican 4×100 relay team look like slowpokes. And HC can’t expect any more slush fund coin from Hockey Quebec or Hockey Nova Scotia or Hockey New Brunswick. By the time the dust settles, Andrea, your pal Scott Smith won’t be able to afford a double-double at Tims.

But, hey, you stood by your man, telling us that, in a land of 38 million frost-bitten citizens, he’s the sole soul wise enough, intelligent enough and bold enough to purge the toxins from Hockey Canada’s misogynist, cover-up culture. (Good grief, woman. Even Jesus had a Judas.)

So let’s be clear, Andrea: A secret stash of coin to gag victims of sex assault (we’re told the tab is $10 million-plus since 1989) is not a good idea, and I don’t care if you want to call it the National Equity Fund, the Participants Legacy Trust Fund or the Coo Roo Coo Coo Coo Coo Coo Coo Fund. It’s terribly wrong, and it “boggles the mind” that it’s a hill the remaining band of mooks at Hockey Canada has chosen for their last stand.

Maybe the ol’ boys at HC set you up to take the fall, Andrea. It’s been known to happen to women in a man’s world. But I believe other dominoes shall fall. You can’t be the sole scapegoat in this sordid, rotten affair.

I figured Skinner would be as smooth as a baby’s tush on the witness stand. After all, she’s a lawyer and legal beagles are supposed to be smart, clever and cagey. But then I remembered Rudy Giuliani is also a lawyer.

What’s a Hockey Canada executive’s worst nightmare? Seeing the name Rick Westhead pop up on their caller ID. The TSN snoop-and-scoop journo is a pit bull on a pork chop, and right now he’s on a feeding frenzy. I imagine he makes them as jumpy as a barefoot frog in a hot frying pan.

Question: How many Hockey Canada executives did it take to change the burnt-out light bulb? Answer: They couldn’t do it. They saw Westhead’s car in the parking lot and ran for cover.

Here’s a question that keeps gnawing at me: If Hockey Canada execs are to be tarred and feathered for covering up sex crimes and a hush fund, why is Kevin Cheveldayoff still GM of the Winnipeg Jets? Chevy was a member of the Chicago Silent 7 that kept the Kyle Beach assault on the QT for a decade, and I still don’t buy NHL commish Gary Bettman’s baloney that Chevy was a mere go-fer fetching coffee and donuts. He was a Blackhawks assistant GM.

Just wondering: What would a classy guy like the great Jean Beliveau think about the Montreal Canadiens signing a sex offender, Logan Mailloux? Not only that, the Habs did it the same week Hockey Canada makes like Humpty Dumpty and takes a great fall for sex scandals. Ugh.

Oh dear. I believe Glen Suitor’s man crush on Keith Urban is no more. The TSN natterbug is now swooning over Shania Twain, or at least he was during Saturday night’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers-Edmonton Elks skirmish in Good Ol’ Hometown. The boys in the truck showed flashback video of Shania arriving on a dog sled for her halftime gig at the 2017 Grey Cup game in snowy Ottawa, and Suits gushed “she’s the GOAT.” Hmmm. Apparently he hasn’t heard of Patsy or Dolly or Loretta or Reba or Emmylou or Alison.

Okay, the Winnipeg Jets will drop the puck on another National Hockey League crusade on Friday vs. captain Jacob Trouba and his Broadway Blueshirts, and here’s what the tea leaves tell me about the Western Conference:
1. Colorado
2. Edmonton
3. Winnipeg
4. Minnesota
5. Calgary
6. Nashville
7. St. Louis
8. Los Angeles
9. Anaheim
10. Vegas
11. Vancouver
12. Seattle
13. San Jose
14. Dallas
15. Chicago
16. Arizona
Yes, I tout the Jets to grab a seat on the Stanley Cup merry-go-round next spring. Keep this in mind, though: I spent about as much time mulling this over as I spend in church, but feel free to discuss among yourselves.

Our two national jock networks, TSN and Sportsnet, gathered a collection of “experts” and “insiders” to determine the elite of the elite in the National Hockey League, and here’s how it shakes down:

Craig Button walks among the TSN “experts,” and he believes Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby still belong in the top five. Get a grip, Craig. Both Sid the Kid and Ovie remain on the upper crust, but top-fivers? Sure, and SNL is still must-see TV.

