Donald Trump is America's first Online president

George H.W. Bush was the first American president to have an e-mail address. Bill Clinton presided over the beginning of the official White House website and the internet going from a technology for hobbyists to a part of mainstream western culture. Under George W. Bush, the internet went from common to indispensable. And Barack Obama galvanized young voters via Web 2.0 along the way to his historic victory in the 2008 election.

Presidents 41 through 44 were users of the internet, of somewhat varying degrees but definitionally so. But by the modern standard that has been established over the last 43 months, Donald Trump is truly the first Online president.

There is a different between being online and being Online.  Being online is, overall, a strength. It suggests an intellectual curiosity and a basic desire to be aware of the world beyond your very immediate social circles. Being Online reduces the potential of the internet to its basic id-fueled level, one where all of recorded history is at your fingertips but where the most grandiose function you can conjure is aligning this data in a way designed to blindly benefit you.

A popular canard during both the 2016 and 2020 Democratic presidential primaries was that Bernie Sanders was the candidate of Online. “Online” is usually defined as “what’s being said on Twitter”, a social medium used by less than one-fourth of American adults, and since the demographics of Twitter skew young and politically left, it makes sense to assume a kinship with Bernie Sanders, the furthest left candidate among the Democratic field in either of his presidential runs.

Sanders is, indeed, more popular and discussed on Twitter than he is in most places. He is a man, after all, who has two Twitter accounts (@SenSanders and @BernieSanders) which each have more followers than the Democratic vice president who semi-handily defeated him for the party’s nomination in 2020, Joe Biden. But Bernie Sanders is not a particularly Online person. He is a 78 year-old man who has been a member of Congress since three years before Netscape launched. He has used the internet as a way to exponentially grow his grassroots movements, not as a central tenet of his political identity.

Younger Congressional lefties, most famously New York congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, have a more compelling argument to being truly Online than Sanders. But while Ocasio-Cortez’s political strategy is far more overtly centered around the internet (the 30 year-old first-term representative already has 95% of the Twitter following of Biden and speaks the language of the social media-savvy millennial fluently), she is still, at her core, a professional politician. She serves on two committees, four sub-committees, and while her use of social media has been noted, Ocasio-Cortez has been notable as a retail politician who has made campaign appearances across the country.

Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election has been hindsighted to death, as political experts have bent over backwards to explain why the 46% of American voters who voted for Trump are reflective of a sort of silent majority (one so silent that it does not even represent a majority). “Twitter isn’t real life” became the sentiment, one that anybody who had followed the 2016 Democratic primaries and its end result could have easily identified. To note that the internet creates various echo chambers that are misleading about American political culture is not only fair, but it is necessary. But it comes bundled with an implication that Donald Trump is a man who rises above it, rather than a man obsessed with Online.

While Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is somewhat Online and Bernie Sanders has occasional touches of it, the actual current Democratic nominee for president is decidedly Not Online. While Joe Biden has the requisite social media feeds, he is also a political lifer. He became a congressman the same month that Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” and Stevie Wonder “Superstition” topped the American pop charts, and his attitudes often show it, for better or worse. Unlike Barack Obama, the man whose presidency made the twice-failed primary candidate Biden’s eventual successful run possible, Joe Biden does not seem to have any interest in becoming a cultural ombudsman. As irritating as I can find Biden’s political passivity, that is one thing I appreciate about him. And it fits Biden’s pitch to America—that he is a decent but fairly boring but most importantly serious man who understands how politics works.

The 2020 Democratic National Convention was as typical as a convention centered around Zoom could be. A host of ex-presidents, notable current politicians, and 2020 Democratic primary candidates spoke, while COVID-19 first responders and other non-controversial civilians gave testimonies to the character of the candidate. On Thursday, Joe Biden’s speech, perhaps buoyed by low expectations, was effective, but it was hardly transformative. This wasn’t Barack Obama giving his 2008 acceptance speech at a football stadium in Denver. It was a guy who doesn’t really care for public speaking trying to speak from the heart.

The 2020 Republican National Convention began tonight with Charlie Kirk, the 26 year-old student organizer who is a favorite among older conservatives. This may not seem like a great sign for Republicans promoting themselves as the adults in the room, but while Kirk might be more of a mascot than an actual influencer (Charlie Kirk doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page, come on), he is at the very least a political communicator who has reached his current level in life through his ability to resonate with some people. I may not be one of those people, but I also recognize that I am not the target demographic.

Tonight, the speaker docket included Mark and Patricia McCloskey. If you know who these people are by name, like I do, you are probably rather Online. If you don’t, you aren’t alone.

The McCloskeys rose to some level of internet fame two months ago when the married couple clumsily “defended” their house against Black Lives Matter protesters in a wealthy St. Louis neighborhood. When pictures of the two began to make the rounds on social media, they initially tried to claim support for the Black Lives Matter movement, but once conservative talk media started to call, they either dropped the façade or simply embraced the grift. The McCloskeys are a truly Online phenomenon—both are still gainfully employed, and while the two were charged with unlawful use of a weapon, there is almost no chance the two ever see any punishment (as an aside, while I find the McCloskeys obnoxious, I do not particularly care if they do).

But the McCloskeys got made fun of a whole bunch of Twitter for a couple days, which in the eyes of a particularly privileged type of voter, is the absolute worst thing that could happen to a person in 2020. This type of person, however, is almost certainly not a swing voter. While leftists were annoyed at the presence of John Kasich at last week’s DNC speaking in support of Joe Biden, there is a fairly obvious reason why—while the Never Trump Republican faction was never as big as its members want the public to believe it is, it does exist, and guys like Kasich who are somewhat conservative but are also rigorously norms-adherent are very much up for grabs. Millionaires who point guns at protesters and become internet pariahs are statistically insignificant. But in the eyes of Online, they are important figures.

The McCloskeys are not significant people. There is nothing heroic about them—even at the most generous interpretation of them, they are a couple of people who felt compelled to defend their property against potential destruction, no shots were fired, and the world continued on, same as it ever was. But they represent the concerns of a deeply Online president. There are hundreds of Republican congresspeople who will not participate in the Republican National Convention, and yet the sole participants in it from a state that has two Republican Senators and a Republican governor are the focus of memes.

