Hell no! I say again, Hell no! For all those wondering what the hell I am talking about:
Now my rant.
We are so screwed up here in Toronto. Tie freaking Domi has character but a guy who scores 50 can’t? For some dumb reason we seem to live and die for the USA to love hockey. We finally, for the first time since Tiger Williams (stick riding) and Mike Foligno (jump) have someone with some colour and we dump on him? The hell with Crosby! Not that he isn’t a great player- he is. Ovechkin should be EVERYWHERE…buses, cereal boxes, late night talk shows, etc. Instead NBC and TSN rarely put his games on. He is the best player in the league in my opinion. He is the most entertaining. He is the only guy I would pay money out of my own pocket to go see watch play in the entire league. Other leagues have guys with colour. Many of those guys disappoint through their personal lives and actions. Here is a guy who is a good kid, he LOVES to the play the game. He plays it the right way AND he has some flair. Why would we ever want to embrace that? One of the reasons the league lacks attention is that it is full of vanilla personalities. Talk to media types and for the most part they lover covering hockey players compared to other professional athletes because hockey players are, for the most part, good guys. So when someone is loud, different and perhaps even flamboyant we object? So far Ovechkin hasn’t been picked up drunk driving. I haven’t seen any photo’s of him pulling hits out of a bong. Is it classless to celebrate after scoring a big goal?? No. If it is we need to re-establish the definition of class. It is one thing to skate by the other bench ala Slapshot and smack guys with your sticks. Or to mock the opponents. Hell all I have heard all week is about Martin Brodeur. Good on him. He broke a record. So many people said, “and he is such a good quiet guy”. That’s fine. I have no problem with that. Would it be worse if he had some colour? I mean there is room in between Brodeur and Sean Avery.Michael Jordan wasn’t totaly vanilla, but he wasn’t Dennis Rodman either.
Given everything this league has been through. A work stoppage. A shitty economy. Horrible attendance issues. Clutching and grabbing. I don’t understand why, when we get a guy with real talent, who plays hard, goes into the corners, shows some jam, we are so quick to criticize him for showing some signs of life. If the NHL wants the big TV contract, if we Canadians want the game to be loved south of the border, we need another 10 to 15 Ovechkins. I am not even going to dignfy Don Cherry or Bill Watters for what they have to say on the issues. Pictures say a thousand words:
