Neutral-Zone Crap: NHL's Pride efforts Staal-ed again
Let's celebrate players and organizations that choose to participate rather than waste our bandwidth on those who don't....Plus, a son-father coaching tandem in the OHL and Situational Scoring
Eric and Marc Staal, like James Reimer and Ivan Provorov before them, have every right to refuse to wear a Pride sweater during pre-game warm-ups if it conflict with their biblical teachings and religious beliefs. Of course, there’s no chance they’ll be driven out of their sport the way Colin Kaepernick was for expressing his beliefs in a pre-game ritual, so there’s that.
Those who insist that inclusion must be a two-way street when it comes to celebrating Pride nights definitely have a point. What is the good of inclusion if you’re making someone do something that runs counter to their beliefs? I know for a fact that Reimer and the Staal brothers were fundamental Christians long before this ever became an issue. One could argue that, unlike the ‘woke mob’ that is insisting these players be chastised for their choices to opt out of Pride celebrations, they’ve been pretty consistent right from the start.
Sure. Let’s go with that. But wearing a multi-coloured sweater – and it’s a sweater, not a jersey – for 15 minutes while the rink is half full is not asking anyone to condone, advocate for, support, accept or participate in anything. These players are simply being asked to wear a sweater that tells the LGTBQ community that is welcomed in its place of work. That’s all. The same way they’re asked to wear a camo warm-up sweater on military appreciation nights to thank members of institutions who have a mandate kill people to preserve freedom and democracy.
But, yes, it is their right. Just as it is the right of observers to criticize them for their choices, and point out the inconsistencies and hypocrisy in their arguments.
But it has reached a point where those who have opted out of Pride nights have drawn more attention to themselves than to the Pride efforts and initiatives themselves. That’s why I’m out. I’m done with trying to reason with people about this, particularly in the cesspool that is social media. I’m not going to give these players one more ounce of my bandwidth. If Eric Staal, as photographic evidence has proved, can think one night and with one team it’s perfectly acceptable to wear a Pride sweater, only to refuse to do it two years later, then claim it never happened, that’s his right. If the Chicago Blackhawks and other organizations are going to turtle behind some veiled threat of retribution for their Russian players wearing them, fill your boots. This is supposed to be about hockey trying to make itself accessible to everyone and the message is being co-opted by a small, vocal minority. It should be ignored.
Instead of allowing these players to sabotage everything that is good about these Pride initiatives, perhaps it’s time to only celebrate those who choose to take part, players such as Matthew Tkachuk of the Florida Panthers, who chooses to “enjoy and embrace a night like tonight,” and insisted that everyone is welcomed in his dressing room.
In fact, the only mistake Tkachuk made is that he called it a ‘locker room’. Just as it’s a sweater and not a jersey, it’s a dressing room and not a locker room. Locker rooms have lockers, dressing rooms have stalls. They also have Staals, and if they don’t want to be part of the initiative then it’s probably best to leave them alone with their antiquated and hypocritical religious beliefs.
‘HEY DAD, CAN WE CHANGE THE LINES?’
Went to Barrie last night to do a piece on Brandt Clarke of the Barrie Colts, which will be part of an upcoming Ontario Hockey League playoff preview for The Toronto Star. In case you haven’t noticed, since Clarke rejoined the Colts after spending the first half of the season with the Los Angeles Kings and Canada’s World Junior team, both he and the Colts are on some kind of heater. Clarke, who is a defenceman, has 23 goals and 61 points in 31 games and the Colts go into the final weekend of the season with a 22-6-3 mark since getting Clarke back in January. Clarke sits fifth in OHL scoring among defensemen and is tied for second behind only Logan Mailloux of the London Knights in goals.
On the other side of the ice were the Sudbury Wolves, who are now being guided by former NHL player and assistant coach Derek MacKenzie. With him behind the bench is his father, Ken, the Wolves’ assistant GM. It’s an interesting dynamic to say the least and a departure from Derek’s days growing up in Sudbury when his father was the man behind the Wolves bench. Derek later went on to play four years for the Wolves before turning pro, where Ken was an assistant for one of those season. “Don’t let him fool you,” Derek said of his father as he was lugging hockey bags to the team bus, “he’s the boss around here.”
When the Wolves got off to a 2-7-1 record in their first 10 games, they fired coach Craig Duncanson in November. Ken stepped behind the bench on an interim basis and led the Wolves to a 3-1-1 record, picking up his first OHL coaching victory since 1992. Since taking over behind the bench, the younger MacKenzie has led the Wolves to a 24-20-7 record and a playoff spot. Derek was part of fellow Sudbury native Andrew Brunette’s coaching staff with the Florida Panthers that was dismissed after the Panthers followed up their President’s Trophy regular season with a sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the playoffs in 2021-22.
FUN WITH NUMBERS - SITUATIONAL SCORING
In hockey, there’s an old saying that suggests they don’t ask how, they ask how many. Well around here, we don’t simply ask how many. We want to know how many mattered.
So here’s the weekly update to Hockey Unfiltered’s Situational Scoring Race. And, as the name suggests, it measures situational scoring, specifically which players produce offence at the most crucial times in the game.
As always, there are a couple of things to note, the most important being that goals are weighted more heavily than assists, with goals worth one point and assists worth half a point. In this system, goals can be worth more than one point and assists worth more than a half a point. For example, the first goal of a game is automatically worth two points, one for being the first goal of the game and one for putting that player’s team ahead in a game. An overtime goal is worth three, one for putting the team ahead, one for being the game-winner and one for the overtime goal. If that is the only goal in a 1-0 game, it’s worth four.
It can all be a little confusing, so here’s a glossary:
FIRST: When a player scores the first goal of the game.
AHEAD: Any goal that puts a team ahead at any point in the game, including overtime.
TIED: Any goal that pulls a team into a tie at any point in the game.
COMEBACK: A goal that is scored when a team is trailing by two goals or more and is part of a series of goals that eventually ties the game, regardless of the ultimate outcome of the game.
WINNER: A game-winning goal, but not by the NHL’s definition. The game-winner in this category is the goal that puts a team ahead in a game to stay. So in other words, you could have a 7-6 game and maybe the first goal of the game was the game-winner.
OT: Overtime goal.
SO: Only shootout game-winning goals are counted in this category.
NHL: Where the player stands in the actual NHL scoring race.