A Stanley Cup Final Supernova, amid Fire In The Sky
A series between Alberta and Florida team, at a time of year when hockey cannot be played is an apt metaphor for climate inaction. It's also a good lead item for a First Annual Spring Hockey Review.
Connor McDavid is not the one to ask about “degrowth,” but it would have been fun if someone had.
You think the Oilers power play has been on fire? Look at the planet.
One strives to hope, not mope, that one day the sports calendar will consider the wails of Mother Nature. No more perfect metaphor for 2024 exists than having the Stanley Cup final involve the most distance between the home cities in NHL history with the on-ice opponents repping Alberta and Florida, two jurisdictions among many where climate science-denying know-nothingness and a creeping Christofascism rules the roost as many people feel like they’re slowly turning on a rotisserie spit.
Oh, and the Oilers in six. Granted, the chalk says Florida. However, it is time for a Canadian-based team to win, so we do not have to hear that tired omni-question any more, or hear any cheap heat-seeking American hockey tourist make a ‘no rings’ argument about the most wonderfully randomized sport.1
Making sports make sense with semi-sustainability is my jam. I think about it way too much, so here goes nothing.
Here and now, the summer of 2024 is overdelivering. The bona fide optimism holds that all three could work in concert like a good forward line. I wonder how sports in “Spring and Wildfires Season 2024” will look by 2064, when my nephew will reach my current age.
People travelled by the thousands to big-ticket sports tourism events such as the Copa America, Euro 2024, and Paris 2024 Olympics, instead of making sure the locals who were inconvenienced by it, and whose property taxes helped pay for the party, could afford to attend?! The NHL started a championship series on June 8, and one of the teams was from Miami before most of it was submerged.2 And the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers, in the event they went the full seven games, took four 4,000-kilometres-plus flights using kerosene-burning jet fuel, knowing there is no gentler replacement anywhere on the horizon.
The rub is, a greater consciousness seems to be developing. To a terminally online type, it was hard not to notice hockey media’s rumbling that this is too much.
Let me have this. The sustainability and equality parts are hurting. A hotter planet and Bibi Netanyahu waging aimless war against Palestinian self-determination, you know.
Any change to the season or format of a league is a collective bargaining issue. Reducing the schedule and travel also means some work comes out of the bargaining unit — a phrase journalists find readily relatable. The agreement that the players’ association has with the National Hockey League runs two more seasons through 2025-26. The league has made international hockey commitments, so pushing deeper in June for two more seasons is locked in already. But the change will have to come sooner, rather than later.
It will be a bad look in the next round of CBA talks if the NHL and NHLPA are still pushing with this prosperity-gospel absurdity on skates. From a player’s perspective, it should look as follows: I worked my arse off to get to the pinnacle of the perspiring arts. I need an income. Could I take a little less if it meant paring down the regular season by 20 percent, and eliminating cross-continent travel in the regular season? All major North American leagues must decide before it is made for them. Sports are impossible without clean air, drinkable water, some relief from extreme heat, and ice and snow.
Yours truly is just a fan who understands there is no Planet B. For years, I’ve wondered when my outlet for escapism would clue in and change accordingly. Of late, I read University of Toronto sport ecologist Madeleine Orr’s book Warming Up: How Climate Change is Changing Sport (Bloomsbury Sigma, May 2024) for an upcoming SportsLit episode. As supplementals, I am also reading John Vaillant’s Pulitzer Prize-finalist Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast (Knopf Canada, 2023) and Seth Klein’s A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (ECW Press, 2020).
Calling for sports to de-grow ties to knowing where the puck is going, not where it has been, as the other hockey genius who had to spend his late teens and twenties pretending to like living in Edmonton learned … and Wayne Gretzky absorbed that on the type of backyard rink it’s getting harder and harder to maintain as Canadian winters get shorter and more sporadic.
Feeling optimistic about climate adaptation and resiliency at this stage seems like a futile and stupid gesture of quiet rebellion — I know. Klein, who called for Canada to shift to a wartime economy to transfer from fossil fuels to widespread electrification, wrote “Our reality is that we’ve run out of time” in a book that is now four years old. But A Good War points out that C.D. Howe, Canada’s wartime ‘Minister of Everything,’ who led a huge economic shift, articulated and applied the credo, “If we lose the war nothing will matter.”3
That stands in exactly for the climate emergency. Despair is the easy way out. As a resident of Hamilton, Ont., I do not think highly of my elected representatives’ capacity or willingness to deal with this challenge of our literal lifetimes.4 It goes well beyond the traditional right-to-left political spectrum; there is almost a sticker-shock psychosis where no one, whatever party, whatever level of government, is speaking up and saying, It Cannot Go On This Way.5
That is an understandable human reaction. It is tough, and who knows I might be projecting, to address a serious issue that poses an existential threat. Sports and climate change is a twinning of obsessions. Ah-duh, I am a recovering sportswriter. I also live in Hamilton, Ont.; which is high in Canadian Climate Risk Power Ratings (brought to you by BEER IN CORNER STORES).
