“Where’d you get your outfit?”
SportsNet
“China”
Brad Marchand via SN
Brad Marchand may get his clothing from China, but he won’t be playing Olympic hockey there this winter. And the Boston Bruins winger is not pleased.
Marchand is a lot of things.
He’s an exceptional skater, puck handler, and point-producer — he’s got 742 of ’em in 825 NHL games (according to Hockey Reference).
He’s hockey’s supreme pest, dubbed by his haters as “The Rat”. There isn’t much he hasn’t done in accumulating his 840 NHL-career penalty minutes. Slew-footing, licking, embellishing, verbally assaulting opponents and officials, stick-stomping, and spearing all are prominent on his hockey resume.
He’s also correct in calling out the NHL and NHLPA here.
Since Gary Bettman became its Commissioner in 1993, the NHL has ignorantly and arrogantly decided what’s best for its players and fans. From the lockout in 2005 that robbed the hockey world of a season to spitting in the faces of hockey legends by replacing their names on divisions and conferences to generic labels to accommodate the “casual” fan to watering down the league via expansion, Bettman probably has more haters than Marchand.
I understand the NHL is a business and the league is trying to protect its assets. But it’s my opinion that the league is doing so more to appease team owners than out of concern for players’ health and safety. The almighty dollar wins out in almost every aspect of society, and the NHL is no exception.
Even if the players forfeited pay while in Beijing, as Marchand suggested, it seems the league has deemed the risk too high. I can hear the league’s suits on 6th Avenue now, “What if a player is severely injured during Olympic play and lost to his NHL team for the remainder of the season? How do we answer to the board of governors?”
My answer? 1. We’re in a pandemic; nobody can predict when a player might contract COVID-19 (or some variant). 2. What if a player severely injuries himself during the offseason while doing normal, everyday activities like riding a bicycle or routine training? 3. What if the sky falls? Seriously. Nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. Life is short.
Marchand is correct. Let the players decide.
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