With
all due respect to the world's best hockey player, if Sidney Crosby
is really surprised about the leeway allowed by game officials to the
Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final, he hasn't
been watching these playoffs or the NHL very closely.
This
is how the Bruins play, and how they've played in the post-season (at
least when they've been most successful) for the past three seasons,
and this is the style of hockey that is most blessed by NHL
authorities these days.
The
drop in the standard of rule-calling in recent seasons has
contributed to the drop in goal-scoring, producing Dead Puck Era II
with the usual excuse-makers and apologists making the same excuses
and apologies as was the case prior to 2004. If one suggests an
endless procession of 2-1 games isn't particularly enthralling, one
is told to like it or watch something else, and the conversation gets
only dumber from there.
The
NHL game isn't designed for the Crosbys, David Krejcis etc. It has
once again fallen into the hands of the lowest common denominator as
a failure to take care of the game has again shown itself to be the
Achilles heel of Gary Bettman and his long tenure as czar of the NHL.
It's
up to the great players to wade through the muck and try to produce
the odd moment of creativity and skill. They are treated as
interlopers, rather than as the unique talents they are.
It
won't change anytime soon, not with the NHL in denial once more. The
players can do something about it if they like through the
competition committee or they, including Crosby, just have to accept
it.
Interestingly,
so far in the post-season the only team that has had any real success
playing through Boston's tough, uncompromising brand of hockey has
been the Maple Leafs, who came up with three wins and another 58
minutes of winning hockey before falling apart in the final 90
seconds of Game 7.
What
Phil Kessel was able to do against Zdeno Chara, Crosby and other
Penguins might have to learn how to do. Crosby must've seen Milan
Lucic illegally hurl Carl Gunnerson into the boards in the dying
moments of that Game 7 victory without a penalty call, so he knows
NHL authorities have essentially abandoned the players to their own
devices.
But
those who mocked the Leafs for being unwilling or unable to
physically confront Chara and Lucic might want to answer this
question; what Ranger or Penguin has been able to accomplish either
task since?
xxxxxxxxx
In
the wake of winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, the Blackhawks had to
dump a number of bodies for salary cap reasons, the most significant
of which was the unique Dustin Byfuglien.
Byfuglien,
of course, was then a forward and an unmovable force on the front
lines. The only real comparable these days would be Lucic, who like
Byfuglien, occasionally has to be coaxed to playing at his highest
possible level.
Not
surprisingly, the Hawks couldn't replace Byfuglien, who is now a
defenceman in Winnipeg, and with that as a contributing factor,
couldn't win the Cup in the two succeeding springs.
Bryan
Bickell isn't Byfuglien. But he's doing a pretty good impression of
the big fellow, and that's a key reason why the Hawks, who teetered
on the edge of elimination last round, are in great shape today to
make it to the Cup final.
The
6-foot-4, 230 pound Bowmanville product is in range of matching his
regular season goals output with his playoff output. At 29 years of
age, Bickell is having the springtime of his career, and earning
every bit of it with his battles in front of enemy goalies.
Interestingly,
like Byfuglien, there's a pretty good chance Bickell could be moving
on even if the Hawks with the Cup. After making $541,000 this season
he's UFA this summer and you can absolutely bet that some team - we
all know the usual suspects - will give him outrageous dollars this
season on the free agent market even with the cap going down next
season.
Good
for him. But if that happens, the Hawks will be on the search for
another big body.
xxxxxxxxx
Can't
really imagine why anyone would object to Masai Ujiri cleaning house
with the Raptors. Indeed, with the foolish decision to keep Bryan
Colangelo around peering over the new GM's shoulder, it's probably
the strongest statement that Ujiri could make that he's in charge and
considers nothing built or acquired by Colangelo to have any sacred
value.
Ujiri
has a unique opportunity to take this thing down to wood and rebuild
it, which might not be music to the ears of Raptor fans who are
hoping for a playoff berth next season.
A
step back may be needed to construct a new foundation. Fewer wins
next season may be necessary to open the possibility of success
later, a choice that would not have been open to Colangelo.
xxxxxxx
Don't
really care who won the "friendly" at BMO Field on Sunday.
What mattered was all those people paying all that money to watch a
women's soccer game in Canada, something that would have been
unthinkable even two or three years ago.
It
was an event, it was a spectacle, at least by Canadian soccer
standards. Too often people deride women's sports by saying they'll
never been as big as men's sports, and certainly that's the case for
the foreseeable future.
But
people who don't invest in history never learn the lesson that its
always a mistake to assume the way things are now are the way they
will always be. Sunday was a day to imagine a time when women's
sports, soccer in this case, might occupy an entirely different
places in our sporting universe.
xxxxxxxx
Sunday
showed the emotional highs and the lows, and the tears for very
different reasons, of two veteran athletes.
Early
in the day, 31-year-old Tommy Robredo became the first man in almost
90 years of tennis to win a third straight match after trailing two
sets to none when he knocked off Spanish countryman Nicolas Almagro.
Robredo,
back as an elite player after sinking to No. 470 in the world last
year after a difficult series of injuries, sank to the Roland Garros
dirt after his remarkable win over the 11th seeded Almagro and burst
into tears. As the crowd cheered him on, he couldn't stop the flow,
undoubtedly the product of years of trying to get back to the highest
levels of the game as it roared on without him.
For
40-year-old pitcher Ramon Ortiz of the Blue Jays, the tears flowed
for a very different reason.
Ortiz
appeared to blow out his elbow in the third inning against San Diego
on Sunday, and couldn't control his emotions on the mound as the Jays
training staff attended to him. He's had a hard enough time just
sticking with the Jays this season despite all of their injury
problems, and undoubtedly the thought of having to go through surgery
and then rehab and then hope a team will take a chance on him again
was too much for Ortiz to handle.
It
was sad to watch, the final hopes of an athlete seemingly destroyed
with one fateful throw.
Recent Comments