Imports and exports

 Been following with some interest lately the Felon in Chief's misbegotten trade war on Canada and Mexico, and it got me to thinking about last fall. My wife and I vacationed north of the border then, see, and now I'm wondering now if we shouldn't have stayed. 

People actually were sane there. The beer was cold, the music in a certain blues club was fine, and no one was running around with his or her hair on fire ranting about the Haitians or Venezuelans or Africans.

Hell, down on Rue St. Denis in the university district of Montreal, some of 'em even had their own restaurants. And, wonder of wonders, the immigration gestapo wasn't kicking down their doors. Refreshing.

Anyway, one night we were in the aforementioned certain blues club on St. Denis and struck up a conversation with a bartender, who somewhat surprisingly didn't think the Felon was batshite crazy. He thought no one had much to fear from the Felon, that a lot of the talk that he was Training Wheels Mussolini was overblown. He sounded quite reasonable, in the reasonable Canadian way.

I wonder what he's thinking now.

Because now the Felon is trying to bully Canada because, as he always does, he thinks the Canadians are taking advantage of their vastly richer and more powerful next door neighbor. And so he's strapped an across-the-board 25% tariff on both Canadian goods and Mexican goods, and Canada's retaliated with its own 25% tariff, and now we've got a completely unnecessary trade war just like the trade war with China that backfired so badly in the Felon's first term.

Some guys never learn. No matter how much remedial help you try to give them.

At any rate, because my job was covering Sportsball World for almost 40 years, I got to thinking about all the cool sports stuff that's come down over the years from the Great White North to enrich the lives of its ungrateful neighbors. And I figure this is the perfect time to remind everyone of some of it, and what would happen if someone back in the day had gone full Felon on Canada.

We never would have gotten to mangle Yvan Cournoyer's name, for one thing.

Also, we wouldn't have gotten the full effect of Ted Lindsay's crooked smile, or learned the meaning of a "Gordie Howe Hat Trick" (a goal, an assist and a fight), or laughed with as much appreciation when Strother Martin said "Oh, f*** Eddie Shore!" in "Slapshot." Heck, "Slapshot" wouldn't have been "Slapshot" without all the Canadians in the cast. 

And that's just hockey.

For instance, where would Purdue basketball have been last season without Toronto native Zach Edey? Not in the national championship game, surely.

And speaking of basketball, know who the best player is on the team with the best record in the NBA right now?

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Oklahoma City Thunder. Canadian.

Or how about those Chicago Cubs?

Would their star-crossed history be complete without Ferguson Jenkins, the first Canadian to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Shoot, the MVP of last fall's World Series was Freddie Freeman, a Canadian-American. Vlad Guerrero Jr.? Joey Votto? Justin Morneau? Jason Bay? Hall of Famer Larry Walker?

Canadian-American. Canadian-American. Canadian. Canadian. Canadian.

And speaking of Chicago ...

Let's hear it for your Chicago Bears!

Who've got your George Halas and your Walter Payton and your Gale Sayers and your Dick Butkus in their long and spangled history, among many others. And whose first superstar, arguably, was Bronko Nagurski.

Bronko Freakin' Nagurski. Canadian.

"And, hey, Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Don't forget all those NFL guys who played in the Canadian Football League, like Warren Moon and Cookie Gilchrist and Joe Theismann, who started his career with the Toronto Argonauts."

Absolutely not. Although I'll never quite understand that weird deal where the CFL had two teams with the same name: The Ottawa Rough Riders, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders. 

At least the Felon hasn't slapped a Duplicate Nickname tariff on 'em yet, though. So at least there's that.