Honesty and Integrity NOT REQUIRED... NOR DESIRED.
A certain play-by-play broadcaster emitted the opinion that, according to him (but he made it sound like it was a general consensus) a player like Boston Bruins' forward Jeremy Reich "brought basically nothing to his club".
Mere minutes after that, we saw what that player's worth truly was.
He brings little to his club, true - because his true grit and HONESTY are too much for any pro-athlete to have AND manage to be, at the same time, SUCCESSFUL IN TODAY'S NHL...
True grit: the Boston Bruins courageously came back from a 0-2 deficit to score two goals in the third period, against an adversary that has had WAY too much LUCK against them in both distant and recent past. They still did not give up - the Bruins NEVER give up - and kept fighting, sticking to their game plan, and it paid off. First a quick goal brilliantly put in on a rebound (not a garbage goal like so many Habs goals are) and then a power play goal that made the Bruins power play unit look like it was the one that was near the top of the league, statistically-speaking (in comparison with the Montreal Canadiens' power play, that went a dismal 1 for 11 in the course of three periods.)
Still, it was only 2-2. Overtime loomed; and was to be indeed. And what happened, in overtime, once again? The referee proved to be the Bruins' adversary too.
Jeremy Reich received a stick to the face. He displayed his great resilience then, instead of doing it the Canadien way - he kept on fighting for the puck instead of faking an injury. For that is the Canadiens way; when a hockey stick gets even remotely close to them, they pretend to be tripped, high-sticked, hurting, ANYTHING to draw a penalty against the Bruins. Reich (pronounced "Reach") proved to be too HONEST and with too much INTEGRITY to do that. He wants to compete, fair and square - his mistake is to give his adversaries too much credit that THEY want to do the same thing...
Reich was thus high-sticked in the face; and there was no penalty on the play. The referee, also, was too aloof to give one... It certainly is not to be a deterent against Reich's "worthiness" to his club that he is too HONEST - now, can it be?!? Yet, in today's NHL (and, to be fair, at virtually any time in the NHL's history) HONESTY, INTEGRITY AND FAIR PLAY ARE NOT HELPFUL TO YOUR CLUB... You have to be a sly devil (whether you play for New Jersey or not) and you have to try and be deceitful and convincingly so (enough so for the referee's calls to be made anyway) in order to truly help your team.
If you play too fairly, you're not worthy of the NHL.
Or even the AHL for that matter...
Thus, play continued without a penalty being attributed to the faulty Canadiens player, Andrei Markov. The driven Jeremy Reich, though, battled onwards with added aggressiveness due to that; and what does the referee do? He penalizes HIM instead. Great going, ref. Truly, referees have more in common with bats than they do with penguins - but that is another batty four-color story, I think...
This was the 12th power play of the EVENING for the wretched Habs - reputed to be "an offensive machine" that produces when they have a man-advantage. They even obtained a two-man advantage momentarily on this one - IN SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME... The Boston Bruins had, otherwise, the complete momentum in this game after winning the third period 2-0. OTHERWISE, the Bruins would have likely scored the next goal too and evened the series 1-1. But the referee, along with the alleged "Fantômes du Forum" that oversee the action, always, whenever these two storied rivals play each other in that town (Montreal) would decide otherwise... The Boston Bruins' goaltender, Tim Thomas, brilliantly held the fort so that, for a while, it seemed like the Bruins would nullify another man-advantage opportunity from their overrated opponents and would resume dominating play, as they had the edge in shots-on-goal. But a puck was eventually tipped and bounced into the net still - and the victory was once again stolen from the B's.
All of it because HONESTY and INTEGRITY are not what pays in that league. True grit is not appreciated either. And referees need to see someone put on a SHOW before they call a disgraceful act - or a spade a spade, if you will...
And people wonder why I am lukewarm about sports - who wins, who loses; WHO CARES. The final score is NOT the true result at all; it is merely a bit of erroneous data given to satiate a society that needs to see things neatly wrapped up in as little time as possible - that is why they got rid of the "tie games" completely in the regular season, the only place where they could be, before... In truth, few sports have such MISLEADING scores as the NHL does: where the "loser" is actually the better team in ALL CATEGORIES THAT MATTER THE MOST in the eyes of an august figure such as, say, Pierre de Coubertin... But guys like Gary Bettman and his associated clods are nowhere near de Coubertin - of course. And so, the NHL has the rules and the officiating that it deserves, probably...
