Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Shock and Awe




At first, I thought it would be best to let the night pass before putting thoughts together on the Dany Heatley saga. But then I started thinking about George W. Bush's Shock and Awe approach to Iraq and how it kinda relates to Dany Heatley's Shock and Awe approach to farking the Sens on multiple occasions. If Eugene Melnyk was upset this morning, just wait until he wakes up under his barstool at Bert's Bar and gets his Ottawa Sun Sports hand-delivered to him. Billionairs have egos, folks. Eugene's ego is taking a kick right on the button at the hands of a guy that he has gone to great lengths to protect.

Unless we hear some sob story about why Heatley really wants out of Ottawa (his piano teacher broke off their affair, something like that), then the dude has ensured that he is the most embarassing player in hockey. Quick recap in case you've lived under a rock since the beginning of the Cup Finals. Heatley comes to Ottawa in shambles after begging for a trade out of Atlanta. Has a great few years, gets a free pass in the media on his past, signs a long-term deal with his boyfriend in tow, insists on a no-movement clause, then asks to be traded anyway, then nixes a deal to be traded (even though, if you were reading, he just asked for a trade). Oh yeah, he'll also collect $4M Wednesday night at midnight (not Tuesday night at midnight as we had all previously assumed).

Shock and awe, Dany. That's what you've done for us in the past month. You stood quietly in your stall in the locker room while your cloest ally, Jason Spezza, was getting shredded on a nightly basis. Your only sound bytes were quick shots at the press for trying to make a story out of nothing. At no point did it occur to you that you hadn't been blamed for a single piece of the Shakesperean collapse of this team over the past two years? You picked a strange time to be this arrogant, coming off of two straight years of declining production going into Olympic season. You picked a strange spokesman for your point of view in your asenine neighbour that defends your kindness in gracing our national team with your presence.

I can't lie - I was a Dany Heatley fan since the day he was traded here until the minute EJ Hradek broke the trade request story. I go to Ottawa/Atlanta games in my Sens Heatley jersey and take abuse from the few fans that still remember he played there. I love that youtube clip that cut together all 50 goals he scored in 2005-06. But this has gone so far beyond respectable behaviour, I'm kicking him out. The trade request based on feeling slighted by the coach is a bad sign of sportsmanship and character. The silent treatment he's put on in the past few weeks has shown a lack of balls and courage. And the rejection of a deal after four hours of pondering, just to take it up until the supposed midnight deadline for the $4M payout is absolutely and positively criminal. He's brought such incredible shame to himself in the past month that I'm prepared to trade him for a burning bag of shit just to get his name off our roster and move on to a team that wants to be here and play together. speaking for most Ottawa fans, how can we ever, EVER look at Dany Heatley in a positive light after this?

Shock and awe, buddy. Congrats.

1 comment:

Gerald Norton said...

Really well written.
No doubt Heatley has done irreperable damage to his reputation.
Considering the HUGE grace he's been shown in the past, to juxtapose this with his current shallow behaviour is stunning.
Just think, you are convicted of manslaughter, given a "new start", then, because you don't like a coach, you make every effort to destroy the very team that gave you your new start.
Does this guy have any sense of perspective?
This isn't simply classless, it's pathological.
I can forgive Heater for a "mistake"...but how you behave after that, helps to define how much of a "mistake " it was, and how much of a warning sign it was.
Heatleys big "mistake" is looking more like a warning sign, than a youthful tragedy.