If you squint just right, the Seattle Kraken look less like an ice-hockey franchise and more like a geopolitical Rorschach test—inkblot-blue jerseys smeared across the Pacific Rim to see who flinches first. From Reykjavík boardrooms tracking NHL expansion fees against cod futures, to Singaporean data analysts crunching “expected goals” on servers that also monitor tanker…
**Wings of Empire: How a Failing Hockey Team Became America’s Most Honest Metaphor** The Detroit Red Wings, that storied franchise of broken dreams and frozen knuckles, has achieved something remarkable in our post-truth era: they’ve become the most accurate barometer of American decline that money can buy. While Washington polishes its exceptionalism narrative and Silicon…
Jamie Benn, the Vancouver-born left wing whose name sounds like an off-brand British bank, has spent the better part of fifteen years proving that even in a league that stretches from Helsinki condos to Arizona parking lots, one mildly irritable Canadian can still tilt the planet’s emotional axis. While the NHL remains stubbornly North-American-centric—like a…
Ace Bailey and the Curious Global Afterlife of a 1930s Hockey Casualty By “Scoop” Delacorte, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker Foreign Desk The first thing you notice, leafing through yellowing copies of the Toronto Star at the Hockey Hall of Fame’s basement archive, is how politely Canada once reported its on-ice manslaughters. “Bailey Sustains Severe Head…
The New York Rangers: How a Hockey Team Became the World’s Most Expensive Metaphor for Late-Stage Capitalism By Dave’s International Bureau of Existential Sports When the New York Rangers skate onto the ice at Madison Square Garden, they do so beneath a jumbotron roughly the size of Liechtenstein and in front of a crowd whose…
From Anaheim to Ankara: How a Cartoon Waterfowl Became a Global Rorschach Test By Our Correspondent, still jet-lagged in a Sheraton near LAX ANAHEIM—The arena gates open at 5 p.m. and a flood of humanity pours in: Danish exchange students wearing Teemu Selänne jerseys they found on Depop, a South Korean tour group clutching Mickey…
Icebound Empire: How 32 NHL Teams Quietly Became the World’s Most Expensive Export By the time the Zamboni’s final lap glistens like a freshly minted credit card, most spectators have already forgotten that the National Hockey League is less a North American pastime than an accidental global franchise. Yes, the rinks are still refrigerated with…
Anže Kopitar: The Slovenian Who Quietly Colonized Hollywood’s Ice While the Rest of the World Was Busy Doom-Scrolling By Dave’s Locker’s chief correspondent for “Countries You Forgot Existed but Still Produce NHL Royalty” Los Angeles—The city where Botox is tax-deductible and every waiter is one audition away from being the next Spider-Man—has, for the better…
Marc-André Fleury and the Great Geopolitical Face-Off By our man in the crease, watching the world slide five-hole MONTREAL—While diplomats in Geneva trade barbs over whose turn it is to nearly start World War III, a 38-year-old goalie from Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, has quietly become the most reliable border guard on the planet. Marc-André Fleury’s latest…
If you squint past the glare of the Zamboni’s headlights and the polite Scandinavian hush of Minnesota’s Xcel Energy Center, you’ll spot the same phenomenon that’s unfolding in Singaporean data centers, Congolese cobalt pits, and every Swiss banker’s encrypted inbox: raw, uncut Russian talent being vacuumed westward before the motherland figures out how to bolt…
