The Ben Mulroney Show - The legend of Dick Hammer! Wounded Warriors and Fleece fights!

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

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because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. day after the Super Bowl. I don't know anybody who didn't at least watch a portion of the show. And today we are, we're sitting in it, right? We're sitting in it, talking about it, how it went off. There were some surprises. And then there was some good surprises and some bad surprises.

I don't think I'm saying there's a hot take. It might not be the majority. But the Super Bowl was terrible this year. I mean, it was terrible. And I can't help, but wonder if that had to do with the fact that, in my opinion, the wrong teams were playing. And for that, I'm going to bring in a member of the Bills Mafia. Oh, no, he can't.

It hurts him too much. Oh, he's not connected. Well, I've got Mike Droulet, my intrepid producer over here. And he's been a lifelong Bills fan. And this was the year, right? They were going to make it back to the Super Bowl as they, as they've been on the cusp for so long. and they were the victim of some of the worst calls I've ever seen to the benefit of their opponent, the Denver Broncos.

And on the second and last play of the game, the Denver Broncos quarterback broke his foot, which meant he couldn't play in the game against New England. And so New England ended up in the Super Bowl. And it felt to me like New England was there two years early. Like, you don't rebuild that fast. And nobody appreciates a resurrection after such a short period of time. So I didn't like that they were there.

And anyway, I just didn't. I didn't. And for that reason, I was rooting for Seattle, even though, you're fine. They were fine. And look, we'll talk about all aspects of that. But the question I have for everybody is, did you watch the halftime show? Santiago, did you watch the halftime show? Oh, 100%.

Okay, so I'll be completely candid. I said to myself, I wasn't going to watch because I didn't know anything about this guy. And it didn't interest me. But I watched for five seconds, and then I couldn't stop watching. Visually, absolutely stunning. It transported me. It was like an immersive Broadway show. Yeah.

That's what it felt like to me. You know, if I had been in the lower bowl of the stadium, I wouldn't have seen anything because of all of the, the trees and the bushes that were, that contained all the, all the entertainment. But he was definitely painting a picture. I was expecting a little more overt politics in the visuals. And I didn't get that.

So he was subtle about what he was, what he was putting out there visually. I thought the good, there was a lot of good in terms of visuals. The fact that there was a very real wedding that took place during that. The fact that the dancers, we saw like senior citizens,

and dancers. He really painted quite a beautiful picture. But my question for Santiago is I didn't understand a single word of what he was singing. But you know his music a little more than I do.

Yeah. I have been told, tell me if it's true, that he sings often of his endowment. About that, about dirty dancing, about sex, like many lyrics. You know what he means

by endowment, though. Yeah, of course. Okay, so would you agree that the content of his lyrics and the imagery of the show, there's a disconnect between them? Like, he wasn't singing about what we were seeing. Not all of them. For example, that lyric of that song that Ricky Martin was singing when he appeared there, it's pretty connected on how Puerto Rico needs to be respected as a nation,

even though it's an American state. They just want to have the same respect as the entire United States as America. You have another portion of the show where he's on the light poles. And it's famous that in Puerto Rico there are a lot of outrage. So he has a song about the Puerto Rico outrage is called the Apagon. And that's when he was singing there. So yeah, you have a mixture of party. There was some of it.

Dirty lyrics as a hip-hop song will be. It's a combination of all of that. But it's a lot of party. However, what I realize in watching is like, no, I think he appreciates it not that very few of us actually understood. completely what he was singing about, but it was an entertaining show. And visually, it was stunning. And so I give him full marks for that. Now, the question is going to be, how does this pan out in the ratings? I was one, someone who thought I was going to count myself out. And I watched

last year, 133 million people tuned in for the halftime show, which is why they strike this bargain where the cost of the show is incurred entirely by the artist and the artist. And they their team because they know they're going to make it out on the back end with new people discovering the music and new people buying the music, streaming the music, buying merchandise, and all that stuff. It makes, it's, it's, it's an easy yes for anyone. I don't know if that's going to pan out this time because as much as everyone that I watched with enjoyed the show, we weren't, like the least interesting thing was the music. But here, we were talking about this earlier with you couldn't understand what he was saying

because you don't speak Spanish and even if you did, he's speaking, he's mumbling so quickly. And really he's mumbling for a lot of it. So you didn't really understand it. But then again, I heard somebody say this. How many of you understood what Kendrick Lamar was rapping about last year? I didn't understand anything he said.

