SI hockey writer with complete rip job on Sweeney/B's

[KnightofBoston]

I left teaching and that linked in isn't up-to-date. I AM A WELL OF DISAPPOINTMENT.

Well im sure you had a good reason, 6 years or so is a hefty stretch In a tough district . Im committed to two more years (and am only guaranteed this upcoming one) and there's no gauarantee I won't leave after that due to circumstances that have nothing to do with the kids. Id like to think I won't give up though, because they deserve better regardless of the nonsense that goes on above us

 

[EverettMike]

Well im sure you had a good reason, 6 years or so is a hefty stretch In a tough district . Im committed to two more years (and am only guaranteed this upcoming one) and there's no gauarantee I won't leave after that due to circumstances that have nothing to do with the kids. Id like to think I won't give up though, because they deserve better regardless of the nonsense that goes on above us

I didn't leave because of the kids. Many people asked me to reconsider, but many factors went into that decision.

 

[KnightofBoston]

I didn't leave because of the kids. Many people asked me to reconsider, but many factors went into that decision.

Right that's what I was haphazardly getting at, I teach science not reading comprehension, forgive me


I definitely hear where you are comingg from, I've already seen enough to know how screwy those other factors get

 

[jgatie]

But what is the basis for calling him dispassionate? You are ignoring all the context here.

If someone says Dan Shaughnessy is a lazy writer who has been writing the same column for 25 years I'd trust that they are familiar with his work over those years. But when is the last time you read Allan Muir's work? Or anyone else here?

People are saying these things about him because they don't like his opinion. Counter his opinion with facts and arguments that are stronger, or counter his with why they are weak. Don't just say, "Oh, he must think this because he isn't passionate or a hockey guy or he just copied HF boards."

Would anyone have said that if he wrote a glowing piece? No, absolutely not.

I personally took the "copied from HF boards" as the off-the-cuff, stupid, childish comments that they always are, from both sides. I ignore that nonsense. And I don't need to read Allan Muir's work to know that this column was a throwaway. He completely missed the boat on Lucic (especially the fact that we ate half his salary on a "cap dump") and his analysis of the Dougie trade as "inexplicable" is . . . well . . . inexplicable considering their are numerous explanation that, while some may disagree, they certainly "explain" why Sweeney did what he did. It is those mistakes that made posters question his passion, the criticism didn't rise because folks didn't like what he wrote. It was that what he wrote was demonstrably wrong, and seemingly resulting from lazy reporting.

 

[EverettMike]

I personally took the "copied from HF boards" as the off-the-cuff, stupid, childish comments that they always are, from both sides. I ignore that nonsense. And I don't need to read Allan Muir's work to know that this column was a throwaway. He completely missed the boat on Lucic (especially the fact that we ate half his salary on a "cap dump") and his analysis of the Dougie trade as "inexplicable" is . . . well . . . inexplicable considering their are numerous explanation that, while some may disagree, they certainly "explain" why Sweeney did what he did. It is those mistakes that made posters question his passion, the criticism didn't rise because folks didn't like what he wrote. It was that what he wrote was demonstrably wrong, and seemingly resulting from lazy reporting.

I think questioning if he is a hockey guy or is passionate about the game is beyond the pale. I think most of these comments stem from not liking what he has said. I havent even commented on what he wrote. My issue has been in the way people have reacted to it.

Agree to disagree at this point.

 

[Roll 4 Lines]

The one fly in the ointment is the fact that the Bruins had all the power. Hamilton was an RFA!!! They could choose to match any offer made or take a sizeable compensation if they chose not to match. They had the most power in the situation and they pissed it away. That cannot be denied. That to me is the biggest signal that Hamilton was telling the truth. He could not control his future other then to sign offer sheets. If they really wanted to keep him they would have...

Yep.

They decided to make a change. They were not forced to make a change.

 

[Eddie Munson]

The one fly in the ointment is the fact that the Bruins had all the power. Hamilton was an RFA!!! They could choose to match any offer made or take a sizeable compensation if they chose not to match. They had the most power in the situation and they pissed it away. That cannot be denied. That to me is the biggest signal that Hamilton was telling the truth. He could not control his future other then to sign offer sheets. If they really wanted to keep him they would have...

I'm well aware he was an RFA but that still doesn't give Boston all the power. Matter of fact the offersheet is a negotiating tool for the agent, the player and for teams trying to trade/sign for said player. Boston then has the right to make the final decision on whether to keep the player or take compensation which I believe is what you're eluding to but that still leaves the negotiating power in the hands of the player and agent.

