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Dans les coulisses

Justin Trudeau’s mocking of Gary Bettman this morning shocked Renaud Lavoie

This morning, the WNBA officially announced an expansion to Toronto. This will be the first Canadian team on a circuit that is currently booming in popularity.

The wave of new recruits to the circuit, led by Caitlin Clark, is giving the league wings.

Justin Trudeau was on hand this morning for the occasion, and took the opportunity to praise the work of the WNBA commissioner, noting that she was “bigger than Gary Bettman”.

It was a joke meant to be, I daresay, harmless… but it didn’t go over well with everyone.

Of the lot, Renaud Lavoie, who simply can’t believe it, as he gossiped during his appearance on JiC tonight:

After that, you want a club in Quebec City. You want hockey in Canada to work and you want the NHL to love Canada. – Renaud Lavoie

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Clearly, the tipster isn’t convinced this was the right thing to do, especially since he adds that Trudeau “gets indignant all the time when a bad word is said about someone.”

I’m going to agree with Lavoie on this one: was it really necessary to make such a comment? It seems a bit more clumsy than anything else, even if it was meant to be inoffensive.

I wonder how Bettman took it this morning. Was he really offended by it, or did he find a way to laugh it off?

And above all, will it really change anything in his relationship with Canada (and, eventually, in the case of the return of a team to Quebec City)?

Perhaps the Prime Minister feels it’s better to put his eggs in the professional basketball basket than the professional hockey one. There’s only one team in Toronto at the moment, but remember that for the WNBA franchise, games will be played in Montreal and Vancouver during the team’s first season, in 2026.

In bursts

– The talk continues.

– Notice to interested parties.

– A rather unusual situation.