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PL Dubois opens up about his ambitions, insight, and how he landed in Los Angeles. | Page 6 | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League
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PL Dubois opens up about his ambitions, insight, and how he landed in Los Angeles.

VivaLasVegas said:
LOL, if that were true the teams wouldn't be paying these guys to play.

Professional hockey is simply a business. The players sell the teams the commodity of their talent through the collective bargaining agreement negotiated with the NHLPA, the teams then repackage that talent with a stadium and glitz into entertainment and sell it to the fans, who are nothing more-or-less than consumers of the entertainment. It's not much different than airlines pilots who basically sell their ATC license and skills to the airlines, who repackage those skills with an airplane and fuel and sell seats to their customers. Or top chefs at fancy restaurants or talented options traders hired by hedge funds.

Those players who have sufficient talent and drive get contracts; those who don't get a complimentary spirit towel for trying. But there is no privilege about it, at least as privilege is commonly understood. All the sports leagues encourage that the sport is something else that transcends ordinary business, and all the sports journalists and talk show commentators play up to that (because ultimately the idea benefits them as well), but that's nothing more than an ages-old marketing gimmick. The harder truth is that professional hockey is just another form of entertainment, nothing more, nothing less.

And the players? They are just paid performers. Nothing more, nothing less.
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The privilege comes from the fact that 90% of NHL players come from families in the top 10% (usually much higher) of income brackets.

Nearly all the Canadian kids coming up are from extremely wealthy families. Even more so for American kids. The cost of minor hockey in North America is absurd.

Whether we like it or not we cheer for players who for the most part have faced little adversity and little competition to get to the NHL compared to other pro athletes and their sports.

Its insane to say they dont have privilege. If you play high level minor hockey in Canada or the USA, your situation is better than 99% of people in the world.

So when players do things like this is certainly rubs you the wrong way.
 
J bo Jeans said:
The privilege comes from the fact that 90% of NHL players come from families in the top 10% (usually much higher) of income brackets.

Nearly all the Canadian kids coming up are from extremely wealthy families. Even more so for American kids. The cost of minor hockey in North America is absurd.

Whether we like it or not we cheer for players who for the most part have faced little adversity and little competition to get to the NHL compared to other pro athletes and their sports.

Its insane to say they dont have privilege. If you play high level minor hockey in Canada or the USA, your situation is better than 99% of people in the world.

So when players do things like this is certainly rubs you the wrong way.
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I don't disagree with you, but that is a very different type of privilege than referenced by the original poster to whom I was responding.
 
J bo Jeans said:
The privilege comes from the fact that 90% of NHL players come from families in the top 10% (usually much higher) of income brackets.

Nearly all the Canadian kids coming up are from extremely wealthy families. Even more so for American kids. The cost of minor hockey in North America is absurd.

Whether we like it or not we cheer for players who for the most part have faced little adversity and little competition to get to the NHL compared to other pro athletes and their sports.

Its insane to say they dont have privilege. If you play high level minor hockey in Canada or the USA, your situation is better than 99% of people in the world.

So when players do things like this is certainly rubs you the wrong way.
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If you even live in Canada or the US your situation is better then 99% of the rest of the world
 
SeanMoneyHands said:
He’s a player that everyone hates playing against but everyone would love to have this guy on their team.
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ehhh... that's probably true when he's happy and wants to be there, but his time in Columbus shows what you get when he's ready to leave and it's not pretty
 
Starting to realize he was a problem in the locker room... bowness has mentionned multiple times this year that every player wants to be a jet and nobody has a foot out the door....

The Jets locker room seems to be unique. Helle and Connor would rather be icefishing than shopping on Rodeo Drive. Shief mentionned the other day that all he does is golf, workout and play hockey. Not many socialite types. By all accounts, everyone in there now seems to be tight and pulling in the same direction. All it took was getting rid of PLD and Wheeler
 
Joe Hallenback said:
I will let people in on a secret

If you take the "Power" out of the Power forward they just play like everyone else
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The issue is he doesn't have enough pure skill to play like everyone else and be impactful. We saw it all too often over his three years in Winnipeg.
 
Spazkat said:
ehhh... that's probably true when he's happy and wants to be there, but his time in Columbus shows what you get when he's ready to leave and it's not pretty
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Sorry I was being totally sarcastic. I know I wouldn't want PLD l on my team. The guy is really overrated. $8.5 mil for a 60 point center who brings a lot of baggage and drama.
 