Again the most telling aspect of this entire ordeal is the amount Dougie signed for! It just doesn't add up. I was furious with the trade and wanted Sweeney's head until those numbers came out. Then it all started making some sense.

 

[LSCII]

I'm well aware he was an RFA but that still doesn't give Boston all the power. Matter of fact the offersheet is a negotiating tool for the agent, the player and for teams trying to trade/sign for said player. Boston then has the right to make the final decision on whether to keep the player or take compensation which I believe is what you're eluding to but that still leaves the negotiating power in the hands of the player and agent.

Again the most telling aspect of this entire ordeal is the amount Dougie signed for! It just doesn't add up. I was furious with the trade and wanted Sweeney's head until those numbers came out. Then it all started making some sense.

How does it make sense? Sweeney was claiming he wanted way more than that, so either Dougie took a discount to sign with Calgary (a team he had zero allegiance to), or Sweeney isn't being honest about what he was looking for. If anything, the money made me even more angry.

 

[MtlBoxFan]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nhl-offseason-bizarro-rankings-eastern-conference-edition/
Grantland had a funnier take on it giving Sweeney a bizarro meter rating of 9.5...

 

[LSCII]

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/nhl-offseason-bizarro-rankings-eastern-conference-edition/
Grantland had a funnier take on it giving Sweeney a bizarro meter rating of 9.5...

The author is clearly a baseball fan who knows nothing about hockey. And he's not passionate about the game either.

 

[JOKER 192]

The author is clearly a baseball fan who knows nothing about hockey. And he's not passionate about the game either.

All that objectivity, oh the horror. Notice how he presented all moves and sold them for what they were,he didn't just dwell on the Hamilton thing, that's objectivity, key in any good write-up, bad or good.

 

[jgatie]

I think questioning if he is a hockey guy or is passionate about the game is beyond the pale. I think most of these comments stem from not liking what he has said. I havent even commented on what he wrote. My issue has been in the way people have reacted to it.

Agree to disagree at this point.

Agree to disagree, but it is awful convenient to label every negative reaction to his article as a personal attack or a case of "not liking what he has said" without actually commenting on what he had to say (or the critiques that arose from it). I don't care about what he said, he is entitled to his opinion, if it is expressed as opinion. However, opinions are open to critique by facts, and the fact is: The Lucic trade was by no means a simple "cap dump" when we ate half his salary. And the Hamilton trade was by no means "inexplicable", when the very minimum of investigation would have revealed "facts" which could easily explain the trade, even if it did not justify the return.

 

[LSCII]

All that objectivity, oh the horror. Notice how he presented all moves and sold them for what they were, that's objectivity, key in any good write-up, bad or good.

Not for nothing, but who cares? One writer included all the moves, while basically calling Sweeney bipolar and saying he's done a very questionable job, and the other mentioned mainly only the Hamilton deal while saying Sweeney has done a very questionable job. Does it really matter though? They both reached the same conclusion regardless of the path they walked to get there. Sweeney has done some good moves and he's done some bad moves in a very short time. The team is actually worse on paper than it was last year, and last year's team was terrible. Is it really any better if you include every single bit of detail while reaching the same conclusion though? I mean really? Talk about splitting hairs for no reason.

This is why this place is insane. One guy writes x and draws a conclusion and people object. Another guy writes Y and reaches the same conclusion, but he's okay? Hello?

 

[GloryDaze4877]

Great article. I like how the guy fairly presents the argument, excuses Mortensen for getting it wrong initially, defends him against a ridiculous argument sure to arise, but then asks why he won't address any of this.

Seriously, did you even read what you just linked to? Or just read the headline?

Muir has been writing about hockey for a long time, and during that time has written lots of great things, including both negative and positive things about the Bruins. I totally disagree with his sentiment about the Looch trade here. But I don't question why he has that opinion on a personal level.

Mike,


1) You and Dan need to get a room, kiss, make-up, bro-hug it out, whatever.


2) I'm not a huge fan of Muir, he's Ok, but not a guy I would consider a "go-to" hockey guy if you know what I mean. I disagree with that article on many levels, but my biggest issue is with the two over the top comments he made that I quoted in an earlier post (on phone now). It's catchy and sounds great to say that Sweeney "sucked the life" out of the team, took the fun out of the draft, and has set a once proud franchise up for years of mediocrity. However, I thinks it's way too soon to say those things, particularly the latter and it's not really the forum he should be doing it in. If he wants to make far-reaching comments in an article, he should really support them there as well.

