Randy Butternubs
FDJT
I've been on this place since the mid 2000's and there always seemed to be a disdain for anyone who was successful, especially anyone who is consistently and historically successful.
The board is actually 10X better about Sid and appreciating him compared to his first 8 or so years in the league.
The boards were ruthless about him his first 4 years in the league. You'd think he was punting babies and eating kittens the way he was regarded around here. He allegedly stink palmed all the 09' Wings that he actually got to in the handshake line, after telling Lidstrom to go fly a kite and that they'd be shaking hands on Sid's schedule, if at all, because Sid didn't respect him and was a punk. Then people were still calling him a diver, saying he was a whiner, that he was a bust because he only had one cup, that he didn't contribute to winning the cup much because his #s in the back to back finals. They said that his season when he broke his neck was an outlier and the small spurts of high PPG showings over the next few years were easily attainable in such a small sample size, that he was going to go down as more of a Kariya/Lindros what-if than a Mario or Orr what-if.
I think I started noticing a change when he went to the Worlds in 2015 and won gold with Canada, and then he had that awful start where the next season with MJ and people thought he was cooked, and then we got Sully and he/the Pens went on to win the Cup in 2016 with him taking home the Conn Smythe. It really started to change after that at the World Cup in 2016 where he seemed to finally have weight off his shoulders and really enjoy playing hockey and led Canada to a gold and winning MVP. He got another Richard in '17, along with another Cup and the back-to-back- Conn Smythe and then the board kind of came around to where we are now.
I know its probably not the recognition he deserves on here, but Ill assume its a bunch of neck-beards in Philadelphia throwing up 100 posts a day on HF on their mothers basement desk-top that will always be the root cause of this issue, as its been since 2005.
Don't forget the pacifiers in DC.