Okay, I'm officially sick of it

[Cern 0]

Crosby is lazy

Maybe THAT'S why he's going to be late for dinner

[edicius 3,269]

After tonight's game, Crosby has shown that he's not ready to wear the C on his chest. Not ready and not worthy. Talented? Sure. But a leader? Classy? Nope. When I see him pout, it reminds me of something Mario did during a game in what would be his final season.

Pittsburgh is losing the game by a substantial margin in the 3rd period. He takes a defensive zone faceoff, wins the faceoff, then disappears off the ice. Just skates off, doesn't tell anyone why. Equipment problem? Injury? He's gone for the rest of the game. Didn't want to play in a blowout, so he just gave up and quit.

[Kp-Wings 3]

Wow, never heard about that. Must be something in the water in Pittsburgh.

[edicius 3,269]

Wow, never heard about that. Must be something in the water in Pittsburgh.

Was a rare Pittsburgh game that I actually watched that year. Couldn't believe he pulled that garbage. The play-by-play kept questioning it, "Mario still not on the bench...". But there was no injury, no equipment problem. It was that move by Mario that made me truly dislike him and the Pens by association. Sadly, I could easily see Sid pulling some crap like that too somewhere down the road.

[Cern 0]

Pittsburgh is losing the game by a substantial margin in the 3rd period. He takes a defensive zone faceoff, wins the faceoff, then disappears off the ice. Just skates off, doesn't tell anyone why. Equipment problem? Injury? He's gone for the rest of the game. Didn't want to play in a blowout, so he just gave up and quit.

Malkin did the exact same thing in the 3rd, Don Cherry pointed it out in the post-game commentary. I think it was Zetterberg picking it up at the red line, Malkin was right there with him, and he glided over to the bench instead of making an effort to break up the rush. Led to a good scoring chance by the Wings, too.

[Gizmo 21]

Hey, I think the national media might actually be noticing the Red Wings finally! I picked up the latest issue of Sports Illustrated to look for the latest multi-page Crosby/Pens article (with an small Wings side-bar article thrown in) like they've had in the two previous issues.... and lo and behold there was a nice big article with lots of pictures of guys in red jerseys entitled "Control Freaks"! I had to do a double-take!

Edited June 1, 2008 by Gizmo

[Mule Train 0]

Hey, I think the national media might actually be noticing the Red Wings finally! I picked up the latest issue of Sports Illustrated to look for the latest multi-page Crosby/Pens article (with an small Wings side-bar article thrown in) like they've had in the two previous issues.... and lo and behold there was a nice big article with lots of pictures of guys in red jerseys entitled "Control Freaks"! I had to do a double-take!

After all of the slobbering man love of Crosby over the last two weeks I really don't even want their notice or recognition. Get off our bandwagon!!!!!!

[hamip1998 3]

No need to apologize to me whatsoever. I try to be a voice of reason and have a middle ground stance when the team might be facing adversity, or getting people to try to consider a more general/overall perspective outside of just the Red Wings, etc. That's probably a good reason why some of my posts seem to always go against the grain on certain subjects, such as panic-attack threads and so forth, or Mr. Contrary in your specific words, which I think I understand.

Honestly, the whole media thing where a lot of the attention/NHL marketing directed towards Crosby does not bother me whatsoever. I'm probably in a minority thinking that, but I have to accept and understand the fact that it bothers plenty of die-hard hockey fans, not just Red Wings fans, not just because it's a case of only OMG WHY DON'T MEDIA TALK ABOUT ZETTERBERG AND DATSYUK, but I do think the league should also consider promoting other stars. Ovechkin has that treatment somewhat as Crosby, but since the Caps got eliminated early and Crosby is the other posterboy, Crosby gets all the attention then. If I pay attention really closely, I'll probably get that it is tiring, but honestly it just doesn't bug me that much to get riled up about it that badly.

I guess my stance is that I wish people would accept that Crosby is going to be one of the main marketing pieces for a long while (assuming he still produces on the ice) since he's only 20, and he's from this continent and move on. But maybe what I am failing to see or accept myself is that people already have accepted this and are maybe not tired of it, but would like to see the NHL do new stuff and promote other players as well, like you said.

At the same time though, I'm pretty sure the NHL wants to try to bring in new fans. We may all make smart-allec remarks how the NHL will never be popular regardless, but they have to at the very least try. Crosby is somebody people can easily identify with I think. He'll be in the league for a while assuming he stays healthy, he has star talent, he's a "Captain/Leader" (whether you think he's a good captain or not, entirely subjective and I'll leave that up to you to decide), he's a good person to start the marketing with. Crosby shouldn't be blamed for that.

Promote other stars more like Ovechkin, Zetterberg, Rick Nash et al? Of course. But realize and we have to live with the almost certain fact that Crosby is going to be one of the leading players of the marketing efforts. I'm definitely for though putting eggs in multiple baskets (marketing more than just 1 or 2 players).

Well said and much respect to you. Thanks for the well thought out response.

Personally, I accept that Sidney is a kid who worked his tail off to get to the level that he is at and is an amazing player who is a good face for the league to have the casual fan identify with. I really don't blame him at all for the hype machine that the NHL has built around him. Seriously, the NHL should market Sidney. However, it just pisses me off that there seems to be nothing but a focus on Crosby by the media in this series. For example, I think Ryan Malone is a hell of a player but I really don't know much about him. How about spotlighting him? This isn't about the poor Wings not getting any love, it's about disagreeing with how the NHL is presenting itself and getting tired of only hearing about one player or one team.

I simply feel that they should market AO, Nash, Iginla, Hank, Pavel, etc with the same level of intensity. They should be celebrating HOCKEY, not just one player or team.

[Dabura 12,232]

Well said and much respect to you. Thanks for the well thought out response.

Personally, I accept that Sidney is a kid who worked his tail off to get to the level that he is at and is an amazing player who is a good face for the league to have the casual fan identify with. I really don't blame him at all for the hype machine that the NHL has built around him. Seriously, the NHL should market Sidney. However, it just pisses me off that there seems to be nothing but a focus on Crosby by the media in this series. For example, I think Ryan Malone is a hell of a player but I really don't know much about him. How about spotlighting him? This isn't about the poor Wings not getting any love, it's about disagreeing with how the NHL is presenting itself and getting tired of only hearing about one player or one team.

I simply feel that they should market AO, Nash, Iginla, Hank, Pavel, etc with the same level of intensity. They should be celebrating HOCKEY, not just one player or team.

I've gotta agree with this.

Marketing Crosby as the face of the league is smart business. However, doing it at the expense of other world-class players (some of them equally as marketable as Sid) is bad business. The league is filled with immensely talented, likable players. How many of them were mentioned in Versus' coverage of this series? How many of them have been mentioned in NBC's coverage thus far?