TSN also gave a nod to Ponytail Puck, with its panel of “experts” determining the top 25 players on the distaff side of rink. Naturally, our golden girl Marie-Philip Poulin tops the list, but here’s the unfortunate part of the breakdown: Just six of the chosen 25 are from outside North America. Disparity has long been the bugaboo in women’s hockey, and the gap doesn’t appear to be narrowing. (The men’s top 25 is basically a 50/50 split.) Here’s the crème de la crème of the women:

1. Marie-Philip Poulin, Canada
2. Sarah Fillier, Canada
3. Ann-Renée Desbiens, Canada
4. Brianne Jenner, Canada
5. Megan Keller, U.S.
6. Brianna Decker, U.S.
7. Mélodie Daoust, Canada
8. Taylor Heise, U.S.
9. Jocelyne Larocque, Canada
10. Jenni Hiirikoski, Finland

This from Rory Smith of the New York Times: “It is the United States and England, after all, who have ‘stretched clear’ of the pack, as Megan Rapinoe put it, and who stand as the two undisputed powerhouses of women’s soccer.” Excuse me? England last tasted defeat in April 2021. Vs. Canada. Prior to Friday night’s friendly at Wembley Stadium in London, the Yankee Doodle Damsels’ last lost in August 2021. Vs. Canada. And, if I’m not mistaken, our Canadian women are the reigning Olympic champions. Hmmm.

Attention those who insist that female sports doesn’t sell: The U.S.-England futbol friendly on Friday attracted an audience of 76,893 to Wembley. The match sold out in less than 24 hours, two months before the first touch of a ball.

So, Aaron Judge finished the Major League Baseball season with 62 dingers, topping Roger Maris’ previous record by one, and the guy who caught HR ball No. 62, Cory Youmans, has been offered $2 million for the thing. Imagine that. A cool $2M for two small strips of cowhide and some fancy stitching. Meanwhile, the poor sap who actually hand sewed the ball in Costa Rica probably works for 10 cents a day.

Quote of the week was delivered by legendary jock voice Al Michaels, who, during the second half of the dreadful Indianapolis Colts-Denver Broncos skirmish on Thursday Night Football, cracked wise: “It’s first-and-goal, words I thought I would never speak tonight.” The Colts won, 12-9 in OT. Everyone watching had fallen into a football-induced coma by halftime.

Sad to report that Pebbles, the world’s oldest dog, has died. A four-pound toy fox terrier, she was 22 years, 7 months old. That’s about 175 in Tom Brady years.

Speaking of Brady, the end is nigh for the Tampa Bay Bucs QB, and it has nothing to do with the number of candles on his birthday cake. It’s because his bride, Gisele Bundchen, is a witch. An unhappy witch. So say the Witches of TikTok. Apparently only Gisele’s power of hocus-pocus has kept Brady on the playing field this long, but now that their marriage is headed for splitsville her spells have lost their magic and Tom boy is on his own. His career is doomed, and not even a potion with a heaping of deflated footballs, a spoonful of Boston chowder, and a pinch of Gronk can save him.

The latest edition of Game On magazine is fresh off the presses and, as usual, it’s boffo. There’s 164 pages of news and chatter, including a piece from Scott Taylor on my former teammate and West Kildonan North Stars alumni, Gordie Tumilson, the Goalie Whisperer. It’s all fabulous stuff.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend on our soon-to-be Frozen Tundra, and turkey time is all about family, friends, food and blessings. So let the record show that I’m thankful for sports scribes, because I’m still a newspaper junkie and I love reading sports pages from across our vast land. Special nod to the three-man team at the Winnipeg Sun—Paul Friesen, Teddy Wyman and Scott Billeck, who continue to fight the good fight, even as the suits at Postmedia in the Republic of Tranna tie one hand behind their backs.

Give a thought to Jason Bell, head of the toy department at the Drab Slab. He informed subscribers to his twice-a-week newsletter that he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Stay strong, Jason.

And, finally, this week’s vanity license plate:

About P.K. Snub-ban…wife-beating Russians…playoff beards…John McEnroe…and Mike O’Shea has to watch another film

I cannot survive in a 140-character world, so here are more tweets that grew up to be too big for Twitter…

P.K. Subban didn't get the call. — P.K. Subban didn’t get the call.

Snub-a-dubba-do.

Corey Perry was snubbed. P.K. Subban was snubbed. Taylor Hall was snubbed. Phil Kessel was snubbed. Kris Letang was snubbed. Tyler Johnson was snubbed. Ilya Kovalchuk was snubbed. Nikolaj Ehlers was snubbed. Mikael Backlund was snubbed. Here a snub, there a snub, everywhere a snub-snub.

