Collected Thoughts

I have very strong feelings about dirty players. I think that if your team enforcer - Niemenen, our guy McClaren, Donald Brashear, whoever - puts a deliberately dirty hit on another player that injures them? The suspension should be for as long as the player they injured is out. If it ends the other player's career, make it a one-season suspension. That would cut down on the crap, and also on the need for bullshit press conferences in which the coach, whose fault it really is, takes the heat.

I spent a chunk of my early life in Alberta, but I'm rooting for Tampa Bay all the way, because I loathe Darryl Sutter, in the same way I loathe Jon Gruden in football. I despise the mentality of "all my men are really little schoolyard bullies, so let's motivate them by picking a player at random and fucking his career" coaching. It makes me want to vomit. Sutter, when he was here - and JS, we had plenty of time in San Jose to check out Sutter - did it to Alexander Korlyuk; it should be pretty obvious, after this season and the playoffs, that Korky is a brilliant player. He lost two years of his career to Sutter's "every flea needs a littler flea to piss on so I guess you're it and I'll use you to scare the other players" crap. It makes me want to spew.

And we had personal experience of that crap from Jon Gruden, since the player he chose to terrorise was our daughter's boyfriend, Jerry Porter. I really fucking hate coaches who pull that. Why not treat your players as if they were adults, you know?

Gah. Sorry. Yes, it's a major major bugbear for me. I'm not arguing that the Flames deserve to be where they are - they played brilliantly. But if the team isn't acting like fuckheaded thugs - and make no mistake, they don't play that way unless the coaching staff encourages that - then the coach doesn't need to act as a lightning rod.