When I was growing up, young people were told that the internet wasn’t real life. We still are, even as my generation is firmly in its late twenties to mid-thirties. It turns out that wasn’t the case.

2020 Team North America would win the World Cup of Hockey

In the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, the National Hockey League dropped all pretense of an honest best-on-best tournament. The NHL had an eight-team tournament planned out, but there is a clear top-six among international hockey teams. So two other teams were concocted, a Team Europe, consisting of the best European (and effectively the best non-North American) players from outside of the hockey-mad nations of Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Czech Republic, and a Team North America, consisting of the best players from North America age 23 and younger.

Team North America: 2016 Edition was not the best team in the tournament, and the final result reflected this, but it became the most entertaining part of the tournament. The roster was uneven but fast and exciting, and if you leaf through the names on it in 2020, it seems impossible the team ever lost a game.

There is no World Cup of Hockey 2020, and that’s not because the NHL season is still going on right as the tournament would be approaching—it’s because nothing fun is allowed to happen. But I wondered what would became of a hypothetical 2020 World Cup and I created what I would expect to be the eight teams in the tournament. I might share them later. But for now, I’m sharing the best team. And it ain’t Canada. It’s the young guns of Team North America.

Team North America is so good that it effectively decimates the roster of Team United States, and while Team Canada would still surely contend for the Gold Medal, they could really use some of the talent that is instead being funneled to the youngster roster. I want to pretend this team really exists because it is extremely fun and good and fun and good things are fun and good.

Goalies: Carter Hart, Mackenzie Blackwood, Jake Oettinger

I don’t really have much to say about Oettinger, a solid 21 year-old minor leaguer in the Dallas Stars organization. Barring injury, he would never even dress for TNA. The real headliners are Carter Hart and Mackenzie Blackwood, respectively 22 year-old and 23 year-old Canadians from the Metropolitan division who were teammates for Canada at the 2019 World Championships. Hart is slightly more acclaimed, after his career with the Philadelphia Flyers got off to a red-hot start which resulted in Calder votes in 2018-19, while Blackwood has the worse goals against average (though by save percentage, the more telling statistic, they’re nearly dead-even). Carter Hart has been the more consistent goalie, even if the Flyers’ team edge over the New Jersey Devils is a major contributing factor to that, so he would get the starts, but Blackwood would be waiting in the wings. Either of these guys could probably be the #2 goalie for a proper Team Canada behind Carey Price, though, so even though goalie tends to be a position for relatively old players, Team North America wouldn’t exactly be hurting.

Forward Line 1: Kyle Connor, Connor McDavid, Alex DeBrincat

2016 captain Connor McDavid is, somehow, still only 23, and comes back to captain Team North America despite the fact that he is more than capable of getting an “A” for Team Canada if he were allowed. As he is the best player in the world, it should be no surprise he is on the first line. He is flanked on his left side by another Connor, of the Kyle variety—the American winger is probably the second-best pure goal scorer on the roster, having eclipsed the 30-goal mark in each of the last two seasons with the Winnipeg Jets, including a career-best 38 in 2019-20. This will be Connor’s only chance at TNA, as he becomes ineligible in December, but he gets his shot in (fictional, imaginary) 2020. And on the right side is another sniper in Chicago Blackhawks right winger Alex DeBrincat, an undersized forward who had a down 2019-20 but tallied 41 goals in 2018-19. This is a line of pure offensive glory, and this is still a team that very much goes four lines deep.

Forward Line 2: Matthew Tkachuk, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner

Like the first line, this line has two Americans and one Canadian, but unlike the first line, it has a pair of actual linemates in Toronto Maple Leafs young guns Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Matthews, who will be a preposterous power play threat with McDavid, tallied 47 goals in 70 games last season and has 158 scores in his four-year NHL career, and Marner has been the main guy setting up Matthews—the duo are of split nationalities, so this is a last opportunity for them to play at an “international” level. And with Matthew Tkachuk, Marner’s OHL teammate with the London Knights, the line has a physical pest, but he’s far from a goon—the Calgary Flame is a nearly point-per-game player who can act as a crease-patrolling rebound artist.

Forward Line 3: Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jack Eichel, Brock Boeser

Although Pierre-Luc Dubois isn’t quite the volume scorer that Connor or Tkachuk is, he was nevertheless the leading scorer for a playoff Columbus Blue Jackets team and has proven capable as a big-bodied forward who can also win you a face-off from time to time (he actually has a higher winning percentage in his career than the center on this line). While Jack Eichel has been a bit overshadowed in his career compared to Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, the #2 pick in the 2015 NHL Draft is probably still America’s second-best center of any age (behind Matthews) and has scored more than a point per game for each of the last two seasons, tallying 36 goals and 42 assists with the Buffalo Sabres in 2019-20. And while Brock Boeser hasn’t quite reached the acclaim of Dubois or especially Eichel, he has proven to be a formidable power play presence with the Vancouver Canucks.

Forward Line 4: Jake Debrusk, Mathew Barzal, Travis Konecny

Line 4 is the conventional checking line, but on a team with this much talent from which to draw, this is a line good enough to be a first line on most NHL teams. Jake Debrusk is a terrific two-way forward who is often overshadowed among a stacked Boston Bruins forward corps, but his discipline and occasional scoring punch make him a formidable twelfth forward. Mathew Barzal is most definitely not the prototype of a fourth-line center, but the crisp-passing New York Islander is far too talented to exclude (and he’s gotten Selke votes, too, so it’s not as though he’s completely miscast). And Travis Konecny, a center for the Philadelphia Flyers but surely capable of playing on the wing, is coming off a career-high 61 points in 66 games, including 24 goals.