And you expected something different?

I mean, do the math. There are only 23 sweaters to fill per team for the World Cup of Hockey gala next September in the Republic of Tranna. It’s a given, therefore, that high-end skill will fail to make the final roll call, especially in a country with a talent-glut. Like Canada.

Oh woe is the man tasked with the chore of assembling a shinny side comprised of the ‘best’ Canada has available. He leaves himself exposed to second, third, fourth and fifth guessing from armchair general managers from sea to sea to sea, many of whom don’t know a puck from pasta. And it isn’t always a numbers game at play. Sometimes it’s in-house politicking. Other times, it’s just plain dumb.

Bob Clarke, for example, became a certified nutbar in 1998 when, in assembling our Olympic outfit, he insisted on making room for the legendary Rob Zamuner rather than grant a roster spot to Mark Messier. D’oh! At the 1991 Canada Cup, Steve Yzerman was out and Dirk Graham was in. Go figure.

Flash all the way back to the 1972 Summit Series between the Great White North and the Red Menace from the Soviet Union. Can you say Bobby Hull, Dave Keon, J.C. Tremblay, Gordie Howe and Gerry Cheevers, kids? All were all-stars. All were Stanley Cup champions. And all were on the outside looking in because they had the bad manners (according to the National Hockey League) to defect to the World Hockey Association or, in Howe’s case, had the bad manners to retire.

Here’s what Phil Esposito said about the selection process in ’72:

“There were some guys that got there because they were (Alan) Eagleson’s clients, no doubt about it. I never thought that lineup was unbeatable at all. I felt that if we had Bobby Hull and Gordie Howe and Bobby Orr (injured) in that lineup, they wouldn’t have beat us one iota. I was disappointed by some selections.”

Now lend an ear to Peter Mahovlich, also a member of the ’72 side:

“This wasn’t all of Team Canada. This was team NHL. Right off the bat, that excluded Bobby Hull, Dave Keon and Gerry Cheevers in net. If we had Bobby and Dave, I don’t see myself making the roster.”

So, P.K. Subban and others being snubbed? Nothing to see here, kids. Let’s move on.

Just wondering: If Team Canada bench boss Mike Babcock had coached Bobby Orr in his prime, would he have ordered him to play left defence because he shot left? Or would he have left the greatest player in the history of the game alone?

Interesting that Russia included wife-beating defenceman Slava Voynov on its WCH final roster. I’d say there’s about as much chance of Voynov joining the comrades in the Republic of Tranna as their is of Donald Trump choosing me as his presidential running mate.

Brad Marchand: We get to cheer for the rat for a month.

Here’s the beauty of the Word Cup of Hockey: We all get to cheer for that little rat Brad Marchand while he’s wearing the Maple Leaf on his chest, then we resume regularly scheduled dissing once he’s adorned in Boston Bruins linen again.

Is it unCanadian of me if I really don’t care to talk about the World Cup of Hockey again until September? I don’t believe so. If, on the other hand, I still don’t wish to talk about it once the frost is on the pumpkin, feel free to take away my maple syrup, my back bacon and my Don Cherry voodoo doll.

Midway through this current NHL crusade, I sat in my local watering hold and advised the Lord of the Beer Pit that the Eastern Conference champs would win the Stanley Cup. I assumed that team would be the Washington Capitals. Instead, we have the Pittsburgh Penguins. I say Pitt in seven.

Joe Thornton: That beard is thicker than rough at the U.S. Open.

Once the Stanley Cup tournament is a matter for hockey historians to discuss and either the Penguins or San Jose Sharks are hailed as rulers of all they survey, players shall reach for their razor blades and perform some serious spring pruning of facial foliage. There is no truth to the rumor, however, that Professional Golf Association Tour officials will collect Brent Burns’s and Joe Thornton’s beards and use them for rough at the U.S. Open.

If you’re keeping score at home, it took Mike O’Shea exactly one practice to deliver his first “I’ll have to watch the film” sound bite of the Canadian Football League season. After observing his troops on Sunday, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers head coach said, “They flew around pretty well. I’ll have to watch the film and count the number of errors, but I thought it was a very clean practice…” Las Vegas bookies have listed the over/under on O’Shea’s “film” quotes this season at 3,492.