That's a good point. That's good point. But, you know, a turning point USA, which was Charlie Kirk's, the late Charlie Kirk's political vehicle, decided to have an alternative show during the half time. So if anybody didn't want to listen to Spanish music could tune in to Kid Rock and a whole bunch of other people singing about Jesus.

They got 5 million viewers. That's nothing to slouch at. Five million is 5 million. But that's not going to make a huge dent in the, if it's 133 million from last year. I think a lot of people would have tuned in just to be able to complain later. I'm not complaining about it. I thought it was good.

I thought it was really good. It was better than the game. I promise you that. It was better than the game. Also, it did look like it would have fit in better in Miami. It looked like Miami. Exactly, exactly. But I'll tell you, I sent you something right before the show.

So Boomer Osceison, a great former quarterback. He was talking about how the winning quarterback is given about $175,000, a bonus. That's not, has nothing to do with their pay. That's the bonus that you're supposed to take home for winning the Super Bowl. But because it takes place in California, they have what they call a jock tax. So not only is that taxed, but they also tax you on your salary for the days that you spend in California. And it's taxed about 3.5%. So if you factor that, so for the time he was in California, preparing for the Super Bowl, he has to give that.

He owes the state of California like somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000. And that's just for the Super Bowl. That doesn't count every time he goes to California to play all the California teams at San Francisco 49ers and the LA Rams. And so there is an argument to be made, according to Boomer Ossison, that the Players Association is going to say, unless you fix this, we are not going to allow for future Super Bowls

to be played in the state of California. How does it make any sense to get a bonus for winning the Super Bowl and then you end up being taxed to the point that you actually owe money to the state of California. So that's Sam Darnold, the quarterback for Seattle. But that's not the most interesting thing about Sam Darno. So he wins the Super Bowl, but the most interesting thing about him, and we all learned this during the Super Bowl yesterday,

is his grandfather was the original Marlboro man. Oh, what's his name? His name, his real God-given name, is Dick Hammer. His name is Dick Hammer. I bet you that's what Bad Bunny named is. Yeah, I don't even want to know. But Dick Hammer is so much more interesting. Dick Hammer is like the most interesting man ever.

So he played in the NCAA Final Four in basketball for the University of Southern California. Not good enough. 1964, Olympic volleyball player. He was a firefighter. And then in the 1970s, he was on the series emergency. For one season. For one season. But his character name was Dick Hammer because the writer.

because the writers couldn't come up with anything better than that. So they said, we're going to call you your own name. And then he finished his life as a Marlboro man, where he sadly passed away of lung cancer. Which is, yeah. Which is that sort of the, uh, wah, wah, of the story. But, hey, it's a life well led on his deathbed. Dick Hammer had a lot of stories.

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Her husband had a 33-year career in the Canadian military. and he was subsequently diagnosed with PTSD. But of course, we're living in a time now where we need to ask ourselves, what is the impact of that diagnosis on family? And we're joined now by Catherine. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Ben. Thank you for having me.

So can we take a step back and talk to me about your husband's career and the type of person he was when he went into the service and the impact that that work had on him, and on his relationship with you. Yeah, so he had a 33-some-year career in the military, and it was his trip to Rwanda that caused his diagnosis, and that was in 1994. He came back.

We didn't really know that there was such a thing, or that there was going to be a change. But when he did come back, there was a huge difference in his personality. we didn't really come to grips of what that meant or what the diagnosis was for another 10 years. So in those 10 years, we did a lot of eggshell walking. We did a lot of changing in our way we handled things. I didn't tell him a lot of stuff just because I knew the reaction was going to be.

So just give me a sense. Who was he when he left and who was he when he came back? So who he was before he left, he was very much, well, he was very much, we were a partnership and we did everything together. We had a lot of fun. We got the kids involved in everything. When he came back, he was very much an angry guy. It was, and it was interesting. He was not that way at work.

