Everyone is talking about Wayne Scanlan's article today in the Ottawa Citizen about the thoughts of Dany Heatley's parents and his former neighbour when it comes to the criticism of Heatley's actions earlier this month.....and from everyone that I've talked to, their thoughts being published only added to the anger of Sens fan in Ottawa.....
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports/Everybody+crucifying+Dany/1746009/story.html
Here's the major problem...a fan of the Senators doesn't care that Dany "gave up" a month of his time to play at the World Hockey Championships....it supposed to be a privilege for a player to represent their country and the World Championships simply represents the fact that he was part of a team that couldn't make the playoffs....
A fan of the Senators doesn't care that his teammates like him and that he attended the bachelor party for Jason Spezza....if any of those players can still like him after basically giving up on the team, then from the outside looking in, it would seem as though there's a major problem within that locker room of team mentality and an urge to get back to the top-tier of the league....
A fan who goes and pays his/her hard-earned money to watch him play hockey at Scotiabank Place will not factor in Heatley's work in the community when he's losing a one-on-one battle along the boards or failing to get back on defense because thousands of people work within the community every day....why should he get preferential treatment for it? Because he's a well-paid athlete? Don't think so....
But we finally got a little bit of confirmation from the former neighbour as to why he's leaving and it's what everyone expected.....he's simply not getting enough ice time and not getting enough opportunities to get his numbers up in power play situations under Cory Clouston.....heaven forbid sacrificing a little bit of your numbers for the overall idea of winning....
At the end of the day, everyone would love to know from Dany the exact reasons as to why he's leaving (even though everyone has basically figured it out already), but sadly, we'll never get the satisfaction and we'll always be left to wonder.....
Random Thoughts:
- Saw "The Hangover" over the weekend and it was just hilarious! Really put me in a great mood and got me excited for a trip to Vegas that I'm planning for September....
- The CFL gets their season started tomorrow.....reading the preview of all 8 teams in the league, it still amazes me how much player movement there is from year to year within the league itself....is there a rule that I don't know about where every player has to play for half the league within a 5-year period?
- I have no inside information and I'm not going to start the next hockey rumour site anytime soon, but my gut feeling is that Jay Bouwmeester will eventually sign with Calgary and the Sedin twins will re-sign in Vancouver....the only reason for the delay is that the three players just want to make sure that they don't leave some money on the table....from a financial standpoint, why sign before July 1st when you can drive the price up just that little bit more....
Have a great Canada Day!