Wonderful start to the Milos Raonic-John McEnroe partnership. McEnroe is hired as a grass-courts consultant for Raonic, he shows up for one practice session, and the Canadian is promptly ousted from the French Open by 55th-ranked Albert Ramos-Vinolas of Spain the very next day. Clearly, McEnroe has yet to work his magic with Raonic. Not to worry, though, the Mouth that Roared guarantees us that Raonic will have perfected the fine art of the tennis temper tantrum by the time they arrive at Wimbledon.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for 45 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour in 2015.

Toronto doesn’t stink when the Blue Jays are beating Uncle Sam at his own game

I’m a Prairie girl, born and raised, and I don’t hate Toronto.

There. I said it. I don’t hate Toronto.

I know, that’s positively blasphemous. I mean, it’s the sworn duty of every plow jockey’s daughter and/or son to look upon the Republic of Tranna with absolute disdain and associate the big city on the shores of Lake Ontario with all that is pungent. Indeed, we are taught this while barely off our mother’s breast. Mom, upon wiping our butt after the little jar of Gerber’s prune goop had kicked in and soiled our diaper, would recoil and gasp, “Oh, my, this smells just like Toronto.”

So, just like Prairie people long have known that New York is big but Saskatchewan has a burg that is Biggar, we’ve always known that Toronto stinks.

What I’ve never been able to figure out is this: Why is Toronto the subject of such scorn from the rest of Canada?

Oh, I know. It’s big. So what? Something or someone always has to be the biggest. Why not Toronto? Then there’s that whole Centre of the Universe thing, whereby those of us who reside in the colonies are made to feel inferior. Sorry, but that’s not of Toronto’s doing. That’s of our doing. It’s not like Toronto is going, “Na, na, na, na, na…I’m big and you’re not.” It is my experience, having worked and lived there on three different occasions and having visited numerous times, that very few Torontonians actually think that way. Apparently, the fact that we think they think that way is enough for us to dislike and distrust them.

If anything, we should be grateful to Toronto for providing us with wonderful sources of humor. The Maple Leafs. Rob Ford. Calling in the army to shovel snow. It’s all guffaw-worthy. And who doesn’t like a good giggle? So what’s not to like, right?

And now Toronto has been kind enough to share with us its Blue Jays.

The Great White North is in a state of baseball enthrall, and we seem to have decided that Muddy York doesn’t stink as much as our mothers led us to believe. We are root, root, rooting for the Toronto Nine in the Major League Baseball playoff tournament. We do so because they have become the home side and, for this, we need not place a clothes pin on the end of our nose.

What is it about this swaggering, bat-flipping Blue Jays outfit that makes you forget that you don’t like Toronto?

Well, for one thing, they aren’t the Maple Leafs. They aren’t the Toronto Argonauts, either. The Argos, of course, are the one sporting operative in the Big Smoke that has actually experienced success this century, most recently in 2012 when the Boatmen won the Grey Cup. Thing is, we only greet their achievements with mild annoyance because nobody in Toronto cares about the Argos, so why should we?

Apparently, Toronto also houses a National Basketball Association team, as well as an entry in Major League Soccer. But it’s like, who knew? There have been laughable efforts by marketing misfits and some dude named Drake to create a national identity for the Raptors. As if. That might have worked had they signed Steve Nash back in the day, but, as it is, their fandom is mostly parochial. The rest of the country doesn’t seem hip to the hoopsters.

The Blue Jays, though…they’re a different head of lettuce and I believe I know why they make those among us who hate Toronto forget why they hate Toronto: Since we can’t win the Stanley Cup any more, we’ll happily settle for the consolation prize—the World Series Trophy.

Nothing could possibly climb up American noses more than a Canadian-based outfit besting Uncle Sam at his national pastime, especially if the Toronto Nine were to vanquish, say, those loveable losers from Wrigley Field in the Fall Classic. Everybody loves the Chicago Cubs, right? How can you not embrace a club that has stepped aside to allow other teams to win every World Series title since 1908 (hey, anybody can have a bad century)? Thus, beating the Cubbies in the rounders final would be akin to piddling on the White House lawn while the Obama kids are in frolic.

This is why us hosers have hopped on the Blue Jays bandwagon, like so many circus clowns cramming into a Volkswagen Beetle. The Americans think they’re so smug hijacking our hockey? We’ll take their baseball hostage. And if it’s a Toronto team doing our dirty work, we’re all on point.

