Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Disposable players?
Ray Bourque is probably the most respected played in the NHL over the last thirty five years. I say "probably", but I think I mean "definitely". Ray Bourque was a superstar with the Boston Bruins as a rookie, and he stayed a superstar with Boston into his late 30s. As he once said:
"I was telling Dave on the plane that those two Stanley Cup runs"—the Bruins reached the finals in 1988 and '90—"were the fondest hockey memories I have. I wanted that feeling back, to feel that my team has a chance."
Boston however was not a pleasant place to be, as he was mulling over retirement.
There wasn't a single moment, defeat, blowup or controversy that drove Bourque from Boston. He had been made unhappy last month when absentee owner Jeremy Jacobs publicly assailed coach Pat Burns while giving his blessing to Sinden and assistant general manager Mike O'Connell. ( Bourque has always loathed finger-pointing.)
There were many reasons for his gloom: the off-season loss of free agents Tim Taylor and Dmitri Khristich, the tardy re-signing of goalie Byron Dafoe, injuries to forwards Jason Allison and Anson Carter, and forward Joe Murphy's much-publicized insubordination toward Burns. Bourque connected the dots, which formed an outline of a team in turmoil. He had ennobled the Bruins since the Carter Administration, but now he was being dragged into the muck, playing well only three of every five games, by his own estimation.
"The atmosphere wasn't good," he says. "I needed to get out for my own head. I wasn't as consistent, wasn't as sharp. That was mental. To get the best out of myself, I needed a different environment. If I had stayed in Boston, I wouldn't have played next year. I would've called it quits."
They traded Bourque near the trading deadline, and Colorado had a great playoff run that first year. He came back the next year, and they won the Cup. What did Bourque do? He went back to his hometown (Boston), and brought the Cup there. And the fans loved it.
During the series, this championship-starved city barely noticed that Colorado was 2,000 miles away. Newspapers here covered the series as though the Avalanche were the hometown team, and TV ratings for Game 7 were higher than anywhere but Denver.
Bourque, 40, who lives north of Boston in Topsfield, told fans their enthusiasm showed they understood why he'd had to leave.
"This is home for me and my family. I had some great years with the Bruins, but I'd never come really close to Stanley, my friend," Bourque told the crowd, pointing to the trophy. "But to touch this, we felt there was a move that had to be made."
Boston fans loved Bourque's work ethic and his nice-guy image, and nobody in the crowd seemed to begrudge him his decision to leave.
"He devoted 20 years of his life to us," said Bob McNaught, an account executive at a downtown Boston copy store and lifelong Bruins fan. "We couldn't get him what every hockey player dreams of."
Stock brokers, secretaries and construction workers - some on lunch break, some malingering - all crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in downtown Boston to cheer Bourque. Police estimated the crowd at more than 15,000.
That's just wonderful, right? (And if you really want to see the respect and admiration for Bourque, go here. That's when being a sports fan transends sports.)
Anyway, so your favorite player gets traded, and YOU GET UPSET. You! If you love your player, you should be happy for them, especially if they are going to be in an environment that more closely matches their career objective. And if your favorite player was being displaced on the time by better, younger players, then you'd be thinking "ok, time to call it a career". Again, you!
You are treating the player as something disposable, or as a piece of property that you are entitled to. I know there's a line there where the team wants you to care for the player... until they don't want you to. But as a fan, you have to be able to first see it from the people directly affected.
This is why I was never on board with the hate-fest toward Lebron. Obviously, he didn't build the 20-year goodwill that Bourque did with Boston. But still, a player doesn't need to do that. The player plays for your team, he does as much, or more, than anyone else has done or could do for your team. And, when the time is right FOR HIM, you let him go.
It's not about you. The player is a person who deserves to be able to make his choice and his peace, without dealing with how fans will respond to his decision.
I remember the Expos fans being terrible in this regard to fellow Canadian Larry Walker. When Walker was cut loose, he was a free agent. He didn't even ask to be traded. And as Walker noted, he had no chance to come back to Montreal, because the Expos never even made him an offer. And yet they booed him on his return. To Expos fans, it was all about them.
When a player loses his starting job, is about to become a free agent, and can play for a team in the playoff hunt, be happy for him. It's a wonderful thing to do for a player.
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