James Loewen

Sport can inspire and it can enrage. It can cause healing and it can cause hurt. Here are two positive hockey stories and two that will (likely) infuriate you. BIG-TIME CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NIVERVIL...

Thanks to the outstanding goaltending of Montréal’s Jakub Dobeš – who did what has never been said of Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck, which is singlehandedly stealing a series-deciding playoff game that his team had no right winning – the Canadiens advanced to the second-round of the NHL playoffs as the only hope to end Canada’s 33-year Stanley Cup drought.

It is impossible to put into context just how massive, just how exceptional it is that the Niverville Nighthawks, in only their fourth year in existence, are the best junior A hockey club in the nation.

When Hockey Canada announced that Sid Crosby would be joining Team Canada at the World Championships in Switzerland, it's safe to say that hockey fans from coast to coast to coast rejoiced.

It appears as if a trend is possibly emerging in the NHL: American-born players on Canadian rosters wanting to return home to the excited states and play for an American team.

In the 42 years that I've been writing this column, I can count on one hand with fingers to spare how many times I've responded to letters to the editor, whether they were positive or negative.

When FIFA, soccer's governing body, awarded the 2026 World Cup to Canada, Mexico and the U.S. in 2018, their joint bid to co-host represented three countries working together in perfect harmony. Thanks to one deranged, deeply unstable person, that North American unity is long gone.

Being a man of your word, honouring your commitments and standing with your teammates in tough times are character traits that Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck appears to be sorely lacking.

One of Steinbach’s most famous and most accomplished citizens – hockey player, Hall of Fame inductee, two-time NHL coach, soccer boss, author, Olympian, importer/exporter, motivational speaker and shaper of global policy – has revealed he has Parkinson’s.

Donald Trump tried to suck as much joy out of the World Cup as possible. American officials not allowing the Iranian team to practice in the U.S., forcing them to fly back and forth to Mexico to train, not allowing Africa's top referee from Somalia to officiate any games, and not giving Iran their FIFA allocation of 8% of tickets for each game so Iranian fans could watch their team compete, are easily some of the most racist and disturbing stories in the history of international sport.