Defensive Pairing 1: Zach Werenski, Cale Makar

On the left side, Team North America gets Zach Werenski, the most established NHL defenseman of the group. He leads the defensive group in career goals and assists, and the Columbus Blue Jackets mainstay receives consistently glowing marks by Defensive Point Shares. Paired with the relative veteran Werenski is a youngster in Cale Makar, but one who is among the highest upside players on the entire roster. The 21 year-old Colorado Avalanche sensation tallied 50 points in 57 games and produced sterling defensive numbers to go with it. Even if his defense is somewhat less established than some of his righty alternatives, his offensive production makes him a strong first-pairing choice.

Defensive Pairing 2: Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy

Following a pairing with a relatively established lefty and a rookie righty, the second pairing for TNA flips the script. Quinn Hughes tallied 56 points and while the 20 year-old American has been largely overshadowed by his younger brother Jack, the Vancouver Canucks point man has been the superior NHL player. On the right side is Charlie McAvoy, an instant mainstay for the Boston Bruins who has spent most of the last three seasons on the top pairing for perpetual contenders. McAvoy helps to mask whatever questions are rightfully still asked about Hughes.

Defensive Pairing 3: Vince Dunn, Adam Fox

It undeniably lacks the punch of the top two pairings, but Team North America could certainly do worse than Dunn and Fox. While Vince Dunn is currently in the midst of a playoff series to forget with the St. Louis Blues, he has been a puck-possessing god for the last three seasons and packs a scoring punch. Adam Fox is less established, having just played his first NHL games last season and not being an especially acclaimed prospect prior to that, but he averaged over half a point per game with the New York Rangers and was a top-twenty player in the NHL by Defensive Point Shares last season. Dunn and Fox would presumably not play more than ten minutes or so a night, but each could fit well into the special teams picture, Dunn on the power play and Fox on the penalty kill.

Healthy Scratches: Jakob Chychrun, Clayton Keller

In addition to the aforementioned Jake Oettinger, a pair of Arizona Coyotes crack the roster as depth—Jakob Chychrun, a slightly poorer man’s version of Vince Dunn, and Clayton Keller, who might have been the best forward last season on a Coyotes team that has Phil Kessel on it. Yep, this team is absurdly good. They’re winning the fake gold medal in my head.

The (probably not happening) Stanley Cup handoffs, ranked

One of my favorite parts of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is the handoff of the Stanley Cup. It is an uncertain event, unlike the Cup being lifted (the Vegas Golden Knights do not have a captain, so there is some level of uncertainty there). And it is a high-floor event. Most years, we don't get Joe Sakic giving Ray Bourque his first Stanley Cup lift, nor Steve Yzerman handing it off to his paralyzed ex-teammate Vladimir Konstantinov, nor Scott Niedermayer handing off the Cup to his brother. But we get some captain handing the Cup off to some veteran and that's cool.

I suspect most people who are not fans of the St. Louis Blues don't even remember last year's hand-off, from Alex Pietrangelo to his longtime (former) defensive partner, title-less veteran Jay Bouwmeester. But it was cool. It was ordinary, but like I said, their standards of "ordinary" is very high.

Because of COVID-19, we probably aren't going to get a Stanley Cup handoff. We might not even get a Stanley Cup lift, which also stinks. But for now, I focus on the handoffs, even if they only exist in my dreams. Below is a ranking of the sixteen handoffs, based on my guess of what the handoff would be, as evaluated on the following criteria:

• Poignancy. We don't have any sibling handoffs this year, and there isn't an old guy without a Cup quite to the level of Ray Bourque, but some guys are more deserving than others.
• Hilarity. I love watching Vladimir Konstantinov, a man who had spent most of the prior year fighting for his life, wheeling the Stanley Cup around the ice. I also think it'd be really funny if someone dropped and broke the Stanley Cup. I am a complicated man.
• My own whims. It's my list and if you care how I rank things, that's your problem.

16. Chicago Blackhawks: Jonathan Toews hands off to Ryan Carpenter: The hilarity, if you can ignore the whole racist logo and "their best player is a violent criminal" thing, is a last-place team winning a Stanley Cup in a bogus playoff format partially designed to make sure they got to participate. The Blackhawks are a capped-out team because they invested heavily in re-signing the veterans who helped them win three Stanley Cups, and their roster reflects that to such an extent that Ryan Carpenter, a 29 year-old who has a career-high of 18 points in a season, is their most seasoned veteran without having won a title. Maybe they'll just give the Cup to Patrick Kane again. I hate this stupid team.

15. Arizona Coyotes: Oliver Ekman-Larsson hands off to Carl Soderberg: There is a Taylor Hall case, as he is certainly the biggest name on the roster to have not won a Stanley Cup (i.e. the most famous player that isn't Phil Kessel), but considering Hall just joined the Coyotes this season and may be gone once this playoff run is over, the safer pick is probably Carl Soderberg, a 34 year-old title-less two-way center who at least has spent the entire season on the Coyotes. He might be gone soon, too, but he fits the gritty veteran ethos a little more neatly.

14. New York Islanders: Anders Lee hands off to Derick Brassard: The Islanders actually have a bunch of veterans, but most of them aren't very interesting candidates. Brassard is the best and most presently useful of the lot that haven't won Stanley Cups, and a 33 (when the Cup is won) year-old who had a decent career is good enough for me.

13. Colorado Avalanche: Gabriel Landeskog hands off to Erik Johnson: Colorado doesn't have very many veterans, and the 32 year-old Erik Johnson is the team's second-oldest player. He isn't a star player, but Johnson has been on the Avalanche for over a decade and forged an adequate career as a second-pairing defenseman after his time as a #1 overall pick. If it weren't for 2019, the thought of Erik Johnson lifting the Stanley Cup for a team owned by For Legal Purposes Not Stan Kroenke would destroy my soul. Now, it only mildly irritates me.

12. Carolina Hurricanes: Jordan Staal hands off to Justin Williams: The big knock against Justin Williams is he's won the Stanley Cup. Three times. And he won a Conn Smythe. But he is the unquestioned veteran leader of this extremely young team, and none of the top players on the team, titleless as they may be, cannot wait their turns. Of their five leading scorers that haven't won Stanley Cups, the oldest was born in June of 1993 (and is presently hurt).