It was only when he came home that it came to a head. that you couldn't do certain things. So, yeah. And, and I mean, what, how did it make you feel? Because, you know, when you said it was a partnership, what I hear from that is, you know, you did things together. But, but when he, when he was sent off to, to work, you know, part of that partnership is you assuming, you assuming the, all the, all the responsibilities on the home front,

to be the mother and the father, to be, to make sure that the train's running on time. So you're taking care of everything on your end in the hopes that your husband will come home and you guys will go back into the rhythm that you had before. But after Rwanda, that didn't happen. No, and interesting, that happens to so many of us. And when the soldier goes off to war or whatever, they're going to, the spouse takes over everything. And when they come back, we've gotten used to our little world. and then to integrate them back into that world is very challenging. And then they're upset because they're not part of that.

And it's a very interesting walk you create just because you don't know how to do it. So it adds to, and then plus when you're dealing with a mental health issue, they think the world is against them. So everything and anything you do, it magnifies. And so at what point did you start thinking to yourself, this is now impacting my mental health? Oh, wow. Not for a very, very long time. I just kept, it wasn't actually, so the kids were little when he went to Rwanda.

It wasn't until they left the house that I realized that, oh, my God, my whole life was focused in on the kids and his well-being. And I totally left me to the side. Yeah, you put it in a box. Literally, you close the box and you said, I'm going to deal with all this other stuff. But at some point, you got to deal with what's in the box. Yeah. Yeah. And that box did, and you build up this enormous wall around you with the hopes that nobody

can see the wall. And did it ever, did the, did the box ever overflow if we can continue with sort of that imagery? Did it ever, did you also, like what were some of the negative, uh, bi-part where you sort of took a step back and said, oh, oh boy, I really need to start taking care of myself here. Yeah. So I realized I was getting angry.

I was frustrated. I was not, you know what, the love in the relationship had dwindled almost to nothing. And I realized I really needed something for me. And I did not know what that was because my focus was so full on the kids and my husband that I never knew who I was anymore. And so now there's an announcement that BMO is partnering with Wounded Warriors Canada to expand access to trauma support for veterans and first responders families. And it feels to me like the time for this is right, that we as a society are open to the impact of the trauma that a soldier feels and that brings home

and that it reverberates throughout the family. It's time to start taking care of the family, Yes, and you know what? It's not just about the veteran and their family. It's the first responders deal with this as well in a different manner, but they're going off. The military go off to war for like a few months at a time. The first responder go off to a trauma every day. And so the spouses having to deal with that every day as well.

So now is the time to really bring focus to the need. to the need that they need help too. And can you explain a little bit to our listeners, some of whom may be living this exact scenario right now, what will be available to them through this program? Well, for this specific program, the SRP, the Spousal Resiliency Program, is specifically about the spouse

and how to deal with yourself with the trauma in the household. This is not about slamming the partner that has the trauma. It's about dealing with you and how you best can help yourself to help others. So it really does bring our focus back on how can I help myself? How can I better communicate mostly with yourself? Because that was my issue. I did not know how to have a conversation with myself. Really?

So it's mostly about self-care. Yeah, yeah. and allowing the partner who has sort of almost the role that's been assumed is is to assist that person who's coming back from the front or who's coming back from these these high risk situations to remind you to prioritize yourself every now and then. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

And when the person has a trauma, post-traumatic stress or just an operational stress injury, their focus is in, as my husband often likes to say, You're focused in on your belly button. Yeah. So this helps the spouse recognize that it's not all about them. They do need to take care of themselves first. Yeah. And then let's go look elsewhere.

Now, if I may ask, how are relations with your husband now? Oh, good now. Oh, yeah? Oh, that's good to hear. We've come up. Oh, yes, we've come a long way. he's done so much work and he's so much so that he is now a therapist and and helps others with no way oh that's amazing well no that's great that's great and you've been assuming a role of

speaking as well and and and sharing your story as well um i do yeah and and does that help you as well to share your story is it therapeutic for you no no it's not i was i think i reason is I am not. I have always liked to be in the background. I do this because I know it has to be told and I am a person that likes to push the buttons here a bit. But to actually do an interview like this, it scares the bejes. Well, you've done, Catherine, you've done an amazing job. I thank you. I thank your husband for your service and your sacrifice to the country. And I wish you both the very best. And thank you so much for sharing today. We appreciate it.

