Jack Todd: You can bet there are worse things than an RBC ad on a Habs t-shirt

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The logo is small and attractive like bank logos: a stylized lion kicking a globe.

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That the bank behind that logo was once the Royal Bank and that the image accurately evokes the predatory relationship between the former British Empire and the world is a coincidence.

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It is enough that the logo is there, desecrating the Sainte-Flanelle. Cause enough for an uproar, in the eyes of some.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just running out of anger. I see no reason for a big fuss over that little patch.

Would you rather the Canadiens hadn’t gone the way of the other 31 NHL teams in allowing advertising on uniforms? Absolutely.

Will I punch the clouds (summoning even more Old Man Screaming at the Clouds GIFs of gawking nuzzles)? No, I won’t.

We’ve had advertising on the rink since the days when ads at each Canada Cup were a primary source of income for Alan Eagleson. (The Gazette photo showing a row of Habs players on the bench slumped weakly over the Viagra sign still a classic.)

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We cannot approach a sports stadium without being bombarded by brands. If the track boards aren’t enough, there’s always the mighty scoreboard overhead, backed up by speakers the size of Volkswagens to get the message across.

I hope the NHL doesn’t go the European route and put flashy advertising on every hockey jersey, because those are by far the ugliest uniforms in the sport. But a little patch on a hockey jersey?

There are more important things to worry about.

In a span of six months, perhaps less, the game has taken over professional sports on this continent: locks, stocks and smoking barrels. FanDuel in particular is now ubiquitous, to the point where it’s impossible to watch 10 minutes on any sports network without the betting giant rearing its head like Godzilla over Tokyo.

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And it’s not just FanDuel. Once-respectable reporters who earned their spurs chasing quotes from frustrated gamblers who are inarticulate at best now bring us the ultimate in betting lines. The insufferable Luke (Man Bun) Willson, who has apparently spent some time with NFL teams, is suddenly a thing, as if the cabbie isn’t bad enough.

When I saw that the relatively serious sport of curling is now involved in something called the PointsBet Invitational, I knew the game was up. The game now rules and the rest of us will just have to accept it: FanDuel is simply the most visible entity changing the way we consume and engage with spectator sports.

When I first heard about FanDuel, I assumed there was a bunch of crooked-nosed kids somewhere behind it, but the first big investor in FanDuel was a private equity house called Shamrock Capital Advisors, a firm founded by Roy E. Disney. and now run by his hacienda. There have been bumps in the road, including a failed attempt to merge with DraftKings in 2017 that forced FanDuel to give existing investors more capital, but by 2021, FanDuel was showing its might in the NFL draft, which is almost as big like him gets.

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Now it seems that every available personality, from former TSN host Dan O’Toole to Jon Lovitz, is selling a gambling site. Sports networks have collapsed, wholesale. Now they are sports betting networks.

Why does that matter? Why shouldn’t we sit back and watch the sports we love become so intertwined with gaming interests that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins?

Because there is real risk involved, starting with the private gambler: the gambler with a problem that will destroy life and family because the stakes are simply irresistible.

The biggest risk is what was behind the Black Sox scandal in baseball in 1919, the college basketball scandals in the 1950s, and decades of scandals in football. Play.

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You could see it coming when the NHL became the first of North America’s major leagues to plunge into Las Vegas, followed soon after by the NFL’s Raiders kicking their long-suffering fans back in the teeth in Oakland.

Following? A daunting betting scandal, involving star goalies, quarterbacks, a star point guard as March Madness reaches its peak, someone in a direct position to influence the outcome. Given the number of leagues and teams involved, the players who could be vulnerable, the billions of dollars at stake, a scandal is inevitable.

You can count on that.

Oh, and before you bet the Habs will have a better-than-expected season, check out Nick Suzuki and Joel Edmundson’s injuries. You can do everything right (and so far, the Jeff Gorton/Kent Hughes duo has done just that), but as any bettor knows, you need a little luck in the end.

Heroes: Eugene Lewis, Martin St. Louis, Jeff Gorton, Kent Hughes, Wilfried Nancy, Arber Xhekaj, Albert Pujols, Artemi Panarin &&&& last but not least, PK Subban.

zeros: Vladimir Putin, Alexander Ovechkin, FanDuel, Luke Willson, Brett Favre, Ime Udoka, Michel Therrien, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& last but not least, Jeffrey Loria.

Now and always.

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