When Canadian ice hockey centre Connor McDavid scored in time beyond regulation to guide Canada to victory over the USA within the Nationwide Hockey League’s 4 International locations Face-Off event in February, Canadian High Minister Justin Trudeau posted on social media, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
Trudeau’s remark was once an instantaneous reaction to U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated denigration of the top minister because the “governor” of the “51st state.” It captured the escalating tensions between the 2 nations over industry, price lists and Trump’s threats to annex Canada.
In the meantime, the event itself, which pitted the highest Canadian and American gamers in opposition to one any other for the primary time in additional than a decade, turned into a illustration of those deepening political divisions and confirmed that hockey isn’t as politically impartial as is regularly instructed.
Because the 4 International locations Face-Off ended, hockey analogies and imagery proceed to dominate the dialog round Canada-U.S. family members. This time the focal point is on Gordie Howe (or “Mr. Hockey” as he was once widely recognized), whose strategic use of elbows at the ice has grow to be a political rallying cry for Canadians.
A CBC Information document on ‘Elbows Up’ turning into a rallying cry in opposition to Trump.
Canada is “elbows up”
All over his skilled occupation from 1946 to 1980, Howe blended talent and scoring skill with toughness, physicality and a willingness to struggle when vital.
Particularly, Howe’s observe of conserving his “elbows up” within the corners to thrust back belligerents at the opposing staff has grow to be a point of interest for Canadians’ movements in opposition to Trump’s aggression.
The hashtag #ElbowsUpCanada has been trending on social media. Howe’s steering has been echoed by means of Canadian comic Mike Myers on Saturday Evening Reside and by means of Trudeau on the Liberal management conference that marked the transition to High Minister Mark Carney.
In his first speech as Liberal chief, Carney made any other hockey reference when he stated:
“We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans, they should make no mistake: In trade, as in hockey, Canada will win.”
Whilst it can be sudden to peer such enthusiasm for an “elbows up” way and for “dropping the gloves” as one would in a hockey struggle, this sort of strategic employment of violence suits completely with Howe’s longstanding emblem of hockey manhood.
Gordie Howe of the New England Whalers delivers one in all his well known elbows to the top of Quebec Nordique ahead Curt Brakenbury in 1978.
(CP PHOTO/Doug Ball)
“Mr. Elbows” and the “Bashful Basher”
Even if Howe’s early nickname of “Mr. Elbows” has gained the majority of the general public’s consideration lately, his different moniker used broadly by means of the Detroit media all over his first season within the NHL — the “Bashful Basher” — captures much more successfully the manner of masculinity that Canadians are recently calling upon of their conflict with Trump.
Writing within the Detroit Loose Press in 1947, reporter Marshall Dann invited readers to “Meet Red Wings’ Bashful Basher.” Along a photograph of a younger Howe innocently sipping a milkshake thru a couple of straws, Dann famous:
“Howe not only had proven himself an exceptionally promising rookie, but he also had established the fact that while he might be a malted milk devotee off the ice, he positively was no milk-sop on a hockey rink.”
Howe’s emblem of violence was once cautious and calculated, relatively than reckless or emotional. Even if he used his fists to batter an opponent — similar to in his well-known 1959 struggle with New York Rangers enforcer Lou Fontinato — Howe offered himself as a reluctant and affordable fighter who conformed to the idealized, manly “code” of hockey.
He resorted to combating best to shield smaller teammates and to discourage much more damaging kinds of violence, similar to stick assaults or overly competitive hits. Some distance from a wild brawler, Howe was once a peaceful protector, ruled by means of a way of truthful responsibility for his movements.
Writer Don O’Reilly’s 1975 biography Mr. Hockey additionally highlights the picture of “two Gordie Howes — quiet, unassuming, and bashful off the ice and aggressive and competitive on the ice.”
O’Reilly contrasts “the mild-mannered, smiling, innocent-faced Howe, the clean-cut All-Canadian-American boy” along with his extra ruthless counterpart: “The guy who excels with his elbows as weapons, a man who, his opponents say, is skilled with the illegal high stick and so devious that the officials often fail to see the offense.”
Likewise, a 1962 Time mag profile quoted a rival trainer as announcing:
“When Howe gets knocked down, he looks like he doesn’t care. But when he’s getting up, he looks for the other guy’s number. A little later, the guy will have four stitches in his head.”
Folks take part in a rally based on U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to Canadian sovereignty on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 9, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Mr. Hockey and Canadianness
A mixture of humble manliness and regulated violence firmly established Howe’s masculine credentials inside the tradition of hockey. Extra widely, Mr. Hockey turned into an admirable embodiment of probably the most valued manly qualities of the postwar duration in North The us.
Howe’s strategic use of combating additionally normalized the prime stage of violence in hockey by means of appearing that it might be measured and practical, in keeping with the casual code of expectancies that ruled the sport.
Even if critics of combating and violence have grow to be extra outspoken in recent times, those values stay integral to hockey tradition on the absolute best stage and an influential level of reference for what it method to be a “true” hockey fan and a patriotic Canadian.
Within the present political local weather, it’s possibly the name of the tale that gave the impression in Lifestyles mag in 1959 that resonates maximum obviously: “Don’t mess around with Gordie. Hockey’s tough guy (Lou Fontinato) discovers that the game’s best player (Gordie Howe) is a rough man in a fight.”
With their “elbows up,” Canadians are reckoning on a Gordie Howe-style reaction — rational, skilled and efficient — in a industry struggle with the USA that can simply be getting began.
