https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAuULVVQE_M
Barack Obama is quite proud of his hometown Chicago Blackhawks, and why shouldn’t he be? Considering the fact that the ‘Hawks have won three Stanley Cups in the past six years, he has a little room to gloat.
With new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visiting the White House this week, President Obama couldn’t pass up the opportunity to remind the allies to the north of Chicago’s recent string of success. Hockey is basically religion in Canada, so it’s always a risky move to take jabs at them over a game that they claim ownership of, but Obama pulled no punches and the crowd loved it.
The fact of the matter is that a Canadian team hasn’t hoisted the Stanley Cup in over two decades and, if the NHL season ended today, not a single Canadian team would qualify for the playoffs — the first time Canada would be shut out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 1979. So, yeah, things haven’t been so hot for them at the NHL level recently.
Trudeau could have elected to go the Patrick Roy route and claimed that his country’s two recent men’s Olympic hockey gold medals were blocking his ears. Or he could have mentioned that the Canadian women’s Olympic squad has managed to win four-consecutive gold medals, with three of those gold medal victories coming over the United States.
But the USA-Canada hockey rivalry is so fierce that bringing up those counterpoints in Obama’s place of residence could have resulted in a brawl on stage, and bare-knuckle boxing typically isn’t great for foreign policy.