Once the dirty deed is done, of course, you can resume regularly scheduled dislike for all things T.O.

Patti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

The boys on the football beat in Winnipeg are second to none

It occurs to me that…

There is no city in the Great White North with as superb a stable of scribes detailing all things three-down football than River City.

Start with Ed Tait of the Winnipeg Free Press. Best beat writer in the whole land. His accomplice at the Freep, Paul Wiecek, and Kirk Penton over at the Winnipeg Sun complete a menage-a-terrific that keeps readers fully informed of the goings-on of not only the Winnipeg Blue Bombers but the entirety of the Canadian Football League.

I also like Herb Zurkowsky in Montreal and the tandem of Rob Vanstone and Murray McCormick in Regina, but the quality and quantity that Messrs. Tait, Wiecek and Penton churn out is unmatched.

* There were fewer, if any, finer people on the Winnipeg/Manitoba sports scene than Frank McKinnon.

Frank, who passed away at age 80 last week, was the first person I interviewed and quoted in a byline story as a rookie reporter for the Winnipeg Tribune. It was at a Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association annual meeting, and he was gracious, obliging and generous with his time. We spoke often over the ensuing 30 years and the former head of hockey in the province never changed. He always was a delight.

When I reflect on all the truly wonderful people I met during my time in mainstream jock journalism, Frank’s name is at the top of the good-guy list, alongside former player agent Don Baizley and University of Manitoba Bisons football coach Brian Dobie.

* I’m wounded. Crestfallen. And it’s all Gary (La La) Lawless’s doing.

La La, you see, has made an attempt to find a proper place in the pecking order of hockey homebrews for Jonathan Toews, the Chicago Blackhawks centre who’s three wins away from adding to his collection of Stanley Cup rings. The main mouthpiece in the Freep sports section reckons that legendary goaltender Terry Sawchuk is the pre-eminent Manitoba born-and-bred shinny star. How did he arrive at this conclusion? Well, he claims to have talked to a number of writers and former scribes who cover(ed) the local shinny scene.

Well, I’ve been following hockey in Winnipeg since the 1950s. I’ve been scribbling about it for the past 44 years. Nobody’s been at it longer. Alas, my phone still isn’t ringing, so I assume it still ain’t La La calling. Perhaps I was out or in the shower when his call came. Or maybe he just didn’t call.

This hurts, Gary. You never write or phone anymore. Is it something I wrote?

* If you’re looking for an example of what some sports scribes do when they’re bored with themselves, take a looksee at this Cathal Kelly offering in the Globe and Mail last week.

Kelly piddles on our prairie cousins in Edmonton because…well, because, in the world according to Cathal, Edmonton has the bad manners to not be the Republic of Toronto. Apparently, Edmonton is supposed to behave like the backwater burg Kelly believes it to be and excuse itself from hosting elite sporting events. You know, like the FIFA Women’s World Cup that commenced with Canada’s 1-nil verdict over China on Saturday afternoon at Commonwealth Stadium in The Chuck.

He cites the 2011 WWC as an example of how things ought to be done. That footy extravaganza was showcased in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, a stately, magnificent structure that, again, in the world according to Cathal, makes Commonwealth seem like a shelter for the homeless.

“It’s actively ugly,” Cathal gripes about Commonwealth. “The field is circled by a track—the perfect bush-league touch that says ‘high school.’ “

Berlin Olympic Stadium, complete with track around soccer pitch.

Ah, yes. Nothing says high school quite like a running track around a football pitch. You know, just like the running track that encircles the football pitch in the BERLIN OLYMPIC STADIUM!

We wouldn’t want the facts to get in the way of a good hissy fit, though, would we, Cathal? You just go right ahead and rant. Stomp your little feet and hold your breath. Perhaps one day your beloved Republic of Toronto will grow up to become a city big enough to host a prestigious event like the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

For now, though, it’s shut out of the soccer circus and I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for the Pan American Games in July. Those would be the same Games that Winnipeg has already hosted. Twice.

Dis the Disney Ducks? Winnipeg Jets Nation doesn’t want to go there yet

So, it’s the Winnipeg Jets vs. the Disney Ducks in an opening-round skirmish of the Stanley Cup tournament. Puck drops on Thursday evening

Gotta get a hate-on. Gotta dis the other guy. Trouble is, there’s nothing to hate. Nothing to dis.

