Ok, not my intent to touch this topic tonight but I've got OTR muted in the background and I just caught this headline on screen: "Do you think Linus Omark's shootout move was disrespectful?"
There's got to be more to talk about than that...seriously. Cheeky, creative, risky, sure, but disrespectful? Does someone scoring a goal make them disrespectful? What a ridiculous concept. Even if he had muffed this never-before-seen shootout move it's still not a matter of respect. If I'm Tom Renney and I put Omark in the shootout whether he gets creative and scores or misses I have to expect it, so you can't even say Omark pushing the boundaries of his amazing skill when a point is on the line is a bad thing, it's what he is supposed to do and it's Renney's job to decide to go with him or not. This time it worked but next time it might not. It's pretty tough to leave this guy on the bench during a shootout, especially when you know everyone wants to see what he'll do next. You put him in and see what happens. Is it disrespectful to the other team? Why don't we just give everybody a point so no one has to lose? I guess that's why the TV is on mute though.
I came on here to complain about even more vile a transgression to the sport of hockey: Cheerleaders. It was a novelty and a joke when it happened in the Southern U.S. markets but for the once proud Oilers franchise to be the first Canadian team to have cheerleaders at home ice is a slap in the face to any self respecting Oiler fan from any generation. The league should have a say on this and it should be no cheerleaders, league wide, whether you're operating a team in a hockey market that needed an official to explain the symbol for tripping through the load speakers or in the City of Champions.
There were a lot of story lines in this game besides the further degredation of the NHL. Taylor Hall has something to say, and I love it. To paraphrase he feels if the Oilers work hard then two points are there for them against the Leafs. Now is this disrespectful? No. Here's an athlete finally taking a stand and saying what he feels and the media make it some big controversy. He's an athlete and he's showing already that he's a leader and he's telling it how it is. Unfortunately they lost brutally to the Leafs. How good did McCarthur and Grabovski look? I think the Leafs have potential but they need to work on getting the puck to their forwards and they need a couple real centres. Bozak has potential but this team is probably one of the bottom three weakest as a whole in the league. If GM Brian Burke's plan was to win now then he needs to do that by going out and getting a centre now, and add another puck moving blueliner.
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