Thank you for having me, Ben. I appreciate it. Thank you. And just a reminder that BMO is partnering with Wounded Warriors Canada to expand access to trauma support for veterans and first responders' families. So go look that up online if you're listening to this and this resonates with you. All right, when we come back, Tony Chapman is joining us.

We're going to have a bad bunny reaction and the heated rivalry between two Canadian retailers over a very iconic fleece. It seems that they found, They found middle ground. They found compromise. We'll talk about that next.

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For all your holistic. investment and life insurance advice needs. Talk to us today. Cooperators, investing in your future together. Mutual funds are offered through Cooperators Financial Investment Services Inc. to Canadian residents except those in Quebec in the territories. Segregated funds are administered by Cooperator's Life Insurance Company. Life insurance is underwritten by Cooperators Life Insurance Company. You got lots of questions. I got questions on, oh, his thoughts on Bad Bunny, his thoughts on what's going on with Eddie Bauer and the war averted between province of Canada and quality. as it relates to that magical fleece from heated rivalry.

And I'm talking, of course, of our good friend Tony Chapman, the host of the award-winning podcast, Chatter That Matters, and the founding partner of Chatter AI. Tony, welcome to the show. Always a pleasure, my friend. So I got to tell you, I enjoyed the Bad Bunny show. I didn't understand any of it, but I thought it was pretty good. I thought it was brilliant.

And I'll tell you why. It was a Broadway musical that was played. out on a football field. I'm not sure you had to understand the words not to have his message come through. Well, hold on. I want to stop you for a sec, because I suspect that if I understood the words, there would be a disconnect between what he was singing and the visuals and what the visuals were trying to convey.

I don't know that, had it been a musical, there would have been a parallel between the words and the imagery. And from what I understand, from our resident Latino in Santiago, He doesn't often, I mean, there's some elements of what he's saying that might have applied. But generally speaking, I mean, it's not that kind of music. Yeah. I think, first of all, that what we really got to give credit to is the NFL. The NFL knew that by putting bad bunny out, that it would create a very polarizing not

only to their fans, but more importantly to the White House and the Republicans. So why would they do it? Because they know the diehard football fan is. going anywhere. NFL's realizing exponential growth in the value of their franchises, their media contracts, they're accessing new streaming services, they're getting a global market. So why would they do that? It's because they need the Latino audience. They need the audience that follows basketball and follows soccer. Yeah. And they're saying that the Latinos is where the growth is in the U.S. economy, these people that love merchandise, they love their fanatic fans. And more importantly, I would

also argue that that younger generation that they represent have a higher propensity for sports gambling. And I think sports gambling is the vein of gold that we're just starting to appreciate how much is being made. So all of that made a lot of sense to me. Yeah. Where I think he did it so well. I love Ricky Martin, who was a guy that really brought Latino music and crossover. I love Lady Gaga. The only exception I have is every Super Bowl show was 13 minutes. Most of them feel too long to me. Yeah. This one to me, How long was this one? 13 minutes. But it's the same time.

But it's like a movie that you end and go, give me more. And a movie ends going, I'm glad it's over. And the problem being, he could have left. What I thought was the ending and then he comes back in. Yeah. If he ended there, we would crave more. Yeah. And that's the one thing he missed to me.

But other than that, I think it was spectacular. And I think that I'd be hard pressed to see, you know, other than an artist like Prince, who's still the best a halftime show, how somebody is going to, Where are they going to take that next because they have the physicality of a football field? Well, I got to tell you. I think he did a broad job. Where I give him credit was I think a lot of people expected him to be controversial. I don't think he was at all controversial.

