A shared joy of the sport has united Canada for much of its history. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult – and expensive – to watch games on television

The Oilers lost to the Detroit Red Wings on 26 October, but Edmonton captain Connor McDavid got an assist anyway. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Just 16 games into the year, McDavid has 31 assists. It’s the fastest anyone has ever hit that milestone in any NHL season. But on that night in late October, many fans in Edmonton were unable to see McDavid’s feats – including patrons of a local bar – because it was one of nine Oilers games this season that are only available via a subscription to a premium streaming service.

It’s the same story in every Canadian NHL city, thanks to changes to broadcasts that have meant that a handful of games for each team are now only available with a $12.99 per month subscription to Sportsnet+, a streaming channel owned by Canadian telecom juggernaut – and owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs – Rogers Communications Inc. But it’s not just Sportsnet+. The NHL also expanded its broadcast deal with Amazon, so when, two nights after the game against Detroit, the Oilers played their provincial rival, the Calgary Flames, only Amazon Prime subscribers could watch (true to form, McDavid got two assists in that one).

Players across the league are leaving their teams up north to return home. It’s prompted questions around money, tax rates, geopolitics and respect

Back in September 1925, Frederick Wilson, sports editor at the Globe, explained the fear among hockey fans that Canadian teams might not be able to compete for players against the new US teams like New York or Boston that were entering the pro league. “Will it be a matter of money?” Wilson headlined his piece. And for about a century, money was the recurrent nexus of the Canadian hockey panic, proven by franchise departures and depleted buying power.

At the time, Wilson reassured everyone that, no matter the big US cash, everyone on the ice would be Canadian anyway. “It will be some years before the [US] will be in a position to furnish players,” he wrote. He was right about that. It took a long time for the US to catch up to Canada in on-ice talent. But now that it has, should we expect Americans to want to play anywhere else than the US? For 100 years Canada has worried that the US would just buy all the best hockey players. But now it makes its own and, as the new NHL season gets underway on Tuesday night, they want to go home.

When the Hurricanes arrived in North Carolina, many saw them as a relocation folly destined to fail. One man has helped change that narrative

Rod Brind’Amour is made for the playoffs. The Carolina Hurricanes coach made his NHL debut in the postseason in 1989, filling in for the St Louis Blues in a game against the Minnesota North Stars. He scored on his first shot. Still, it took him 17 seasons in the NHL before he hoisted the Stanley Cup in 2006 as captain of the Carolina Hurricanes, the team he has now led to another Cup win as head coach. “The fear of losing motivates you a lot of times,” he told reporters after that 2006 Cup win.

Wherever the motivation came from this year, the result is the same. The Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 in Game 6 on Sunday to win the Stanley Cup for the second time in franchise history, exactly 20 years since they did it last.

The newly crowned Olympic champions were warmly greeted by both Republicans and Democrats. They were also used as props by the president

During Tuesday’s State of the Union, Donald Trump welcomed members of the US men’s national hockey team to the House gallery to chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!”. Trump revealed that Team USA’s goaltender, Connor Hellebuyck, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “What special champions you are,” Trump told the players, who had beaten Canada on Sunday in the gold medal game of the Winter Olympics.

In Trump’s America, proximity is never neutral.