First of all, you don’t trash talk the Disney dudes. You don’t trash talk anything connected with Disneyland. Not even the Disney Ducks of Anaheim.

Yes, Ducks is a stupid name for a National Hockey League team, but none more so than Penguins or Flyers. And, let’s face it, the name Jets isn’t exactly dripping with dynamics or creativity, is it. Cripes, man, it isn’t even original. It’s a recycled ripoff from bygone days when Winnipeg was a member of the Western Canada Hockey League before becoming a force in the World Hockey Association and, later, a NHL outfit that did nothing other than break your heart every spring and stick a dagger into it in 1996.

But we aren’t prepared to reopen the name debate and mention how Jets’ co-bankroll Mark Chipman was bullied into regurgitating it, are we?

Second, Walt Disney’s head isn’t stored in a beer cooler. That’s myth. Faux lore, not folklore. Despite what you might have read, Walt’s noggin is not a skull-cicle. Even if it were, one block of ice hardly compares to the 750,000-plus frozen heads that trudge around Winnipeg from November to March every year.

So, no, you don’t trash talk the man who gave us Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi, who now plays for the Jets and wears No. 55.

Just like Walt’s head, dissing Disney ain’t cool.

You also leave Mickey and Minnie alone. I’m a big fan of the mice.

If you’re a member of Jets Nation, you can’t even trash talk the city of Anaheim. I mean, it’s in Orange County. That’s in Southern California. You know, sun, sand and surf, 365/24/7. Orange County sounds refreshing. Fruity. Citrusy. It conjures images of orange groves. Not at all like Winnipeg on the Frozen Tundra, whose images are snow drifts and snow plows. Sounds harsh. Cruel. C-c-c-c-c-old.

More to the point, how can anyone in River City trash talk a town that has never lost the NHL franchise it was awarded? The Ducks were hatched in 1993. They’ve survived in SoCal longer than the original Jets NHL franchise lasted in Pegtown. Anaheim has only required one kick at the cat. Winnipeg is working on its second. So here’s the scorecard on lost franchises: Winnipeg 1, Anaheim 0.

And, let’s not forget, Anaheim has won the Stanley Cup. For those of you keeping score at home, Winnipeg/Arizona is the sole survivor of the WHA which has yet to lay claim to hockey’s holy grail.

Peggers, and Canadians in general, like to look down their noses at U.S. Sun Belt cities that are home to NHL outfits. We pooh-pooh their very being. We see the empty pews in their ice palaces and we snicker. Rudely. To us, ice is for skating. To them, ice is something you put in your cocktail. Yet, an outfit from the Great White North has not brought the Stanley Cup home since 1993. In the ensuing years, the big, silver chalice has been housed in Anaheim, Los Angeles (twice), Tampa and Dallas.

Good grief, we mock the Sun Belters, yet we’re giddy because five Canadian-based outfits qualified for this spring’s Stanley Cup tournament, which commences Wednesday night, and two of them are guaranteed to advance to the second round. Oh joy.

The point is, Jets Nation can’t trash talk Anaheim or the Ducks because because they don’t have any ammunition. Anaheim and the Ducks have it all.

I have no doubt that the Jets and Ducks will strap on a good bit of nasty before their best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff joust is history, but dis the Disney dudes before the puck is dropped? Sorry, can’t go there. Not until the first elbow is raised in anger, and I have a hunch Ryan Getzlaf will have something to do with it. Now there’s a Disney Duck we can dis.

Ondrej Pavelec puts on his McHappy face on Dr. Puck’s couch

Twin sisters Dr. Patti Puck and Dr. Patti Pigskin are internationally renowned sports psychologists who specialize in what makes athletes/coaches/managers/owners/sports scribes/broadcasters tick.

Jocks the world over flock to their clinic, the River City Shrink Wrap, to have their heads examined. They don’t always have the right answer, but if loving the Winnipeg Jets and Blue Bombers is wrong they don’t want to be right.

(Today: Winnipeg Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec is on the couch.)

DR. PUCK: “Welcome, Ondrej. Good to see you again, dude. How long has it been since you were last on the couch? Two, three, four, five months?”

PAVELEC: “Fourteen days.”

DR. PUCK: “Seriously, dude? You were here just 14 days ago?”

