Soundwave
Registered User
- Mar 1, 2007
- 72,159
- 27,861
These guys have microphones stuck in their face every day for 10 months of the year. Hard to escape that without that escape becoming the story.
Players have bad seasons, or at least ones where they underperform. It happens to literally all of them. Even Crosby. The difference is that when a player does it in a Canadian market, it makes for a really uncomfortable year for them. They are constantly hearing stuff at work and when they go about their daily lives. And if they have a really bad season, wow does it suck for them. Often their family starts hearing about it from the public.
I completely understand why no Canadian team has won the cup in 25 years
It's a performance oriented business. Dwight Howard got killed for having a bad year in a basketball market like LA. If you have a bad season as an NFL QB, you likely are gonna get hounded like there's no tomorrow. If you're not bringing it in a baseball market get paid big dollars, look out.
Edmonton media is still a bunch of cream puffs that rarely will ask tough questions. Even the whole thing about the fans ... fans in Edmonton are pretty damn quiet during games unless a game really gets ugly or something amazing happens, people prefer to just sit and quietly watch the game like they're absorbing a book or something. Toronto and Montreal are the main markets where the media can actually really get "mean".
The Oilers in 06 and as much as it pains me to say it, the Flames in 04 and Canucks in '10 really were only a bounce or two away from winning the Cup, so not sure if I buy that. Generally though Canadian teams have tended to have crappier management.