11. St. Louis Blues: Alex Pietrangelo hands off to Justin Faulk: The lack of options is inherently funny. The vast majority of the St. Louis Blues roster won the Stanley Cup last season, so the closest thing to a veteran star without a Cup is a 28 year-old guy who arrived less than a year ago. But Faulk is a former Olympian, so he's not a total non-entity in terms of NHL accomplishment. Marco Scandella, who is 30, would be funnier, but I just don't think he'd be the pick. Faulk's appeal here is entirely based on the humor of the situation, but he's slightly too good to be hilarious. Now, in a world where the Joel Edmundson trade never happens and the Cup is instead handed off to Scandella, who played with the Blues for less than a month before the postseason? That's fighting for #1.

10. Tampa Bay Lightning: Steven Stamkos hands off to Braydon Coburn: They might (correctly) go with Victor Hedman instead, but my money is on Braydon Coburn, the 35 year-old stay-at-home defenseman who has spent half a decade in Tampa and is "debuted with the Atlanta Thrashers" years old. I can't imagine Braydon Coburn wouldn't retire after this game if he wins the Stanley Cup. People love athletes going out on top.

9. Boston Bruins: Zdeno Chara hands off to Tuukka Rask: Technically, Rask already has a Cup win, but as a backup to current bunker resident Tim Thomas. This would be a lovely moment for Tuukka Rask, an unfairly maligned star who deserves more credit. We almost saw who the Bruins would've picked last year. Just a reminder that we didn't.

8. Vegas Golden Knights: Deryk Engelland hands off to Paul Stastny: The two oldest Cup-less Golden Knights are actually former Blues--Stastny and Ryan Reaves. Stastny is older and more accomplished, so while Reaves will come early in the process, Paul becoming the first Stastny to hoist the Stanley Cup would be more likely (I don't think it's impossible, if Marc-Andre Fleury reclaims the starting spot, if the veteran goalie got it first, but since he's already won, I think he'd defer). Because of Peter Stastny, a Hall of Famer who never won a title, there's some bonus points here, but the real highlight is Deryk Engelland, by far the least accomplished of the remaining captains and de facto captains, going full circle--he was a Las Vegas resident before the Golden Knights existed, having met his wife while playing in the ECHL in Las Vegas, and he gave a speech about the city's recovery from the Route 91 shooting prior to the team's first game. Stastny is worthy of a prime handoff, but it would be overlooked.

7. Philadelphia Flyers: Claude Giroux hands off to Jakub Voracek: The Flyers have two star Cup-less forwards in their thirties as options here, but Jakub Voracek gets the slight edge over James Van Riemsdyk based on a longer continuous run in Philadelphia (it doesn't hurt that he is also a better player). Brian Elliott could make a run if he were the starter, but if he were the starter, the Flyers wouldn't be winning the Stanley Cup, now would they?

6. Columbus Blue Jackets: Nick Foligno hands off to Cam Atkinson: It's hard to say "no" to a lifelong Blue Jacket who is the team's second-oldest non-captain (the oldest, Nathan Gerbe, is far less accomplished and less tenured as a member of the team). I can't pretend I'm hyper-enthusiastic about Cam Atkinson--a good but not elite player who is barely 31--but I'm fairly confident this would be the hand-off guy, so I want to boost it for that. I also wouldn't be opposed to just bringing Rick Nash out for it anyway.

5. Calgary Flames: Mark Giordano hands off to Mikael Backlund: At 31, Backlund is an older hockey player but not an Old Hockey Player, but he is a grizzled veteran of the Calgary Flames. There would be a certain poignancy to a couple guys who have been teammates through mostly thin times over eleven years in Calgary passing off the trophy to one another. The only older non-Giordano players are a late bloomer whose NHL grind is much briefer (Derek Ryan), a goalie who just arrived for this season (Cam Talbot), and a guy who already won a Cup (Milan Lucic).

4. Montreal Canadiens: Shea Weber hands off to Carey Price: This is a goalie I'm positive about. It doesn't hurt that any circumstance under which the Canadiens win the Cup almost certainly is the result of Carey Price standing on his head for a couple months. Carey Price is far and away the greatest Canadien since their last title, and if he didn't play for the greatest goaltending franchise in NHL history, he'd be viewed as among any other franchise's all-time greats. Also, he won a Gold Medal for Canada, which I'm pretty sure he means he, thanks to obscure bylaws, legally owns the Stanley Cup already anyway.

3. Vancouver Canucks: Bo Horvat hands off to Alexander Edler: I assume most casual Canucks fans think Edler is the captain anyway. The 34 year-old Swede is a career-long Canuck and an obvious link to the near-championship Sedin Twins era of the franchise. Edler was and is a decent defenseman for a franchise with a hilarious lack of good ones, so while Alex Edler lifting the Stanley Cup may not seem like much of a story, he might be the greatest one in the history of the team. And that counts for something.

2. Washington Capitals: Alex Ovechkin hands off to Ilya Kovalchuk: You wouldn't think a team that won the Stanley Cup two years ago would have much in the way of veteran options of the Cup handoff, but Ilya Kovalchuk, a 37 year-old Hall of Fame candidate, fits the bill. He is completely washed and only played in seven games for the Capitals, which is why he isn't in first on this list, but kudos to the Caps for managing this strong of a candidate given their recent history.

1. Dallas Stars: Jamie Benn hands off to Joe Pavelski: There are two Hall of Very Good level veterans that the Dallas Stars brought in this year. Luckily, Pavelski is easily the pick over Corey Perry because Pavelski is slightly older, hasn't won a Cup, and isn't a giant asshole. Ben Bishop would be a fine pick, even if goalies tend to get short-shrift on the handoff, and the younger but more integral Tyler Seguin would have an outside shot if he hadn't won a Stanley Cup with Boston in 2011, but Pavelski simplifies matters and is the gritty veteran worthy of your hopes and dreams this year.

