Pregame tweet about Team Canada beating the U.S. for Gord Downie came beautifully true

By Steve Newton

Yesterday at 5 pm Pacific, like millions of other red-blooded Canadians, I was hunkered around the TV, hotly anticipating the championship game of the Four Nations Face-Off hockey tournament.

Canada was playing its longtime rivals the United States, in a rivalry made extremely bitter recently by backstabbing threats of tariffs and annexation by president Donald Trump–not to mention three fights in nine seconds when the teams met five days earlier.

As someone who vividly remembers going absolutely bonkers in junior high when Paul Henderson scored for Canada, beating Russia in the 1972 Summit Series, I was pumped with patriotism to see my beloved country take the gold again.

The broadcast started with the familiar sound of “Blow at High Dough”, one of the biggest hit songs by the Tragically Hip, who were arguably Canada’s best band, unless you’re a Rush fan. Wanting to document the moment, I froze the TV while members of Team Canada were being shown, then went and grabbed a copy of the 2018 book I’d written about the group and its late frontman, Gord Downie.

I held the book up and took a photo with the TV in the background, then quickly tweeted it with the message “let’s win it for Gord, guys.” #GoCanada

A couple hours later the Team Canada player pictured in the tweet, Connor McDavid, fired the puck past American goalie Connor Hellebuyck for the glorious overtime win.

It’s cool to know that McJesus closely follows me on Twitter.