As IF Times

Today’s article written by guest author, EL.

Apparently, the hockey bros have emerged from their two-year hibernation—shivering behind homemade plexiglass, elbow-bumping each other through Zoom—and decided now is the time to “take a stand.” Brave stuff, boys. Nothing screams “defender of freedom” like finally speaking up when there’s zero risk and maximum optics.

Let’s cut through the Tim Hortons fumes: #ElbowsUp is cosplay patriotism. It’s a rebrand for the same people who spent COVID clapping like trained seals for government overreach, but now want to wear plaid and act like they were in the trenches the whole time. Spoiler: they weren’t. They were online ratting out their neighbors for having more than six people over for Thanksgiving.

But now? Oh now they’re ready. Now that it’s trendy. Now that defending Canada is as easy as posting a selfie in a red flannel with a caption like “Don’t mess with the North.”

Where were those elbows when small businesses were being crushed under the boot of arbitrary mandates? Where were those elbows when you needed a permission slip to leave the country? Where were those elbows when the government decided which forms of protest were “approved” and which got you financially erased?

I’ll tell you where they were: folded politely in a Zoom town hall, nodding along while some bureaucrat explained why your kid couldn’t play outside. Now the same people who once wore three masks to go pumpkin picking want to body check foreign policy. Sure. Let me know how that works out when the next variant drops. This isn’t patriotism. It’s TikTok nationalism.

It’s the same kind of lazy self-branding that gave us “Live, Laugh, Love”—only now it’s “Post, Pout, Pretend You Fought for It.”

And look, I’m not against Canada standing up for itself. But if this is our resistance—if this is the big cultural counterstrike—we might as well hoist the white flag, slap a maple leaf on it, and livestream the surrender with patriotic lo-fi beats in the background.

So to the #ElbowsUp crowd: congratulations. You’ve finally found your backbone—just two years after it mattered.

Better late than never, I guess.

But don’t expect a parade and for sure don’t drive trucks around with Elbow logos.

You already had your moment.

And you elbowed right past it.