2/25/2004
Now this is just fucking stupid...
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=kelley_jim&id=1742936
If anything, the timing of the thing is what interests me the most. I could understand an outside writing a doom-and-gloom Canadiens column after the 5-4 loss to the Maple Leaves, but after two straight wins in which they played their worst hockey and beat New York, then played their best hockey to beat Ottawa?
Dear writer guy: Teams have up-and-down swings throughout the course of a season. To say that the sky is falling after a bad run is just as inane as guaranteeing a Stanley Cup when you've won 3 in a row. Now, I know you have to fill your column inches, but believe me, it makes you look like a jackass when you villify Theodore after he's had two fantastic games in a row. And, he's supposed to do what else more, exactly?
By the way, Theodore's stats for the season are 24-23-5, 2.19, .922. To ask for anything more behind the defense that he's had at many points this season is lunacy...Martin Brodeur would probably have similar numbers (why is it that nobody mentions that Brodeur usually faces 14 or 16 shots a game? Don't get me wrong, he's one of the best goalies to ever come down the pipe, but he's not having to stave off 35 a night either). To wit, Theodore has faced 1457 shots so far this season, (in 53 games, averaging about 28 a game) while Brodeur has faced 1366 (in 56 games, averaging about 24 a game). Actually, while I'm on the subject, Brodeur's save percentage is .917...so if Theodore is a liability because he's in the 920s, what does that make Brodeur?
Yet again, it's a case of a columnist trying to cram round facts into a square hole for the purposes of a column where the idea was predetermined from the start. I know...I did it too when I was in college.
If anything, the timing of the thing is what interests me the most. I could understand an outside writing a doom-and-gloom Canadiens column after the 5-4 loss to the Maple Leaves, but after two straight wins in which they played their worst hockey and beat New York, then played their best hockey to beat Ottawa?
Dear writer guy: Teams have up-and-down swings throughout the course of a season. To say that the sky is falling after a bad run is just as inane as guaranteeing a Stanley Cup when you've won 3 in a row. Now, I know you have to fill your column inches, but believe me, it makes you look like a jackass when you villify Theodore after he's had two fantastic games in a row. And, he's supposed to do what else more, exactly?
By the way, Theodore's stats for the season are 24-23-5, 2.19, .922. To ask for anything more behind the defense that he's had at many points this season is lunacy...Martin Brodeur would probably have similar numbers (why is it that nobody mentions that Brodeur usually faces 14 or 16 shots a game? Don't get me wrong, he's one of the best goalies to ever come down the pipe, but he's not having to stave off 35 a night either). To wit, Theodore has faced 1457 shots so far this season, (in 53 games, averaging about 28 a game) while Brodeur has faced 1366 (in 56 games, averaging about 24 a game). Actually, while I'm on the subject, Brodeur's save percentage is .917...so if Theodore is a liability because he's in the 920s, what does that make Brodeur?
Yet again, it's a case of a columnist trying to cram round facts into a square hole for the purposes of a column where the idea was predetermined from the start. I know...I did it too when I was in college.
