Hockey. Had Enough?
May 30, 2009, by Homme De Sept-Iles
For most of us, it’s the offseason. Thoughts of hockey are torchlit only by the almost vague notions of a draft, player contracts, salary caps and perhaps a big free agent signing.
Many of us are still watching the playoffs. Curiosity. The joy of hockey. Or just plain dedication.
In Montreal, the stories never die. Hockey never seems to go away. And on every level, the team is facing change, dealing with the newsworthy.
Ownership? Still up in the air. Every day brings more news of new and interested parties in taking over the old franchise. Most recently, we are reading reports that Molson is considering renewing their connection to the franchise. That they are in the running as one of more than a dozen reported and surmised ownership groups.
General Managership? Well, everything becomes a mystery if the ownership morphs. General manager Bob Gainey, the players, the support staff; any (or all?) of the role players could be replaced. The spectre hasn’t stopped Gainey from doing his job. The team recently signed a Swedish forward and are assumedly busily engaged in the usual tasks that occupy a team’s offseason.
Scandals? Well, the Guy Lafleur saga is still ongoing for those who take a sordid interest in these sorts of things. Lafleur, never meek in his silver years, has added a dimension to his legal problems by, once again, denigrating team captain Saku Koivu in public. It’s wearing thin.
In other scandals, the Kostitsyn brothers were cleared of any wrongdoing in their recent implicated criminal association with a shadier member of the entourage world. A police investigation of over 2000 phone calls indicated nothing out of the ordinary and was the final factor in ruling out any Kostitsyn naughtiness. Two thousand is a lot of phone calls. I wonder if I’ve called my mother 2000 times in the past twelve months. Would she notice if I tallied less?
And no month is complete without Russian media reports that require immediate denial. This time, Alex Kovalev’s agent denied that his client was offered the Canadiens’ captaincy.
Hockey is a game of the heart. Ok. Well, let’s just say that the heart gets heavy when we can’t go away and just forget for a time. Rest that hockey soul. Being a Montreal hockey fan is not for the faint of heart.
And it can reduce players to suspects, media to xenophobes, fans to lynch mobs and idealistic writers to guilt-ridden clerks of cliche and weary resignators to process.
I think this is why they invented football. So we can actually enjoy the off-season.
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