Following up on yesterday’s post, John Scott capped an amazing run that, if it was a movie script, would be rejected as too unbelievable – starting as a joke write-in candidate for the NHL all-star game, getting traded and demoted, his all-star berth in doubt, fighting back against the powers that be, both directly and with the support of a huge fan backlash to play in the NHL All-Star game where he not only didn’t embarrass himself but managed to score a couple goals, captaining his team to victory in the mini-tournament, helping make the most memorable all-star game I can remember, and (again) become a successful write-in candidate to win MVP over the three players picked by the league!
I mean, his wife who is pregnant with twins, said she didn’t want to jump too much during the game in case she induced labour with the babies being due any day – that’s like something a movie studio would cut as too unrealistic!
People can stomp their feet and claim “it’s embarrassing to the league and the All-Star Game” all they want. But, the game features a Velveeta cheese fountain, celebrity coaches no one has heard of, and most importantly it’s an exhibition game.
[Scott] has become the saviour of the All-Star Game, and legions of people have become fans of Scott, the every-man who is living his dream with a smile ever-present on his face.
The NHL All-Star Game is about to start and before the game even happens, it’s been one of the most eventful in memory.
It all started with a couple journalists suggesting it would be funny to encourage people to vote for one of the “worst” players in the NHL in the open fan vote, Phoenix Coyotes’ enforcer, John Scott.
Then, another wrinkle – the Phoenix Coyotes (the team he was on when voted in as an all-star) traded him to the Montreal Canadiens who immediately demote Scott to the AHL, raising questions about whether he was still eligible to play (and if this was the intention of the trade via a backroom conspiracy brokered by the NHL who still feared being embarrassed at one of their showcase events.)
Scott himself pointed out in later interviews that this trade was *highly* unusual in that enforcers rarely get traded mid-season when their team is winning. Family matters rarely get factored into trades but on top of everything, Scott’s wife is nine months pregnant with twins which adds insult to injury.
(But if there are hockey gods, they’re paying attention – Phoenix who were playing above expectations all year have had a losing record since the trade. Montreal has fallen from being one of the best teams in the league at the start of the season to a non-playoff team!)
Anyhow, all of this leads to an enormous backlash from fans who resent their vote being manipulated this way – whether they voted for Scott or not. The majority of NHL players, all-stars and otherwise, plus coaches and others in the game are also supportive, knowing that enforcers do one of the most difficult jobs in sport and also that the NHL shouldn’t take its fans for granted in such a blatant fashion.
The NHL realizes they have a public relations disaster on their hands and backpedal, saying they meant to have Scott at the game all along, that any comments anyone made about his kids are “irrelevant”, and that they’re excited about having him involved.
During the saga, Scott pens an amazing essay, “A Guy Like Me”, which, if you read nothing else in this post, you should click through to read.
In it, Scott reveals he’s not another lunk head fighter but that he’s a trained engineer, that his idol who he alway wanted to emulate was superstar, Ray Bourque, and that he knows the job he does is brutal, frightening and necessary.
To my mind, this is 100% on the NHL – not the fans who voted for Scott, not the media, not Redditors nor anyone else.
The NHL allows a fan vote so they should live with the results. If people brigade the vote to pick someone who’s eligible but not “deserving”, guess what? That’s been happening as long as the Internet has had polls. Some are binding, some aren’t (ever see the final list of who gets voted for each year in Time’s “Person of the Year” poll? Ever see it match who actually gets picked?)
Plus, it’s supposed to be a fun event. So why suck all the fun out of it, even if it’s mischievous fun? (But when have the suits in the corner offices ever understood that?)
Anyhow, not having done anything to preemptively prevent this situation (how about limiting each team to 3-5 names on the ballot and no write-ins if they want some control over who gets picked?), the NHL should’ve embraced the vote and turned it into a way to promote the game and the players (basically what’s happened anyhow because of their ham-fisted meddling.)
Oh, and I said it’s 100% on the NHL but Arizona and Montreal appear complicit and I would be very happy if neither made the playoffs this year as punishment from the hockey gods!
Doesn’t anyone remember Trump and his words with John McCain?! This [veteran] is talking about how tough it is being in a war. He is standing on a stage with [Donald Trump] a man who ridiculed a POW for no good reason for being captured and tortured in a war. Trump’s supporters are incredibly delusional.
Shea and I have reached that point in our lives where we tend to buy most Christmas gifts for ourselves and then label them as if they were from each other.
But we do usually try to get at least one original “surprise” gift as well – for example, this year I bought her some jewelry and she bought me a one hour soak in a “serenity float pod“.
I had my one hour appointment today and it was pretty relaxing – you go into the spa, shower in your private room then climb into the nearby serenity pod which has 10 inches of body temperature water and 1000 lbs of salt which make it incredibly buoyant.
You have a variety of options – you can leave the pod door open, partially closed or closed completely. You can have music playing or not (and either listen to the the spa’s or your own if you bring your device which can be plugged into the outside of the pod via provided stereo cable.) The final option is lighting in the pod which you control as either total darkness, about six different colours or a slow multi-colour strobe of all the colours.
It was a great experience – as the staff member explained, people often use their first soak as a way to simply try all the variations – everything from different ways of floating to the various lighting options and so on – and that’s what I did. I put on one of the handful of albums I listen to when I’m relaxing/napping (I didn’t but if you fall asleep in the pod, the water prevents you from going under!) and had a moment of non-serene panic when I thought the ~45 minute album would run out then I’d be stuck with whatever popped up on Shuffle Play! Luckily my iPhone was set to stop at the conclusion of the album. So this also gave me 15 minutes to experience the pod without music.
The actual experience reminded me of our various hot holidays where I take any opportunity to go out in the ocean then float and bob in the waves, watching the sky.
Anyhow, one of the many things that crossed my mind as I floated today was an idea for a blog post about the…
10 Most Unique Experiences of My Life
We rode in a submarine off the shore of Waikiki in Oahu, Hawaii
We also rode in a helicopter over Kauai
This wasn’t something unique to me but I’ve often talked about being part of two unique moments in history – being in the UK in 1995 during the height of the “Cool Britannia” movement and being in Calgary in 2004 during the Flames improbable run to the Stanley Cup Finals. What links both of these experiences is they were times when a region rallied around a possibility with optimism and joy.
I’ve stayed up all night in Vegas gambling (quarter machines but still a pretty big thrill to start with $20, get it up to over $100 then lose it all!)
I pushed the idea of doing a “Money Bomb” fundraiser during Ryan Meili’s first run for the leadership of the Saskatchewan NDP. Then, when his team implemented it, Ryan’s “Money Bomb” because the first time this technique had been done in Canadian politics at any level (as far as we know.)
I’ve been on the Eiffel Tower at sunset which is the ultimate in romance. Unfortunately, the woman traveling with me was a platonic fellow student but it was still a pretty cool moment. 😉
It’s not unique that I was in the delivery room when Sasha was born. But it’s probably still (somewhat) unique that I videotaped the whole thing! (Then again, with the ubiquity of smartphones, that’s probably not too unique either. Okay, how about the fact that I invited my mother-in-law to be there during the entire delivery as well?) 😉
I did a bunch of “sex, drugs and rock & roll” things in college that I won’t get into details about but will say that some of them were fairly unique, at least as far as I could tell in the days before the Internet made those kinds of activities a lot less private! 😉