The five St. Louis Blues most likely to make it into a best-on-best Olympic tournament

For as much as negotiations between sports leagues and their respective players’ unions have been fraught with awfulness and the need as a fan to weigh my desire for sports against my conscience telling me that peoples’ lives are being risked for my entertainment, the NHL’s has worked out fairly well. In the latest stage of COVID-19 testing, no players tested positive. And not only is there relative labor peace at least in the short term in the ways that return-to-play was codified, but a ripple effect is that the NHL agreed on a return of the league’s players to the Winter Olympics in 2022.

The Olympic men’s hockey tournament is by far my favorite event in either Summer or Winter Olympics. Basketball is great, but it is generally anticlimactic—the same country has won the Gold Medal in men’s basketball in six of the last seven years, since NBA players joined the fold, and the one time the United States didn’t win, we had a long and boring National Conversation about it. Hockey, when NHL players are involved, does produce a clear favorite in Canada, but it’s not nearly as dynastic. It’s the biggest sport in which the United States team are not prohibitive favorites but also have a percentage chance worth mentioning. And after the 2018 Olympic tournament was dominated by an informal team made of Russian players, at an advantage because the Kontinental Hockey League stopped play while the National Hockey League did not, it’s going to be fun to get the actual best players back in action in 2022, if COVID-19 is curtailed, which, um, here’s hoping.

The 2013-14 St. Louis Blues were well-represented in Sochi, but even though the 2019-20 team is objectively better, they are also a far more Canadian team. The 2013-14 squad was diverse, which allowed the Blues to have a player on five different teams. The Blues’ current roster only includes players from five different countries, and most of the high-end talent comes from our neighbors up north, who, again, have preposterous depth. A player like Tyler Bozak, who has absolutely no shot of making Team Canada, would be a prominent part of a majority of the teams in the tournament.

But if a best-on-best tournament were held today, which Blues would be the most likely participants?

I believe #1 is a fairly easy choice—Russian winger Vladimir Tarasenko. Tarasenko has been a mainstay on the Russian international men’s hockey team for the better part of a decade, and is an even more renowned player now than he was in 2014, when he featured prominently for the Olympic team. He is no worse than the fourth-best Russian winger in the NHL (Nikita Kucherov, Alex Ovechkin, and Artemi Panarin are probably a touch ahead of him, but Tarasenko is a clear fourth) and while the KHL is the second-strongest league in the world, unless Tarasenko truly hasn’t recovered from his early-season injury, Tarasenko is a must-have.

#2 is a fellow Olympic veteran—Alex Pietrangelo. Canada’s defense is very deep but isn’t quite as high-end as its unfathomable forward group. While Petro’s reputation had diminished somewhat in the several years after the 2014 Olympics, during which he paired with Blues teammate Jay Bouwmeester on a Gold Medal-winning team, he bounced back substantially in the season following his hoisting of the Stanley Cup—he ranked tied for fourth in Point Shares for defensemen when the 2019-20 regular season concluded, but first among Canadian defensemen. Even if Canada opted for a bit of a youth movement, opening things up for the Cales Makar of the world, Pietrangelo would seemingly be the front-runner for an elder statesman, medals-in-the-room kind of role. He is the safest right-handed defenseman Canada has—seemingly, this would make him a contender for first place, but the existence of guys like Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, and Brent Burns, all of whom are diminished from their peaks but have enjoyed illustrious reputations at one point or another, is enough to scare me ever so slightly off.

#3 is every bit the player of the top two, and is arguably slightly better, but Ryan O’Reilly, as a Canadian forward, is up against a gauntlet for playing time. Honestly, I don’t think he would play that many minutes. Let me list off the top Canadian forwards in the NHL by the highly scientific methodology of “overall rating on NHL 20”—Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Steven Stamkos, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, John Tavares. That’s seven names ahead of O’Reilly. Here are the guys tied with O’Reilly, who is tied for eighth—Tyler Seguin, Taylor Hall, Claude Giroux, Mark Scheifele, Mitch Marner, Brayden Point. I’ve listed 14 total players, and Canada would only dress 12 forwards (while bringing 1-2 more as depth). I think O’Reilly would still make it because he would make an impressive fourth-liner, given his defensive acumen (I also think this is why Mark Stone would make the roster even if NHL 20 criminally underrated him), but it’s possible they’d opt for the similarly skilled Patrice Bergeron and call it a day. It is entirely possible, if not likely, that, given Ryan O’Reilly’s past life as a left winger for the Colorado Avalanche, Canada could opt for a fourth-line of last year’s entire Selke finalist crop of O’Reilly, Bergeron, and Stone. My God.

There is a bit of a gap from #3 to #4, but incredibly, my pick for the fourth-most likely to crack a best-on-best roster is another Canadian—Jordan Binnington. And this is less a reflection on Binnington, a player who has simultaneously been impressive in relatively keeping up his 2018-19 Cinderella run but also has clearly not been as good as he was during that run, and more one on the relative dearth of Canadian goalies. Of the three from the 2014 team, one is retired (Roberto Luongo), one is outright bad (Mike Smith), and even the third, starting goalie Carey Price, isn’t what he was six years ago. That said, I think Carey Price is still probably the correct choice as starting goalie. But as for the next two slots, it’s an open field. Sandwiched between Price and Binnington among Canadian goalies in 2019-20 in Goalie Point Shares is Mackenzie Blackwood, who is even less seasoned than Binnington, and really, any argument against Binnington is a body-of-work one and not an NHL rate basis one. Ironically, by save percentage, the top qualified goalie from Canada is Binnington’s (Canadian) backup, Jake Allen. A few years ago, Braden Holtby was the obvious #2, but he regressed heavily this season. Old guard Quebecois Marc-Andre Fleury and Corey Crawford are both reasonable veteran picks, but neither is a shoo-in. Other young guys like Carter Hart or slightly older guys like Darcy Kuemper also have a case, but how many of these guys are definitely ahead of Binnington? You might as well throw some darts to decide.

But then comes #5, and the gap is jarring. Here are a few candidates.