A victory with such rules and lax moral values has no value whatsoever.
WHATSOEVER... Montréal!
Mere minutes after that, we saw what that player's worth truly was.
He brings little to his club, true - because his true grit and HONESTY are too much for any pro-athlete to have AND manage to be, at the same time, SUCCESSFUL IN TODAY'S NHL...
True grit: the Boston Bruins courageously came back from a 0-2 deficit to score two goals in the third period, against an adversary that has had WAY too much LUCK against them in both distant and recent past. They still did not give up - the Bruins NEVER give up - and kept fighting, sticking to their game plan, and it paid off. First a quick goal brilliantly put in on a rebound (not a garbage goal like so many Habs goals are) and then a power play goal that made the Bruins power play unit look like it was the one that was near the top of the league, statistically-speaking (in comparison with the Montreal Canadiens' power play, that went a dismal 1 for 11 in the course of three periods.)
Still, it was only 2-2. Overtime loomed; and was to be indeed. And what happened, in overtime, once again? The referee proved to be the Bruins' adversary too.
Jeremy Reich received a stick to the face. He displayed his great resilience then, instead of doing it the Canadien way - he kept on fighting for the puck instead of faking an injury. For that is the Canadiens way; when a hockey stick gets even remotely close to them, they pretend to be tripped, high-sticked, hurting, ANYTHING to draw a penalty against the Bruins. Reich (pronounced "Reach") proved to be too HONEST and with too much INTEGRITY to do that. He wants to compete, fair and square - his mistake is to give his adversaries too much credit that THEY want to do the same thing...
Reich was thus high-sticked in the face; and there was no penalty on the play. The referee, also, was too aloof to give one... It certainly is not to be a deterent against Reich's "worthiness" to his club that he is too HONEST - now, can it be?!? Yet, in today's NHL (and, to be fair, at virtually any time in the NHL's history) HONESTY, INTEGRITY AND FAIR PLAY ARE NOT HELPFUL TO YOUR CLUB... You have to be a sly devil (whether you play for New Jersey or not) and you have to try and be deceitful and convincingly so (enough so for the referee's calls to be made anyway) in order to truly help your team.
If you play too fairly, you're not worthy of the NHL.
Or even the AHL for that matter...
Thus, play continued without a penalty being attributed to the faulty Canadiens player, Andrei Markov. The driven Jeremy Reich, though, battled onwards with added aggressiveness due to that; and what does the referee do? He penalizes HIM instead. Great going, ref. Truly, referees have more in common with bats than they do with penguins - but that is another batty four-color story, I think...
This was the 12th power play of the EVENING for the wretched Habs - reputed to be "an offensive machine" that produces when they have a man-advantage. They even obtained a two-man advantage momentarily on this one - IN SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME... The Boston Bruins had, otherwise, the complete momentum in this game after winning the third period 2-0. OTHERWISE, the Bruins would have likely scored the next goal too and evened the series 1-1. But the referee, along with the alleged "Fantômes du Forum" that oversee the action, always, whenever these two storied rivals play each other in that town (Montreal) would decide otherwise... The Boston Bruins' goaltender, Tim Thomas, brilliantly held the fort so that, for a while, it seemed like the Bruins would nullify another man-advantage opportunity from their overrated opponents and would resume dominating play, as they had the edge in shots-on-goal. But a puck was eventually tipped and bounced into the net still - and the victory was once again stolen from the B's.
All of it because HONESTY and INTEGRITY are not what pays in that league. True grit is not appreciated either. And referees need to see someone put on a SHOW before they call a disgraceful act - or a spade a spade, if you will...
And people wonder why I am lukewarm about sports - who wins, who loses; WHO CARES. The final score is NOT the true result at all; it is merely a bit of erroneous data given to satiate a society that needs to see things neatly wrapped up in as little time as possible - that is why they got rid of the "tie games" completely in the regular season, the only place where they could be, before... In truth, few sports have such MISLEADING scores as the NHL does: where the "loser" is actually the better team in ALL CATEGORIES THAT MATTER THE MOST in the eyes of an august figure such as, say, Pierre de Coubertin... But guys like Gary Bettman and his associated clods are nowhere near de Coubertin - of course. And so, the NHL has the rules and the officiating that it deserves, probably...
A victory with such rules and lax moral values has no value whatsoever.
WHATSOEVER... Montréal!
posted by Luminous (\ô/) Luciano™ at
2:08 PM
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