PAVELEC: “You don’t remember? It was the morning after our game in St. Louis. Hutch was a sieve that night…let in four goals on seven shots. Coach PoMo put me in goal and I shut the door on those Blues. Made 18 straight saves. The boys rally and we tie that game, 4-4. Then some no-name defenceman takes a shot from centre ice and I don’t see the puck. Lose it in the crowd. It goes in. With 63 seconds left in the game. We lose, 5-4. Entire city of Winnipeg chants, ‘Ondrej sucks! Ondrej sucks!’ They call me an overpaid lush. They talk about my DUI. They want to send me to some place called The Rock. They say Pavi is the worst goaltender since Pokey Bandit.”

DR. PUCK: “That would be Pokey and the Bandit, dude. Pokey and the Bandit. They were two different goaltenders. Both lousy.”

PAVELEC: “Oh. Good to know. Anyway, fans want to trade Pavi for a bag of pucks after that St. Louis game. You don’t remember any of this?”

DR. PUCK: “Yes, yes…of course I do. I seem to recall you saying something about how envious you were of Andrew (The Hamburglar) Hammond of the Senators, because fans in Ottawa toss him McDonald’s hamburgers whenever he wins a game but fans in Winnipeg have been throwing empty shot glasses and mickey bottles at you most of this National Hockey League season.”

PAVELEC: “Ya, and Coach PoMo threw me under the bus.”

DR. PUCK: “That isn’t entirely true, dude. True, coach Paul Maurice was rather abrupt in his post-game remarks and didn’t appear to have your back that night, but if the dude truly wanted to hurl you under the bus he wouldn’t have called your number the last five games. Which, I hasten to add, have gone very well for the team and yourself. You’ve won ’em all, dude, you’ve only surrendered five goals, you shut out Ovie and the Washington Capitals, you were named the NHL premiere etoile of the week, and any fool can see you’re numero uno in the blue paint for the Jets again.”

PAVELEC: “Ya, entire city of Winnipeg now chants, ‘Pa-vi! Pa-vi! Pa-vi!’ like I’m big hero. Instead of telling me that I need to go on the wagon, they leap on to my bandwagon.”

DR. PUCK: “Which begs the question, with everything going so well, why did you book time on my couch, dude?”

PAVELEC: “Because I know these people of Winnipeg. I’m feeling the love right now, but the minute I soil the sheets it will be back to ‘Ondrej sucks! Ondrej sucks!’ No more ‘Pa-vi! Pa-vi! We love you Pa-vi!’ Just ‘Ondrej sucks! Ondrej sucks!’ I don’t want them to love Pavi just in thick times. I want them to love Pavi during thin times, too. Like they love Dancing Gabe.”

DR. PUCK: “Yo! Dude! You could feed the homeless, personally fill every pothole on our downtown streets, sand bag every river bank in the city this spring and invent an environment-friendly method of mosquito fogging, but doubters are going to doubt and haters are going to hate.

You’re a goaltender in a Canadian market. That’s the way hockey fans roll in the Great White North. You’re never going to feel the love 365/24/7…unless your name is Carey Price. And even Price experienced some rough patches in Montreal. It wasn’t so many years ago that a great number of Canadiens fans wanted the Habs to keep Jaroslav Halak and deep-six Price. Now Carey Price is a national treasure after winning a gold medal at the Olympics and where would the Habs be today without him? Hard to believe fans wanted shed of him, isn’t it?”

PAVELEC: “So it’s all starting goalies in Canada, not just Pavi in the Peg?”

DR. PUCK: “That’s right, dude. Fans in Vancouver turned on Roberto Luongo faster than you can say ‘Harold Snepsts is a dork.’ Cory Schneider became flavor of the month. And how long did that last? Ask Devan Dubnyk how much he misses Edmonton. It comes with the territory and you’re in good company. So don’t take it personal if fans in Winnipeg don’t throw you McDonald’s burgers. Right now you’re more popular than Dancing Gabe, so wear your McHappy face.”

PAVELEC: “That was a pathetic pun, Doc Puck, but Pavi feels much better now.”

DR. PUCK: “That’s wonderful, Ondrej. Now if you’ll excuse me, dude, my waiting room is more crowded than the men’s washroom during halftime at the Super Bowl…Joe Thornton and Doug Wilson are here for couples counseling, P.K. Subban is here to deal with his dive-oholic addiction, Don Cherry still can’t cope with the reality that there’s no more room in hockey for Colton Orr’s knuckles, and Phil Kessel and the Maple Leafs are…oh, please, don’t get me started on Kessel and the Leafs.”

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