• Colton Parayko is a very good player, but Canada. Even though Parayko looked every bit as good and often better than Alex Pietrangelo by the end of 2018-19, he scored at barely half the rate of Petro throughout the 2019-20 season. Parayko’s path to making Team Canada would involve beating out some of the Doughty/Weber/Burns generation (note: these players are absolutely not of the same generation), Kris Letang, Dougie Hamilton, Cale Makar, Ryan Ellis, and Aaron Ekblad on the right side—of all of these names, only Doughty trails Parayko in 2019-20 Point Shares. Parayko is a terrific player who would make most international teams. Just not Canada’s.
• The three leading goal scorers for the Blues in 2019-20 were David Perron, Brayden Schenn, and  Jaden Schwartz. These are all terrific players. They are also all Canadian forwards. With the possible exception of Claude Giroux, there isn’t a single player I listed in the “Ryan O’Reilly” section I would consider excluding in favor of any of these guys. But just for giggles, here are a few other Canadian forwards—Jonathan Toews, Jonathan Huberdeau, Reilly Smith, William Nylander, Mike Hoffman, Mathew Barzal. I haven’t even mentioned potential Canada Legacy Picks Jamie Benn or Matt Duchene. These guys are all wonderful and I love them very much. They would all merit consideration for any non-Canada team in the field. They also might not make an alternate Team Canada.
• Two 2014 medalists are still on the Blues, but Alex Steen and especially Jay Bouwmeester are well beyond being able to play for high-level international teams, even ignoring health issues.
• Ivan Barbashev and Oskar Sundqvist have become solid rotational players for the Blues and have the great privilege of not being Canadian. If they were from, say, Austria, I’d have them at #5 no problem. But, in addition to competing with terrific Russians and Swedes in the NHL, these two would face stiff competition from KHL and SHL stars for roster spots.
• Nathan Walker is the single-best player on his international team, which would seemingly make him a shoo-in for this list. But unfortunately, that team is Australia, the 35^th ranked men’s ice hockey team in the world. Australia has minimal chance of making the tournament, though if they did, Nathan Walker would easily crack the roster, so there’s that.
• Justin Faulk is a much better player than he let on in his first season in St. Louis, but as far as American right-side defensemen go, he would have absolutely no chance of beating out John Carlson, Seth Jones, or Charlie McAvoy for a spot in the lineup. Even as a potential healthy scratch, he has likely been passed for his 2014 role by Jeff Petry, Neal Pionk, and Jacob Trouba.

It seems crazy, but I’m picking another Canadian—Vince Dunn.

Canada is even weaker on the left side defensively than the right side (while left vs. right isn’t an absolute, Team Canada has adhered fairly religiously to this convention, and it’s generally a positive all other things being equal), which means at least mentioning Vince Dunn seems worthwhile. Defending Norris Trophy winner Mark Giordano had a down season but still probably makes the team. Going down the Point Shares list leads you to Shea Theodore, Ryan Graves, Darnell Nurse, and Giordano before arriving on Vince Dunn. Other notable names include Josh Morrissey and Thomas Chabot. Among this group, the best defensive metrics belong to Ryan Graves, the best offensive numbers belong to Thomas Chabot, and Dunn lands somewhere in the middle on both. My trio would likely be Giordano, Theodore, and Chabot, but given the sheer strength of Team Canada, this feels a tad underwhelming. Ultimately, Vince Dunn seems like a semi-rational pick, and given my struggles coming up with a number five, that’s good enough for me.

The Ten Minutes of “Free Bird”—Ranked

10. 9:00-9:07—This is the part where the song ends. The bastards.

9. 2:00-3:00—The song’s signature line technically starts in the second minute, but in this minute, we get most of the bulk of it: “..free as a bird now, and this bird you cannot change.” And for a twenty second or so stretch, one is led to believe that this song is about to really kick into gear. But then it reverts back to the ballad that is the first half of this song.

8. 3:00-4:00—The second verse isn’t as strong vocally as the first, but in the second part of it, the guitars start to kick into gear. Van Zant is still singing a ballad, but the guitarists behind him are gearing up for a party. The first half of this minute may be the weakest 30 seconds of the song, but by the second half, you are on the edge of your seat waiting for the song to burst out of its seams.

7. 1:00-2:00—The vocals kick in, and Ronnie Van Zant’s understatedly great lyrics begin. For me, a person who generally doesn’t care that much about lyrics, the ideal song has words that sounds good when sung but also aren’t completely cringeworthy when considered as a poem (I will always prioritize the former over the latter, hence why I love Oasis). Van Zant intentionally lacks any particular profundity but is still convincing in the role of instigator of a breakup as somebody who truly believes he is doing the other party a favor.

6. 0:00-1:00—The first minute of “Free Bird” opens as an almost-funereal processional. The opening keyboards belong in the church; the subsequent opening guitar belongs to the burial. The song is famously a tribute to the late Allman Brothers guitarist Duane Allman, so it is appropriate that such a tribute would have the bearings of both a funeral and an incredible, epic guitar jam.

5. 5:00-6:00—The first 20 seconds of guitar soloing are great and they are fun, but they are also somewhat typical. This isn’t an insult—I’m somebody who loves every single guitar solo Steve Jones ever recorded with the Sex Pistols. But around 5:15, the fact that Lynyrd Skynyrd did not care whatsoever about individual accolades becomes abundantly clear. Oh cool, Cream, you have three members? We have no fewer than three guitarists on any given song, and maybe Allen Collins and Gary Rossington aren’t going to be inner-circle famous guitarists but our sound is going to be legendary.

4. 8:00-9:00—“Free Bird” sounds improvised, which is amazing given that, despite their owing a debt of gratitude to the Allman Brothers, legendary improvisers, Lynyrd Skynyrd were a stridently professional and rehearsed band. Everything they did was orchestrated. It’s probably for the best—this song could have been terrible had they not had some sense of direction. And instead, it rules.

