Crosby Back In Lineup...TONIGHT!?!

[egroen 384]

Hey egroen,

you know what's funny about those articles? That pretty much each one states the fact that the players were well aware of the rule for a year now. Not a whole lot of love for our boys in this scenario huh. Just b/c they're getting ripped up by the media, which you have shown with your links (although a number of those were hockey related websites so I don't know if that constitutes "sports writers" all over NA) maybe they deserve to get ripped some. I don't know call me crazy, I don't see the Wings as infallible all the time.

This has been long established. They knew they might be suspended for not playing in the ASG.

But they would not have been ripped apart like this if Bettman had not changed the rule at the last minute. to inherently favor only one of the three.

That's it.

I love that you are incapable, even for a split second of taking off the Red Wings glasses and acknowledging the FACT, that Nick, Dats and the Wings organization openly defied league policy.

They complied with league policy, and accepted they might be suspended.

Being injured, and following your club's desires to rest and recieve treatment does not equal defying league policy.

The CBA states players must attend NHL and All Star Games to "the best of their ability" and "at the discretion of the club" - IE. A doctor's note can prevent you from playing in a regular season game or the ASG.

Bettman essentally created a verbal amendment to the CBA because he felt the "clubs" were taking advantage of it. Obviously the NHLPA is taking him up on this because it was never written down; they never agreed to it; and it apeared to be arbitrarily followed/amended with no real clarification.

It may be a stupid rule to enforce. But seems to me that you're neglecting to even acknowledge that our guys shunned the game of their own free will. And when faced with the consequences, said "so what" essentially and still decided to miss the game.

It's obviously a stupid rule, and it is so amazingly, blindingly stupid that even Bettman saw it and changed it.

Despite how stupid it is, the Wings were willing to risk it being enforced in favor of the players and club.

Crosby would have been in the exact same boat, had he not recieved a personal pardon.

A little objectivity is really all I'm after in threads like these. Too bad that because you're incapable of coming to grips with the rule, as stupid as the rule may be, we're left with yet another ***** fest.

As stupid as the rule is, and obviously needs to be refined or banished altogether, it is the LOOPHOLE that has really infuriated me, and how Bettman and Crosby handled this whole situation. As I outlined in an earlier post, there were several ways it could have been handled, and Bettman and Crosby seemed to pick the absolute worst course of action possible.

I particularly like this paragraph from the SI column

(As Red Wings general manager Ken Holland told SI.com, the players had made other plans with their families, booked hotels, purchased tickets for flights and were loathe to change them. Hossa, for example, had agreed to go to Toronto to film a commercial for a Slovakian cell phone company, and there were people from his homeland coming to oversee the project.) (But the ambivalence shown by some Detroit players, if not the organization, merely reinforces the idea that the All-Star Game is a played-out notion.)

It's funny to me that these writers, writers not beholden to the Detroit Redwings or Crosby or the NHL are siding against you and the conspiracy theorists. A little more objective about this than some of our fellow LGWers maybe?

What I do not like is this paragrah made it sound like they were vacationing. Nothing is even mentioned of injuries. Lidstrom, we know was recieving treatment and spent the entire weekend at home in Detroit.

These ignorant of the real facts articles would not exist if Bettman and Crosby handled this better.

Our guys new about the rule, made other plans and had no intention of appearing at the event at all. If you don't act like a complete homer, from the outside it would appear that our boys blew off the event. Why they blew it off, injuries or not has no bearing.

Yes, it looked like the wings blew off the event because of the way it was handled by Bettman and Crosby -- it's almost like they encouraged this inaccurate assumption.

IMO, it's a stupid rule and players who are hurt shouldn't be punished for not attending.

And it is even more stupid that a said injury is "real" if a player actually attends the festivities. The rule was dumb; the loophole was even dumber.

But the rule was in place, we knew it and we went ahead and broke it anyway. But let's not admit those FACTS. Let's just vent and ***** because the policy got changed, even though our players, given the opportunity to show up, still had "made plans" and were not inclined to change them.

If the "loophole" had been in place since February of last year, as stupid as it is, I think you may have seen the Wings there.

Why get so bent out of shape about the policy being changed for Sid when our guys actions showed they wouldn't have showed up regardless.

Non Wings homers might look at that as blowing off the ASG weekend, injured or not.

It pissed me off to see the implications of this whole sordid event -- Lidstrom and Datsyuk are publicly dragged through the mud. Wings lose a real game while Crosby puts up 4 points and the Penguins win their game.

Now imagine if the Wings miss home-ice advantage by one point, and Columbus or Pittsburgh makes the playoffs by one point.

As a fan of the sport, and the Red Wings in particular, this crap pisses me off.

Edited January 29, 2009 by egroen

[Icteria virens 11]

I hate to tell you this but outside of our little universe here, people don't give a rat's ass about hockey, let alone 2 players on the Red Wings. For all of your whining and bitching about them having their good names dragged thru the mud, WTF are you talking about.

ah, you're posting this on Let'sgowings.com , we do care, if it annoys you don't post here any more.

you make a meal out of being 'the contrarian' don't you?