Viktor E. Ratt, the Florida Panthers’ mascot, provided tremendous atmosphere during the NHL playoffs this year, as the team he represents went about winning its second consecutive Stanley Cup.Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
My overall favourite moment this year happened during the NHL playoffs. I was in Florida, where they do a bit during games called ‘Heroes Among Us’.
They bring out a veteran of foreign wars and fete them. The veteran – who is usually of advanced age – then salutes through the national anthems.
One night, the angle caught the Panthers mascot – a human-sized rodent called Viktor E. Ratt – saluting behind him. I’m talking the sort of salute a Marine could be proud of.
It’s a strange time in our corner of the world. The villains seem to overwhelming the heroes. But when I think about the state of things, I prefer to think that most of us are like that beautiful, civic-minded rat, even if he is on the wrong side. He gives me hope.
Elsewhere, more or less so.
Heroes
Booers – When America decided to sneak up on us in January and trip us from behind, there wasn’t a whole lot Canada could do about it.
Right-thinking Americans (though I am losing faith that such a thing exists) rushed in to soothe us, which was another way of shushing us. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It’s just four years. You can start filling in the smouldering hole where your manufacturing sector used to be then.
But for the first time maybe ever, Canada wasn’t willing to sit quietly and wait for redress. That was thanks to the arena booers.
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It started in Ottawa, and spread contagiously across the country. For about two weeks there, peaking at the 4 Nations Face-Off, the U.S. anthem would not go un-booed. More than any politician, sports fans delivered our riposte.
Then, just as it was starting to get stale, they stopped. Perfect message; perfect timing.
Scottie Scheffler dominated the world of golf in 2025, but didn’t lose sight of the fact that he is paid a lot of money to play a game and that there are bigger things in the world than that.Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Scottie Scheffler – I refuse to believe anybody who plays sports for a living has actually convinced themselves that it matters. It’s a great living and all, but you’re not saving lives.
Only Scottie Scheffler, the best golfer in the world, is willing to say that out loud. He did so before this year’s Open in Northern Ireland.
“This is not a fulfilling life,” Scheffler said. “It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart.”
Then he won the tournament. I cannot imagine a more satisfying linkage of praxis and action.
Alejandro Kirk – A lot of Blue Jays got better press during the World Series, but Kirk remained the kindred spirit of all those who were on board before October began.
He’s listed at 5-foot-8, 245 pounds and I don’t believe either number. Kirk is proof that it’s what’s under the hood that matters.
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There’s not much any of us can learn from a typical pro, but Kirk is like the rest of us – he didn’t get where he is because people smoothed his path. I doubt he’s ever met a scout with whom he didn’t start at a disadvantage. For overcoming aesthetic prejudice alone, Kirk is the most inspiring athlete in Canada.
Gianni Infantino – The FIFA boss is proof of how far you can get with a bit of smarts, a lot of moral flexibility and the self-confidence of a golden-age Hollywood star.
There is no reason that Infantino – a Swiss lawyer who cut his way up through the ranks of football administration – should be the most powerful sports figure in the world, other than that he wanted to be.
U.S. President Donald Trump was presented with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize by FIFA president Gianni Infantino during the World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center earlier this month.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
Now that he’s there, Infantino is determined to hog every spotlight and lick every boot. Most of us hide our innate grasper. It’s kind of amazing to watch so much human aspiration contained in such an otherwise bland person.
For me, Infantino is the emblematic early-21st century man – talks a bunch of nonsense about progress and peace, but would do absolutely anything to get a seat on the private plane. It’s not heroic, but just you watch. In 40 years, they’ll be building statues to this guy. He’s that good.
Villains
Wayne Gretzky – He’s created a whole new category of celebrity – least popular/most famous Canadian. At this point, talking about why seems like rubbing it in.
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Gretzky’s performance at the World Cup draw – calling Macedonia “Mackadonia” and Curaçao “Currako” – was an affront to dumb jocks. The rest of them know they have to practice before the big game.
Bill Belichick – Deep inside every visionary sports genius, there is a total doorknob trying to get out. This is their inner teenager, the one who never got to come out because they were too busy striving.
I suppose Scotty Bowman could’ve bought a place in Vegas and started hosting pool parties. Phil Jackson could have plugged all his money into crypto and hooked up with a Kardashian. But they didn’t.
Bill Belichick didn’t learn this lesson. Maybe he spent too much time around Tom Brady post-divorce and thought, ‘Why not me? I’m a swingin’ 72-year-old who knows the difference between what’s fire and what’s cringe. It’s fire, right? That’s what they say now?’
Belichick got himself the college exacta – a college-aged girlfriend and a college job. He didn’t navigate either one particularly well. Now 73 and only employed because firing him would cost too much, he is just another former star intent on disproving Neil Young’s maxim about fading away. Except far too old to be making this young man’s mistake.
Bev Priestman, right, resurfaced in New Zealand this year, after she was ousted from Soccer Canada’s program in the wake of its Olympic drone scandal last year.YUXIN LIU/AFP/Getty Images
Canada’s women’s soccer team – A year after humiliating this country at the Olympics, the lead soccer cheaters were still trying to paint themselves the victims.
Head coach Bev Priestman decamped to New Zealand, telling stories about a “media frenzy.” There aren’t enough fully employed media in this country to mount a decent frenzy. A small flurry, maybe. Possibly a swirl. But definitely not a frenzy.
Her subordinate, Jasmine Mander, wrote a very long essay in the Players’ Tribune (remember that blast from the past?) that was positively Nixonian in its attempts to dodge.
It wasn’t the end of the world. We’re all over it. But that doesn’t mean that the authors of it should be redeemed just because they’d prefer it that way. That’s something sports people never seem to get – no one is owed a job in sports.
Gambling ads – A continuing national embarrassment, propped up by some of the best players in the world, none of whom are so hard up that they need to stoop to this. It’s like watching Angela Merkel come out of retirement to try and convince people that dropping acid enhances the voting experience.
In the end, gambling may not be the end of professional sport as we know it. But I’d bet good money that it will be one of the causes.