I mean for longtime Kings fans this article has to trigger some PTSD, especially with who is in charge

In short a lot of what Dean Lombardi came in and changed was cultural and infrastructure--getting the 'right' guys in the room who would take initiative, work out on their own, lead and bleed Kings, and built the facilities out for them to take advantage of it. Both implicitly and explicitly, the criticism of just about everything in the previous 15-20 years was the 'retire to the beach'/'country club' atmosphere of the Kings, no one came here to win, they came here to hang out in low pressure and be a celeb in a big metro. See: Jeremy Roenick sucking a bag of dicks on the ice and literally dancing during warmups, Luc and Rob themselves leaving for greener pastures to win before coming back and sucking eggs and cashing out, Blake literally ripping the C off his chest, and much more.

With Rob and Luc in charge now, that appears to be returning. There's no accountability within or without the organization--they've gotten to inherit everything good about what DL built, including a championship infrastructure, future hall of famers at every position, and basically unlimited AEG resources--and have won 0 playoff rounds ever since. They've failed at contending, started to rebuild, failed at that, and are now failing at contending again. They've squandered almost completely due to dogshit development and deployment what was once seen as one of the best prospect pools in the league--yet every player they jettison finds success elsewhere. They've hired the biggest choke artist and worst bench manager in NHL history and watched him peddle away series chokeholds two years in a row due to stubborn adherence to a 1-3-1 vs. the best player in the world/a one man system smasher as well as playing his mid-30s center minutes like he was in his 20s. They do everything they can to appease Luc's best friend Brisson and there's this weird adherence to bringing in as many of his dudes as possible. And this might be the capstone move that signals the full return to this joke organization fully embracing being a team of influencers rather than a championship chasing organization.

I am so excited to see Vilardi and Iafallo have success in Winnipeg (and Kupari as well), those are heart and fire guys that you can win with. LA couldn't manage Vilardi's fire, so I can't wait until it burns the shit out of them. And I like PLD more than most, but there is nothing more annoying as a longtime LA fan to go out and grab an inconsistent, moody C while jettisoning homegrown guys who care, more for the signals of the organization's culture than for the player's abilities.
 
Raccoon Jesus said:
I mean for longtime Kings fans this article has to trigger some PTSD, especially with who is in charge

In short a lot of what Dean Lombardi came in and changed was cultural and infrastructure--getting the 'right' guys in the room who would take initiative, work out on their own, lead and bleed Kings, and built the facilities out for them to take advantage of it. Both implicitly and explicitly, the criticism of just about everything in the previous 15-20 years was the 'retire to the beach'/'country club' atmosphere of the Kings, no one came here to win, they came here to hang out in low pressure and be a celeb in a big metro. See: Jeremy Roenick sucking a bag of dicks on the ice and literally dancing during warmups, Luc and Rob themselves leaving for greener pastures to win before coming back and sucking eggs and cashing out, Blake literally ripping the C off his chest, and much more.

With Rob and Luc in charge now, that appears to be returning. There's no accountability within or without the organization--they've gotten to inherit everything good about what DL built, including a championship infrastructure, future hall of famers at every position, and basically unlimited AEG resources--and have won 0 playoff rounds ever since. They've failed at contending, started to rebuild, failed at that, and are now failing at contending again. They've squandered almost completely due to dogshit development and deployment what was once seen as one of the best prospect pools in the league--yet every player they jettison finds success elsewhere. They've hired the biggest choke artist and worst bench manager in NHL history and watched him peddle away series chokeholds two years in a row due to stubborn adherence to a 1-3-1 vs. the best player in the world/a one man system smasher as well as playing his mid-30s center minutes like he was in his 20s. They do everything they can to appease Luc's best friend Brisson and there's this weird adherence to bringing in as many of his dudes as possible. And this might be the capstone move that signals the full return to this joke organization fully embracing being a team of influencers rather than a championship chasing organization.

I am so excited to see Vilardi and Iafallo have success in Winnipeg (and Kupari as well), those are heart and fire guys that you can win with. LA couldn't manage Vilardi's fire, so I can't wait until it burns the shit out of them. And I like PLD more than most, but there is nothing more annoying as a longtime LA fan to go out and grab an inconsistent, moody C while jettisoning homegrown guys who care, more for the signals of the organization's culture than for the player's abilities.
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I still can't believe what Rob Blake gave up in return to get this guy who has a lot of baggage. Vilardi and Iaffalo were very good players for the Kings. The Kings gave up on both of them too soon.

Iaffalo is one of the best bottom six players in the NHL who can jump into the top six to fill injuries when needed and can play up or down on the lineup. Love his game and he's going to win a cup one day on a good team and be a key contributor. Vilardi to me has 30 goal 75 point potential.
 
I wouldn't want to play for the same organization that my dad worked for and in the same city as my parents. Especially in a fishbowl like Wpg. F that!
 
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