Gordie Howe was known as
Mr. Hockey but that came much later in his life.
Among opposing players at the height of his career, however, Howe was known as Mr. Elbows for his dirty, vicious style. God help the man skating with his head down when Howe was on the ice.
Politics, like hockey, brings out teamwork, perseverance and sportsmanship, but also cruelty and cheap shots, especially during the high-stakes games.
The Vancouver Canucks may be out of the Stanley Cup playoffs but the current provincial election is filled with both fine politicking and brutal mudslinging.
The carefully crafted platforms, the orchestrated public events, the knowledge of local issues and the articulate performances at all-candidate debates are the stickhandling, skating, shooting and scoring of the election. The rumour mill, the personal jabs, the fearmongering, the lies and exaggerations, the grandstanding and the showboating are the interference, hooking, holding, highsticking, spearing and fighting of the election.
As in hockey, so it is in politics that the rough stuff is entertaining for the fans and there's no path to victory without it.
Provincially, both campaigns are cheerfully churning out ads slagging individual candidates and particularly the party leaders. News outlets are receiving a steady barrage of emails, encouraging reporters to ask candidates about Facebook posts comparing cops to Nazis, emails they sent dismissing racial and gender equity and off-the-cuff remarks they made to reporters that run contrary to the party platform.
In other words, it's politics and electioneering as usual.
So far, this campaign is a carbon copy of the 2013 election.
The NDP had a strong first week, with leader John Horgan getting some good buzz about his balanced budget pledge and his promises to help renters and Lower Mainland drivers who have to pay a toll to use the Port Mann bridge.
Horgan's version of a nifty backcheck to steal the puck was when he wondered why Surrey and Langley commuters are paying a premium to use the Port Mann but commuters in Kelowna and particularly in Christy Clark's home riding of Kelowna West aren't paying to use the Bennett bridge over Okanagan Lake.
In 2013 and again last week, the Liberals started slow, focusing on their core supporters, getting them engaged through a combination of bragging about past accomplishments and inciting the NDP menace with a "remember the 1990s" warning.
It was only in the last two weeks of the 2013 campaign, which included the televised debate, where Clark and the Liberals got serious on a provincial level about attracting undecided voters.
That message boiled down to stressing Clark's administrative competence and earnest caring about families while insisting now was not the time for change.
If the Liberals are simply dusting off the 2013 playbook for 2017, they may be in for a rude surprise in three weeks. The status quo candidate preaching competence and caring in the 2015 Canadian federal election (Stephen Harper) and the 2016 U.S. federal election (Hillary Clinton, promising to continue Barack Obama's legacy) were pushed aside by more inexperienced candidates with flimsy agendas of change, sunny ways and greatness again.
The 2013 playbook worked for the Liberals not due to smarter strategy but because their candidates - and Clark in particular - campaigned as if they were the only ones who thought they had a shot at winning.
That's a powerful motivation for success.
Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Nashville Predators, both unexpectedly leading in their first-round battles against teams that were expected to defeat them easily.
Four years ago, the Liberals campaigned hard and rough, employing tactics both fair and foul, to win the election. The NDP under Adrian Dix played a safe, defensive game and lost. What works and what doesn't seems clear.
The Gordie Howe hat-trick is the nickname for when player scores a goal, assists on another goal and spends five minutes in the penalty box for fighting in the same game. It is hockey shorthand for doing whatever it takes to win.
Ironically, Howe only had two of them in a career that spanned six different decades.
Rick Tochett, the current assistant coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, did it 18 times - the most in NHL history.
Winning on the score sheet and winning with the gloves off. It makes for both exciting hockey and riveting politics.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
