Ken Dryden was a great hockey goalie. He was also a Canadian politician. But I will always think of him as the guy in the ABC booth with Al Michaels during US Hockey Team’s win over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. Michael’s call is well known: “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” But if you listen carefully you will hear Dryden’s voice in the background: “Unbelievable.”
Listen:
Over at The Atlantic, Dryden, now 77-years-old, reflects on the recent Canadian overtime victory over the United States in the newly created 4 Nations Cup. Here is a taste:
In 1980, hockey was not a major sport in the U.S., and so Americans had no expectation or even hope of winning against the Soviets. What they did have at stake in 1980 was the Cold War. That, they had to win. The hockey team’s victory in Lake Placid felt like part of this bigger fight. It fit the story Americans wanted to tell about themselves. And although hockey was a fairly minor sport, 45 years later, for many Americans, the “Miracle on Ice” remains their favorite patriotic sports moment.
Now to today. Now to the 4 Nations Cup. Being Canadian these past few months hasn’t been a lot of fun. The threat and now the coming reality of high tariffs on Canadian goods exported to the U.S.—and the disruptions and dislocations, known and unknown, that these tariffs will cause—are never out of mind. Even more difficult in the day-to-day is Donald Trump’s relentless and insulting commentary.
Canada as the U.S.’s “51st state”; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau”; the U.S. using “economic force” to annex Canada, its nearest ally and inescapable geographical fact of life. It’s the kind of trolling that Trump does to everyone, to every country, whenever he wants to, because as president of the most powerful nation on Earth, he knows he can. He loves to watch the weak wobble and cringe, and those who think they’re strong discover they’re not.
Na na na na na. It sets a tone. It lets everyone know who’s boss. It’s what he’d done all his life in business. And although at a boardroom table he wasn’t always the guy with the deepest pockets, in the Oval Office of the United States of America, he knows he is. Being Donald Trump got him elected, but being president is what allows him to be Donald Trump. On November 5, nobody had as much at stake in the election’s result as he did. He needed to win to hold the world’s highest office, to avoid lawsuits and prison time. He needed to win to be him.
It’s been amazing to watch world leaders of proud, historically significant countries, kings in their own domain, suck up to Donald Trump, to see billionaires and business titans, who know how the game is played—cater to political authority in public, play hardball in private—who reside proudly and smugly above and beyond politics, fold like a cheap suit. And later, when they do respond, because prime ministers, presidents, and CEOs eventually have to say something, their words sound so lame. “There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” Trudeau said. By answering at all, you end up making any slur sound slightly, disturbingly legitimate, and you make yourself look weak.
How would Americans react if a president or prime minister of another country said the same about their president? That he’s crooked, crazy, a lunatic, a loser? That he’s the worst president in the history of the world? That their country is just another failed empire in its final death throes? That both president and country are a disgrace and everyone knows it? Probably not well.
Read the entire piece here.