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The CAA Centre in beautiful Brampton, Ont., served as the venue for something called Hockey Night in Brampton.

HNIB is a charity affair. It featured former NHL players such as Jeremy Roenick and Curtis Joseph, some Junior A players, a couple of female players from the Toronto Sceptres, and a smattering of C-List celebrities.

Oh, and there was also one current NHL superstar on the ice, too (more on that later).

But get this — and we’re not making this up — also on the ice that evening were two of the most hated people in Canada (at least in Conservative circles). 

That would be die-hard Liberal Ron “Elbows Up” MacLean (a.k.a., “Canada’s Worst Best Friend”) and fake Conservative “Sneaky” Patrick Brown, the scandal-plagued Mayor of Brampton.

Gracious, we hadn’t seen this many rats on the same patch of frozen H20 since the 1995-’96 NHL season (when Florida Panthers fans routinely tossed hundreds of rubber rats on the ice whenever the Panthers scored a goal). 

Some 30 years later, the venue for the rat-fest has moved from the Miami area to Brampton. Meanwhile, little rubber rats have been replaced with big human variants.

No surprise that HNIB is a Patrick Brown initiative, given that this guy really, really loves to play hockey.

For starters, his backyard features a humongous hockey rink. Estimated cost: $200,000.

By the way, how does he get away with operating this edifice? Remember our story about Martin Ross of Markham? The city ordered Ross to demolish his rink — or the municipality would do it for him at a cost of $300,000!

So how does Ross get cross-checked by City Hall, yet Brown literally gets to skate? Oh, that’s right: Martin Ross is just a regular Joe. Patrick Brown is the mayor. Translation: These days in Canada, it’s one law for me, one law for thee. 

So great is Brown’s love of hockey that the COVID-19 rules did not apply to him. During the dark days of COVID, Brown locked down all of the city’s parks and recreation facilities and enforced this tyranny with heavy fines. And yet, all the while, Brown was sneaking into the Earnscliffe Recreation Centre to play hockey with his buddies (hence the origin of his “Sneaky” nickname). 

And when Rebel News caught him red-handed, did Brown apologize? Did Brown and his buddies receive fines? Nope. The Mayor subsequently had the lockdown rules changed in Brampton so as to ensure that his weekly hockey game would be kosher. Unbelievable.

In any event, Rebel News ventured out to the CAA Centre last Wednesday to take in this hockey game. Oh, by the way, we almost forgot to mention: that current NHLer who was a last-minute addition to the game? None other than superstar sniper Auston Matthews. Of course, Patrick Brown made sure that this uber-ringer was on Team Brown!

And so it was that prior to the game, we asked fans a question: Who is the biggest rat — Brown or Maclean?

Truthfully, we thought this might end in a photo finish. But no. Don Cherry’s former second banana won this reverse-popularity contest by a landslide! It seems that some six years later, few have forgiven Ron Maclean for backstabbing Grapes.

In the final analysis, the inclusion of Auston Matthews was a key strategic move in selling tickets, given that it appeared that about half the fans in attendance were wearing Leaf Jerseys emblazoned with #34.

As for the inclusion of Ron Maclean? You gotta wonder if the organizers were actually trying to give people an excuse NOT to buy tickets!