Noteworthy: What best says ‘Canada’ to you?

By Bruce Penton on April 2, 2025.

Patriotism among Canadians is stronger than ever these days thanks to the annexation talk and tariff threats, and the latest manifestation is a song by a former Glass Tiger member, Alan Frew, called Canada’s Song. It’s a great tune and the video skips between Frew sitting in a chair singing while strumming a guitar and a variety of iconic Canadian images.

Medicine Hat’s gigantic teepee didn’t make the images cut, but it got me thinking. If I had to crystallize images of Canada down to a single, solitary picture, what would that one image be? Frew’s song uses an urban area of Vancouver, an East Coast ocean shot, a beaver swimming in a creek, Toronto’s skyline, the Rocky Mountains, Canada’s parliament buildings, mountain lakes, Peggy’s Cove, a traditional Indigenous dance, skiing in the mountains, the Canadian flag, a moose, northern lights, Niagara Falls, a flock of geese, a passenger train winding through the mountains, a youngster having his skates tied by his dad, a wolf, a canoeist on a glass-like lake. What, no hockey?

So what would the single, iconic image be to represent Canada to a visitor? I think the Rocky Mountains with a lake in the foreground would be perfect. Lake Louise, for instance, comes to mind.

Torontonians would undoubtedly choose a skyline pic of their city highlighted by the CN Tower.

â€¢ How much greater would the Medicine Hat Tigers’ season have been had Cayden Lindstrom been in the lineup for it?

Lindstrom was the fourth overall pick in last year’s NHL draft, chosen by the Columbus Blue Jackets, but he spent the year undergoing and recovering from back surgery.

As a 17-year-old with the Tigers, Lindstrom scored 27 goals in an injury-shortened 32 games. Were it not for the injury, Lindstrom would in all likelihood been sent back to the Tigers this season and fans can only imagine the kind of powerful offence a Gavin McKenna-Lindstrom-Oasiz Wiesblatt et al combination would provide.

A reporter for The Athletic says there is a third team interested in Lindstrom’s services, other than the Tigers and the Blue Jackets. Reporter Aaron Portzline wrote that “there’s been plenty of collegiate interest in Lindstrom, even despite the missed games, and that the local Ohio State University is one of many schools trying to recruit him.”

â€¢ Shunning travel to the United States by Canadians is a real thing.

Canadians have threatened to no longer boost the U.S. economy by travelling south of the border, and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that people who live here are angry enough about the tariffs and annexation threats to follow through on those threats.

Now we have evidence that the threats are real. Axios reports that advance bookings for Canada-U.S. flights between April and September are down more than 70 per cent compared to this time last year. That info comes from the aviation data firm OAG.

So Canadians aren’t merely threatening to stay away from the U.S. They’re actually doing it.

How badly will it hurt the U.S.?

The travel news site The Points Guy says a mere 10-per-cent drop in Canadian visitors could cost U.S. businesses as much as $2.1 billion in revenue. Will that help make American great again?

â€¢ The fast and the fat:

While Medicine Hat’s Elic Ayomanor awaits his fate in the upcoming National Football League draft, there’s a fellow potential draftee who’s a little heavier and quite a bit less mobile than the sleek, super-fast Ayomanor.

A nose tackle who played at Florida by the name of Desmond Watson carries a weight of 464 pounds and is reportedly a prospect of enough ability that he may be picked by an NFL team, setting a record as the heaviest player in NFL history.

Ayomanor, who is 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds and with speed to burn, could probably give Watson a 50-metre head start in a 100-metre race and still beat him to the finish line.

The NFL draft will be held April 24-25 in Green Bay

â€¢ Short snappers: Grocery stories carry Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero and the company’s newest product, Orange Creme Coke. … Looking forward to having an independence referendum in Alberta so this silly idea can be put to rest forever. … A Leger poll says more Americans (20 per cent) say they would support the U.S. becoming a Canadian province than Canadians (nine per cent) would support our country becoming a U.S. state. Conclusion: It’s not the 51st state stuff that concerns me, it’s the state of craziness in North America. … Time to bring out the old joke about there being two seasons in Medicine Hat: Winter and construction. … If it’s anything like last year, more work on Division Avenue this summer is bound to thrill Hatters.