Is that how you get an elected rep in Hamilton who parkoured from:
In October 2019, daring to ask if “big carbon emitters (could) fund the city’s climate change plans”;6
In August 2022, voting for a $11.4-billion, 30-year climate adaptation strategy;
In June 2024 describing a grants program that helps low-income people not die from heat-related illness as “social justice programs to hand out cheques to people.” Preen for Pierre Poilievre much?
That grant’s expansion, offering, “financial help to buy an air conditioner … ahead of what’s expected to be another hot and humid summer,” will take 0.3 percent out of a reserve fund, that the councillor already voted for. It was already allocated, and a much smaller ask than the budget increase from the police force.
Is that where it is all headed? Pushing performativity over actual actions? Punishing the Poor Hamilton is five years past declaring a climate emergency, and one pol begrudged a small intervention. Like Michael Scott, just declaring something makes a problem go away.
Authors such as Orr say sport is essential for mood regulation. Again, our leadership needs to rally ’round for Clean Air! Drinkable Water! Heat Relief!
It is impossible to do sports without them. Those battles are in every corner of the rink of life. Orr points out we can’t win them all, but incorporates the lingo of sports: win some, lose some, and it adds up.
I prefer to leave partisanship out of it, but it’s evident the political Right is far grosser about filling lives and timelines with their foolishness. We cannot play along. The money Ontario is going to spend to put beer in corner stores could fund a lot of climate mobilization, n’est pas? The same is true with Toronto’s outlay to host a few FIFA World Cup men’s soccer games in 2026? The same goes for stadium subsidies in the United States.
Indulge a stop-off for gallows humor. If you are going to be an inmate someplace where oligarchies, ordered populism, or outright fascism is now perched in the middle of the Overton Window, should you not at least get some winning teams? So Alberta and Florida get a deep Stanley Cup run, seemingly as a trade-off for the awfulness of Premier Danielle Smith and Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose submerging state is pretending that climate change isn’t happening.
Whelp, Ontario has numbed itself into abiding by its kleptocratic kakistocracy-corporatocracy figureheaded by doofus Premier Doug Ford. And the Toronto Maple Leafs cannot even get past the second round. We punted on good governance for THIS? That was not part of the Shanaplan!!
Again, though, I am an optimist. The human tendency is to do the right thing eventually.
So, yeah, a June Stanley Cup final with a team called the “Oilers” and one whose home market is being overtaken by sea-level rise? With the right kind of eyes, it is already a supernova, a visible explosion.
I am not a climatologist, but it is past the time to credential-check concerned former English-lit majors. Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas in the name of human activities is the main driver of climate change. It puts several wild cards into play with weather systems, making the disasters more frequent and longer. The knock-on effects harm human health, especially if public infrastructure has been neglected the way it has by decades of importing Thatcherite austerity.
Put it another way. While many of us were waiting for the Stanley Cup final to start, Alberta and Ontario were in full-on effed-around found-out consequences of ignoring climate inaction.
Alberta had five tornadoes in one day;
Ontario Premier Doug Ford cancelled a wastewater surveillance program that is an essential layer of protections against pandemics; and the Investigative Journalism Bureau reported that “nearly half (Ontario’s) public schools have had at least one test for toxic lead in drinking water exceed the federal safety guideline” between 2019-20 and 2022-23;
Hundreds of people in Calgary — which is subsidizing a new arena to the count of hundreds of millions of dollars — were asked to further cut water use after a main broke in its northwest sector;
Twenty-four active Alberta wildfires! Closing in on 400 already this year;
Northern Ontario had 94 active wildfires;
While radio ads extoll the virtue of Canadian oil and gas, UN Sec.-Gen. António Guterres said it is time for all nations to ban fossil fuel advertising;
A key Ontario portfolio went for shameless bootlicker politicking when it needed policy.
Before starting a 19-week summer break, Ford handed the Minister of Energy and Electrification portfolio to serial upward failure Stephen Lecce, with a Christofascist, MPP Sam Oosterhoff, as associate minister. Fresh off five years of putting a spin on the derogation and degradation of public schools and ignoring toxic lead water from school drinking fountains as education minister, the “top government communicator” Lecce has a new role. He will be sicced on putting “(Liberal leader) Bonnie Crombie into a carbon tax straight jacket.”
Ontario has a carbon levy due to Ford, et al., canceling the previous government’s program. But people have accepted the Big Lie about a better-than-nothing bare-minimum measure.Lastly, in 2023, Canada accounted for 43 percent of people displaced by wildfires. That figure exceeds the Oilers’ lethal 37 percent power play in these playoffs.
Go Oilers Go, then!
All these pieces matter. McDavid was asked the tired omni-question about the Canadian-team Stanley Cup drought after Edmonton finished off the Dallas Stars on June 2. Forgive the weak ender to a rant, but there are bigger questions, and sports media must ask them.
PWHL goals for year 2? More goals
The Professional Women’s Hockey League deserves all the laurels it received for launching a league that women and girls deserve, going back at least one or two generations. It looked like it had been there all along. The ticket-buying public’s buy-in seemed genuine. As a fanboy ally, I was glad, and a little sad this didn’t happen 20 years earlier.
