02/20/25 Afternoon CommStock Report –

The sport that headlines the culture of many peoples living north of I-90 to somewhere in the arctic this time of year is ice hockey. We traveled to St. Paul to a professional hockey match once just to say that we did. It was entertaining. I did note that many on the Minnesota Wild team roster were Canadians. The US played Canada in a big match-up in Montreal recently and if you like fist-fights along with your hockey it was the game of the decade. It was held in Canada and when they played the US national anthem in the opening ceremony, the predominantly Canadian crowd booed loudly and persistently. They must have had something on their minds.   The US team was visibly ticked. They barely commenced with the face-off and the gloves were coming off and punches were being exchanged. The refs would stop one fight and another would erupt. 4 US players ended up sitting in the penalty box. It was a contact game and despite some penalty floor advantage for Canada, the US team managed some defense and won 3 to 1. The Canadian crowd was visually deflated like they had been gut-punched. Having been asked…