While hockey is generally not near the top of the U.S. sports pecking ladder in viewership or revenue, it keeps coming up in politics. From the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series to the 1980 U.S. Olympic “Miracle on Ice” win over Russia to this year’s Canada-U.S. 4 Nations Face Off final to Alex Ovechkin breaking Wayne Gretzky’s NHL goals record, hockey has long been politicized.
And a Toronto Star editorial cartoon from Theo Moudakis on Wednesday managed to combine the since-1993 Stanley Cup drought for Canadian teams with recent debates about U.S. extrajudicial deportations:
Please enjoy my cartoon for Thursday’s @TorontoStar pic.twitter.com/GTqzS2a588
— Theo Moudakis (@TheoMoudakis) April 23, 2025
There are obvious Canada-U.S. tensions at the moment. Those include auto tariffs (and threatened wider tariffs) from American President Donald Trump’s administration, reciprocal action from Canada (set for its own election Monday), and more. There’s also the overarching threat of Trump’s “51st state” comments on Canada, which came up during the aforementioned 4 Nations discussion (and even led to a protest there from Canadian anthem singer Chantal Kreviazuk) and have fueled much of the recent discussion around Gretzky.
Around that, it’s not perhaps surprising to see Canadian editorial cartoons tweaking U.S. policies. It’s also not surprising to see references to the since-1993 Stanley Cup drought for Canadian teams, as that’s often discussed north of the border. But it is interesting to see that Stanley Cup drought worked into a highly critical editorial cartoon commentary on current U.S. actions.