Chris Selley: Revoking the Stanley Cup from the NHL is a trade-war bargaining chip worth trying

Article content

The U.S.-Canada kerfuffle took an interesting tangent this week when the Buffalo Bills announced the Barenaked Ladies would sing the Canadian national anthem on Sept. 17 at the Bills’ new and lavishly taxpayer-funded US$2.1-billion stadium. (Even that kind of money doesn’t even get you a roof, nowadays!) Everyone seemed to treat it as a good news story, which it was. Just like it was a good news story when Buffalo Sabres fans belted out O Canada when the anthem singer’s mic cut out at a game in April. (The Sabres play both anthems before all home games.)

Article content

Article content

This is the sort of relationship Canadians and Americans had, still have and, should sanity prevail, will have more of and better in the future. We can’t quit each other, in the long term, and we shouldn’t want to.

Article content

Article content

Article content

The anthems are also good business, naturally. By some estimates, roughly 15 per cent of Bills’ and Sabres’ season-ticket holders commute from Canada. But fewer Canadians crossed Niagara River bridges in June 2026 than in any non-pandemic June this century. That’s leaving a mark on the Buffalo economy. There’s no doubt travel is one of the few levers Canada has to deploy, even if certain jurisdictions — Buffalo, for example, where three-quarters of voters went for Kamala Harris in 2024 — don’t make much sense as strategic targets.

Article content

Article content

Article content

You mustn’t travel to the U.S., even if it’s for “a reunion with your dearest friend,” a Globe and Mail columnist informed us last year. “Canadians should not visit the U.S. unless necessary. I am not going again unless I have to for work,” a Toronto Star sports columnist wrote on X … as if “work trumps friends and family” is a concept we must all accept. Back in the Globe, Labour Day having come and gone, snowbirds were enjoined this week: “By all means, venture abroad … But for the love of country, stand in solidarity with your Canadian kin and skip the States for your leisure travel.”

Article content

Article content

Prime Minister Mark Carney seems to be of like mind. “The most powerful actions have (been) buying Canadian and travelling in Canada,” he said in a video posted this week, having not long ago returned from vacation in deepest Tuscany.

Article content

I’m glad the Bills are doing O Canada. Cross-border harmony is good, wherever we can find it. But I do think Canada can leverage sport in a funny sort of way that might really unite people from coast to coast: Instead of judging each other’s travel and consumer preferences, let’s take back the Stanley Cup.