I think that he was intelligently subversive. And I think there's a difference between those two things. And I think he was smart to go the subversive route as opposed to the as opposed to just out and out controversial with, you know, F ice on a shirt or something like that. I think the messaging was subversive, and I think that achieved the goal that he probably wanted to. His audience is the Latin audience around the world. That's why he recognizes places like Costa Rica. I mean, you know, the United States has got to realize the world doesn't just revolve around them anymore. And the Super Bowl is the world stage. I thought he was brilliant. He also did fly a Puerto Rican flag that's the flag of independence, not the flag that they flag. So there's no question he had some subtle elements of anarchy, but why take on that fight?

He was so smart and to go, let's all get together and unite, which to me is the contrary message to what Trump was doing. So I think it was brilliant. Whoever manages him as the same kind of genius that manages Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, maybe it's him. But somebody on there understands how to create the right tone for their audience at the same time have us all talking about it the next day. So full marks up. Beautiful, yeah. Well, I got to ask you your take on this heated rivalry around the heated rivalry fleet. And for those people who don't know,

there's a very popular fleece that was given to Mark Carney. Everybody wanted the sort of the collaboration to be able to sell what people saw on the show in real life. And the original fleece minus the trim that was put on by the costume designer was the product of a Montreal company called Koalati. When they decided to do the collaboration, they wanted it done by a company that produces everything. in Canada. Quality has theirs made, I think, abroad. And so they went with a company from Toronto called Province of Canada. And to great fanfare, they did so without ever crediting Cowality from Montreal. And so there was this, I think, unfortunate PR war between these two you know, ascendant Canadian companies. And it looks like they've found a path forward.

Yeah. And I, you know, part of this is all PR is good PR. So it's putting this back into the news where it kind of had his peak with Carney putting this thing on. Listen, the beautiful thing is this is the world we're leading. We see something on television we think we want it immediately. A costume designer modified it, tricked it up. I like the fact that it is produced in Canada. I like the fact that it demonstrates that we have for a fashion forward nation. And I think it's a great piece.

I would love to be able to buy it myself. I think it's a great, great, it's like it could become the next, the blanket from Hudson's Bay. Yeah, but see that. How they sort it out. But that is the problem. That is the problem, my friend. In Canada, we don't assume people want it. They should have had this ready to go, right?

And they had it ready to go. It would have been what Prime TV is doing right now, is they're putting on television shows and right beside it stacked with all the product you can buy. We never assume people want what we've got. And we've got to wait for this groundswell. It reminds me what happened in 2010 with the HBC mittens, the red mittens, when they went, pardon?

They've sold 3.5 million? Oh yeah. So the red mittens for HBC when they went on to NBC to show people, they assumed the hosts of the Today Show said, do we have enough to give to everybody in the square? And they said, no, we just brought enough for the hosts as opposed to realizing everybody is going to want these.

And so they had to, as a matter of fact, they had turned off the factory that made the red mittens. They have to turn it back on mid-Olympics. That's a very Canadian sort of low expectation to set. No question. You just defined our Canadian economy right there, right there. You don't go and say, man, if we put mittens on everybody in the square,

everybody in the world is going to want them. Yeah. Right? They're cold outside. They've got these cool mittens. That's exactly what a very bold entrepreneur, sadly, more often than not in the states are willing to have this appetite for risk. and reward versus where Canada often holds back because they're concerned what happens if I'm stuck

with the inventory? Yeah. And I think that's psychology we've got to bring into Canada. Stop investing, for example, in EVs that China owns and focus on entrepreneurs in this country capable of punching above their weight and saying, let's invest in them and create the psychology in Canada that says, yes, we can, this can do attitude versus exactly what you framed with the Hudson Bay example. Okay, do you think you can explain to me what happened with Eddie Bauer in about 45 seconds? Yeah, I mean, listen, it's lost in translation. The consumer moved on and it didn't. Eco-tourism and Adventure Tourism is the fastest-growing tourism in the world.

Do you attach Eddie Bauer to it? No, that is the mistake of the brand. My friend, always great to chat with you. Always love to know what makes you tick and how you see the stories that we're all talking about. So all the best to you, and we'll talk to you soon. I look forward to it. Our intel chain is compromised. New on Showcase.

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