A Minnesota-Boston final also felt right. Why? Well, compare the support, and public interest, for NCAA hockey versus Canadian university hockey.
An unsolicited memo from an outsider? More pucks in the nets will keep butts in seats and eyes on screens. It took the NHL a century to figure it out, and organizations led by women are much quicker, so the PWHL should get there by Year 4 at the latest.
Boston goalie Aerin Frankel became a cult hero for her playoff performance, but that will not last forever. I trust that increased professionalization will help develop complementary scorers and forward depth. The big gameplay issue in Season 1 was that the goalies had too easy a time.
The equilibrium between defence and offence in hockey tends to be between 6 and 7½ goals per game. In a 24-game regular season, the PWHL averaged 4.46 goals per contest, and the cord cottagers collectively had a .922 save percentage. All 13 goalies who competed in the regular season were at least .900.
In the playoffs, it became even more pronounced. Dragged down by a couple of multiple-overtime 1-0 games, PWHL play saw only 2.52 goals per 60 minutes of gameplay. The leaguewide playoff save percentage was .950. Toronto’s Kristen Campbell had a 0.93 average and .962 save percentage in a series that her team lost. Montréal got swept while Ann-Renée Desbiens had a 1.70 average and a .931 save percentage.
Having 1.70 / .931 rank as Hardy Åström-esque is a problem. Scoring always drops in the playoffs, sure, but there wasn’t much farther it could drop.
Please view that as some fearless feedback. The league was starting from scratch and, in time, 2024 will be the prototype. By hockey standards, the PWHL is willing to be different. See the ‘jailbreak’ goal, awarding three points in the standings for a win in regulation time, and having the first-place finisher choose their playoff opponent.7 It is evident wise people work in the PWHL HQ, and who knows what they might come up with. They should look at every goal-scoring stimulation proposal anyone ever suggested. There must be a few kicking around from when the NHL overcoached itself into Dead Puck phases in the 1990s and Aughties.
Another host team won the Memorial Cup
Deep breath, then exhale Efffffff London.
It is too late in the game to GET BOLD AND OUTSIDE THE BOX with a format fix for the Memorial Cup. The likely metascore for the climax to the Canadian Hockey League (CHL) season would probably rate somewhere between 29 and 41 (out of 100) to fans who are not aligned with one of the championship teams.
The Saginaw Spirit are the third host team in the last six tourneys to win the ‘Memmer’ after being ousted in the league playoffs before the final. All three championship series in the Ontario, Québec-Maritimes, and Western leagues were all 4-0 sweeps. So, the lead-up to Saginaw’s Josh Bloom getting the last half-minute deciding tuck to — everybody! — Efffffff London was rather lacking.
Pro-format hockey needs so many major reforms that getting hung up on the host team format feels like missing the forest for the trees. No host team has won its league title since the Peter DeBoer-coached Kitchener Rangers in 2008. In the last 14 tourneys, the hosts reached the final eight times, going 4-4.
The business end of the CHL says the Memorial Cup is intended to put eyeballs on their product and show people why they should vote with their feet, and time, to support it. The end goal is to have 5,000 or 6,000 people only using the edge of their seats in a hockey atmosphere in front of the TV audience. If it takes a little fudging to balance the field by having one team be more rested, then so be it.
In the long view, sure, it can seem like when a video game once someone figures out a cheat. None of the host teams, though, have actively tried to lose in league playoffs. Whether it was the 2022 Saint John Sea Dogs, 2017 Windsor Spitfires, or 2012 Shawinigan Cataractes, they won the day, and that is how the puck turns sometimes. All are legit champions, until someone gives the tournament a hard reset.
That is more than enough for now. Please stay safe, and be kind — especially to yourself.
Greg Cote would get a pass if he spelled his name Côté.
A Good War, pg. 147
My elected reps at Parliament Hill and Queen’s Park, MP Matthew Green and MPP Sarah Jama, do seem to get it. Alas, Green is part of a directionless centre-left party and Jama is an independent since her former party will sell out their principles to save 30 votes in a riding they usually lose by 800.
How did it get like this in Southern Ontario? Take it from Hamilton writer Chris Erl at The Sewer Socialists: “Our zealous pursuit of developer profit and near-religious commitment to sprawl development (and the personal automobile) keeps us isolated, atomized, and alone, surrounded predominantly by our internet friends who think exactly like us. When people wake up in their own isolated house to a curated social media feed, jump in their own personal car, put in their time at work (or just stay at home all day because…well…see above), jump back into that car to head to a big box store where everyone around you is seen as an idiot or a competitor for scarce resources (“and now, we see feeding time at the Costco Watering Hole”), get back in that car, and go home to that isolated house again, you have no real chance to see or speak with or meet new people.”
Hamilton Spectator, Oct. 15, 2019.
Toronto finished first and choose to play fourth-place Minnesota. In true Toronto fashion, they lost the winner-take-all game on home ice to the eventual Walter Cup champions. That format was also tried in the low-minor-pro SPHL, which former NHL equipment manager Brian Patafie once called the Stop Playing Hockey League. (Formally, it is the Southern Professional Hockey League.)