Hot Oil: The Ivory (or is that ovary) Tower Dissertation

Not content to let the Toronto Sun monopolize three days of straight front-page coverage on the Tie Domi/Belinda Stronach tryst, in today's Globe and Mail Michael Valpy weighs in on Belinda as a lightning rod of Canadian public opinion at the intersection of sex, politics, and hockey. While normally this subject would be beneath my contempt, a killer quote in the Valpy article caught my attention, in large part because it was supplied by friend, neighbor, Oiler-lover and former grad school classmate Amy Nugent, described by Valpy as "Amy Nugent of Edmonton, a doctoral candidate in Canadian politics who studies women in public life":

It is part of a Canadian woman's genetic disposition to be sexually attracted to good skaters and hockey players, part of our Darwinian struggle. Nothing sets my ovaries humming like the spray of ice from a hockey stop. It's grace, strength, hockey-coach-for-your-kids, the measure of a Canadian man. I was never a puck bunny, but I get it.

I am reticent to put the Belinda-Tie affair on the same plane as Canadian zeitgeist, despite fevered reactions to the article on the Globe's message board. However one need look little further than the lurid, hilarious gushing on Hot Oil to confirm Amy's observation.

The vitriol reserved for Belinda in some corners as a floor-crossing, man-eating, marriage-breaking political opportunist is balanced out by the multiplying celebrity factor of a dalliance with the Leaf's (former yet forever) big-hearted tough guy. Any chance that Belinda's erratic moves in public life could threaten her chances of electoral victory are nullified by the fact that in Newmarket-Aurora, Tie Domi equals good politics.

All of which leads me to conclude: Georges Laraques for Prime Minister.