3. 6:00-7:00—For all of the attention “Free Bird” gets as a guitar jam, can we talk for a second about the drumming? It may not be complex but Bob Burns bashes those things so that you can hear them over three damn guitars, and to the extent that I headbang (inadvertently, as a muscular twitch), it isn’t to the guitar—it’s to the drum beat. And that includes the proto-Van Halen finger tapping of the second half of this minute.

2. 7:00-8:00—BOB DAMN BURNS Y’ALL. The drumming is absolutely relentless and the guitars are chaotic and by the time this minute ends, I’m halfway through a brick wall.

1. 4:00-5:00—The finger-tapping of the second chorus. “Lord help me I can’t cha-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-aaa-ange!” The first five seconds of a guitar solo that, even in its opening notes, clearly has a mind of its own. In a way, these are the only sixty seconds of “Free Bird” that matter. If you don’t like this minute, you aren’t going to like the song. And if you don’t like the song, I appreciate you reading this, but I can’t imagine why you are.

The reasons for fearing a Democrat Donald Trump

As is the case in most fields, a successful electoral campaign tends to lead to its successors to be compared to it. Just as every commercially and critically successful rock band since 1964 has been called "the next Beatles" and every high-end outfield prospect in baseball is likened by somebody to Mike Trout, there is a new, perpetual question surrounding Democratic politics--finding the Democrat version of Donald Trump.

Lately, inevitably from the left (well, the center-left, but not generally from the right-wing media sphere), that label has been assigned to Bernie Sanders, the openly socialist Senator from Vermont who is among the leaders to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. Referring to him as "the Democratic Trump" is meant as a self-evident pejorative when hurled by the MSNBC center-left commentariat, just as it is meant as a self-evident pejorative when Fox News and such refer to him as a socialist.

Before I continue any further in discussing Bernie Sanders, a man who manages to somehow have both the most obnoxious supporters and detractors on the internet among Democratic presidential candidates, I should state that I did not vote for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries and that he is not, in a vacuum, my favorite candidate in the 2020 field. Of the big five candidates on the Democratic field, I would rank them Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Joe Biden, and Pete Buttigieg, though I would happily vote for any of the five in a general election against Literally Donald Trump. I am open to the possibility (perhaps probability, at this point) that I'll vote for Sanders during the Missouri presidential primary, if Elizabeth Warren no longer has a viable shot at winning the nomination. But this is mostly irrelevant to the larger point I am making here--it just feels like a necessary disclosure.

The problem I have with labeling Sanders as the Democratic Trump is that it is unclear what is meant by that. It is unclear why those implying a distaste for Trump ever developed such a distaste. Those who comment on politics on MSNBC, nominally the furthest left of the big three cable news networks, are ironically the most aggressively opposed to the candidate who is certainly the furthest left of the candidates. And just as sports commentators tend to be former employees of professional sports leagues (as players, coaches, or front office personnel), political commentators tend to be former politicians, speechwriters, or political organizers. They are people who have lived their adult lives within the power structure and tend to support candidates who operate within those parameters. It's the same reason most Republican and ex-Republican political operatives tended to oppose Donald Trump until it became readily apparent that Donald Trump was the Republican Party.

Here is a brief, incomplete list of reasons I do not like Donald Trump: I think he's racist; I think he's stupid; I think he cares more about enriching himself and his own vanity than he cares about anybody else, much less those who need help the most. I don't believe Bernie Sanders to be any of those things, especially the latter. But there are some things that Trump and Sanders do have in common. Both are compelling figures who are capable of energizing large crowds of supporters (even if the former tends to exaggerate about the size of them). Both are able to encourage previously disengaged voters to care about their causes. Both are able to transcend objectively mediocre public speaking skills not because they are poetic orators like, say, Barack Obama, but because they are able to speak with passion that resonates with voters who have spent their entire lives believing that better things are not possible.

If the second half of the previous paragraph sounded like I was speaking well of Donald Trump--well, I was! There are good qualities about Donald Trump! These qualities are more than evaporated by the extremely lousy qualities about him, but when I fear a politician has Trump-like qualities, it's because I fear they are misogynists or lunatics who care more about NFL players kneeling for the Star-Spangled Banner than they are about homelessness. I don't even mind how much Donald Trump tweets--I just wish the tweets were coming from a better person.

There are absolutely arguments against voting for Bernie Sanders, but the notion that I shouldn't want to vote for him because he has a lot of supporters is patently ridiculous. Anti-Sanders media has peddled a narrative recently articulated by Joe Biden that Sanders is unelectable because Americans would never elect a socialist, omitting the fact that every Democratic presidential candidate since I became aware of presidential politics (Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton) was routinely referred to as a freedom-hating socialist, and the fact that the only one of these four candidates who actually ran in the primaries to the left of the party establishment was the only one of the four candidates who acutally won the general election.

I find Pete Buttigieg to be a disingenuous huckster who stands for absolutely nothing beyond his own blind ambition and overall desire to be president, but if one could assure me that he was the candidate who would definitely beat Donald Trump, I'd support his candidacy in a heartbeat. But this was the same argument used by Hillary Clinton in 2016. I don't think Bernie Sanders would have beat Donald Trump because I believe the Democratic Party as a whole did not take Donald Trump sufficiently seriously independent of their own candidate in 2016, but that's not the point--the point is that electability was the center of the argument for Hillary Clinton. And now, the same pundits who argued for Clinton not on ideological grounds but on strategic political grounds are arguing that Bernie Sanders is uniquely incapable of running against Doiinald Trump. Maybe he is, but these pundits should not be trusted as a matter of fact. They need reasoning. They aren't supplying it.

A more generous reading of MSNBC concern over Sanders is that their commentators lean older and they are forever traumatized by George McGovern, an unabashed liberal, being trounced in 1972 by Richard Nixon, which ignores the fact that Nixon, generally popular, was going to be the overwhelming favorite in November against any living Democratic politician. But an even more generous reading is that maybe the centrist Democrats in media power genuinely do not believe in socialism. But this argument is rarely, if ever, made. And frankly, I wish it would be made, because I want to see if Bernie Sanders (or to a lesser extent Elizabeth Warren, who does not self-identify as a socialist but is certainly closer to Bernie Sanders on the political spectrum than the other major candidates on the Democratic ballot) can handle questioning of the core of his ideology. But just yelling that he's a socialist isn't going to be an effective tactic if you've already use that label on, um, John Kerry?

If the Democratic candidate were somebody who championed social and economic justice while also having Donald Trump's ability to galvanize and energize voters, I would vote for that person in a heartbeat. I'm not sure if that person is Bernie Sanders, but those who refer to him as the Democratic Donald Trump certainly seem to believe he is. Though I suppose this would require me to have more faith in the political skills of Claire McCaskill than I currently do.

I do not owe the Kansas City Chiefs my loyalty

Twenty years ago today, St. Louis won its first major professional sports championship of my lifetime, and to this date, it was the happiest a sporting event has ever made me. It was the culmination of a thrilling worst-to-first campaign for the St. Louis Rams which saw a backup quarterback become an MVP and a perennial doormat of a franchise become champions. In retrospect, the Rams’ run of futility was not nearly as long nor as lowly as what was to come, but it had encompassed my entire time as a sports fan.

A little over four years ago, the team to which I devoted two decades of my Sundays was gone. Removed from existence. Following a transparently fraudulent campaign in which Stan Kroenke purchased the Rams and immediately gutted the organization of basic needs in order to justify a relocation to Los Angeles, the owners almost unanimously voted to take my team away from me.

Both Clark Hunt and John York, the owners of the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers respectively, voted for the end of the St. Louis Rams. They did it for the same reason NFL owners do pretty much everything, and it’s the same reason Stan Kroenke wanted to relocate the Rams to LA in the first place: it made them money.

One could argue that, aside from Kroenke, this Super Bowl features the two owners which have most benefited from the relocation of the Rams. The Los Angeles Rams were a long-time rival of the San Francisco 49ers dating back to the 1970s and there is more zest to the rivalry when both teams are in California. And with the Rams out of the picture, the Chiefs were able to position themselves as Missouri’s professional football team.

To be clear, there are numerous arguments for rooting for or against either team in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs have a hyper-likable quarterback in Patrick Mahomes and an affable coach in Andy Reid who is near the top of any list of best coaches to never win the Super Bowl. They also employ and prominently feature a particularly egregious domestic abuser in Tyreek Hill, and as somebody who will be watching the Super Bowl with multiple people of Native American ancestry, it’s hard for me to justify rooting for a team that still actively encourages (very successfully) its fans to engage in the gleefully racist Tomahawk Chop. The 49ers have a fun cast of characters, and as somebody who like all good and true Americans hates the New England Patriots, seeing Jimmy Garoppolo hoisting the Lombardi Trophy would be deeply funny. They are also an organization that led the blackballing of Colin Kaepernick and now has a unit led by Kaepernick’s political opposite, MAGA-fied defensive end Nick Bosa.

But there is no looming sense that I, a St. Louisan, ought to root for the 49ers. I’m sure they’d love my support (well, they probably don’t care unless I start buying some merchandise) but there is no expectation that they would receive it. But the Kansas City Chiefs, four hours west along I-70 from me, have that expectation. The Chiefs shrewdly associated themselves with the St. Louis Blues’ 2019 championship run, with Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce wearing Blues sweaters to playoff games. I’ve never found supposed regional synergy between teams that don’t have the same ownership to be more than a marketing gimmick, but that doesn’t make the marketing gimmick inherently bad.

But then I remember the cold, rainy, depressing day in January 2016 when I lost my team. And for all of my contempt for the obvious villains—Stan Kroenke and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones the most obvious among them—I felt a seething hatred for those who pretended to care about St. Louis and, when it came time to take action, followed along with the cartoonish evil of Kroenke. Shad Khan, the Jacksonville Jaguars owner with semi-local roots who had attempted to buy the Rams before Kroenke came in with an eleventh hour offer, voted for relocation. The Green Bay Packers, who will monetize the chance to tell you that they aren’t owned by greedy billionaires but rather by “The Fans” any day of the week, nevertheless did the bidding of billionaires in voting for the move (this wouldn’t be the last time in 2016 that Wisconsin would yield to the whims of the hyper-rich). And the Kansas City Chiefs, who would spend the ensuing four years pretending to be a safe refuge for spurned St. Louis Rams fans, voted to strip the Rams from St. Louis.

By almost all accounts, only two NFL owners voted against the Rams relocation, and each did it for such selfish reasons that I can’t even tip my cap to them—the Oakland Raiders did it because they wanted to be the ones to head to Los Angeles and deprive Oakland for a second time of its football team (they instead are packing up and heading to Las Vegas so that a team once beloved by a blue-collar, working-class fan base can become a tourist trap for wealthy vacationers), and the Cincinnati Bengals did it because they didn’t want a bump in the salary cap (inevitable with increased league revenues) and they don’t want to fairly compensate the men dying young for the sake of their product. It became very obvious that day that the NFL didn’t care about my fandom. None of them deserve it.

If the Kansas City Chiefs wanted my active fandom, they squandered that opportunity on January 12, 2016. I won’t be rooting against them on Sunday because they voted to relocate, because they won’t be the only organization represented that did so, but they forfeited my willingness to overlook the problematic nature of the organization. Like every NFL game, I’m simply rooting for the lesser of two evils. At least I don’t have to root for the Patriots this year.

There’s something to the “St. Louis is acting like spurned lovers: you have to get on with your life” attitude many, especially outside of St. Louis, have. But the solution isn’t embracing the Chiefs (or the Colts, or the Bears, or any of the other semi-regional teams that voted for and profited through relocation). The Chiefs aren’t the new romantic interest that helps you overcome your jadedness from your last bad experience: they’re the person that actively contributed to the destruction of your last relationship. If a romantic relationship ended because of a massive, collusive effort involving everybody in the world, I’d probably want to be alone for a while. And I think I’ll stick without an NFL team for as long as I see fit.