 

[JOKER 192]

Not for nothing, but who cares? One writer included all the moves, while basically calling Sweeney bipolar and saying he's done a very questionable job, and the other mentioned mainly only the Hamilton deal while saying Sweeney has done a very questionable job. Does it really matter though? They both reached the same conclusion regardless of the path they walked to get there. Sweeney has done some good moves and he's done some bad moves in a very short time. The team is actually worse on paper than it was last year, and last year's team was terrible. Is it really any better if you include every single bit of detail while reaching the same conclusion though? I mean really? Talk about splitting hairs for no reason.

This is why this place is insane. One guy writes x and draws a conclusion and people object. Another guy writes Y and reaches the same conclusion, but he's okay? Hello?

My initial post calls into question his accenting the negative and diminishing the positive, that's all it did.

 

[jgatie]

Not for nothing, but who cares? One writer included all the moves, while basically calling Sweeney bipolar and saying he's done a very questionable job, and the other mentioned mainly only the Hamilton deal while saying Sweeney has done a very questionable job. Does it really matter though? They both reached the same conclusion regardless of the path they walked to get there. Sweeney has done some good moves and he's done some bad moves in a very short time. The team is actually worse on paper than it was last year, and last year's team was terrible. Is it really any better if you include every single bit of detail while reaching the same conclusion though? I mean really? Talk about splitting hairs for no reason.

This is why this place is insane. One guy writes x and draws a conclusion and people object. Another guy writes Y and reaches the same conclusion, but he's okay? Hello?

Really? Are you sure? Because if he only mentioned the Hamilton deal, it wouldn't be as bad. But he also called the Lucic deal a "cap dump", which is bad reporting by anyone's standards.

 

[Jean_Jacket41]

Not for nothing, but who cares? One writer included all the moves, while basically calling Sweeney bipolar and saying he's done a very questionable job, and the other mentioned mainly only the Hamilton deal while saying Sweeney has done a very questionable job. Does it really matter though? They both reached the same conclusion regardless of the path they walked to get there. Sweeney has done some good moves and he's done some bad moves in a very short time. The team is actually worse on paper than it was last year, and last year's team was terrible. Is it really any better if you include every single bit of detail while reaching the same conclusion though? I mean really? Talk about splitting hairs for no reason.

This is why this place is insane. One guy writes x and draws a conclusion and people object. Another guy writes Y and reaches the same conclusion, but he's okay? Hello?

No they weren't.

They had a terrible season. But they didn't have a terrible team. Not the same thing at all.

And while I agree that they have a "worst team on paper" than last year, that doesn't really mean they will have a worst season in the standings than last year either.

Also, they still have room (~4.5M) to get upgrades without substracting players due to the Cap space that was opened with the moves done this summer. They will have even more Cap space next summer to get impact players on UFA or via trades with the 6.75M that is currently alloted to Kelly+Lucic+bonus overage and maybe another 4.25M if Eriksson ain't extended and traded for futures.

Currently, we don't really have the big picture of all these summer moves. How Sweeney spend all this freed Cap space will have to be taken into account for the grade he gets with all the moves he made.

 

[LSCII]

My initial post calls into question his accenting the negative and diminishing the positive, that's all it did.

Okay, but again, in the two examples (one accentuated the positive, one was all negative) the conclusion is the same. So what does it matter how you got there? It comes off as splitting hairs just to split hairs. Let me say this in a different way. If I go to a restaurant and the meal is burnt, does it change anything if the chef tells me he lovingly picked the veggies from a local farmers market, peeled and hand washed them with care, sliced them up to perfectly uniformed sizes so they'd all cook at a similar rate, and then burnt the ever loving **** out of it to the point where it was inedible???

 

[JOKER 192]

Okay, but again, in the two examples (one accentuated the positive, one was all negative) the conclusion is the same. So what does it matter how you got there? It comes off as splitting hairs just to split hairs. Let me say this in a different way. If I go to a restaurant and the meal is burnt, does it change anything if the chef tells me he lovingly picked the veggies from a local farmers market, peeled and hand washed them with care, sliced them up to perfectly uniformed sizes so they'd all cook at a similar rate, and then burnt the ever loving **** out of it to the point where it was inedible???

If you wanna see hair splitting read some of your posts. One accentuated both sides, one only the negative and even turned positive in to meh.

 

[jgatie]

Okay, but again, in the two examples (one accentuated the positive, one was all negative) the conclusion is the same. So what does it matter how you got there? It comes off as splitting hairs just to split hairs. Let me say this in a different way. If I go to a restaurant and the meal is burnt, does it change anything if the chef tells me he lovingly picked the veggies from a local farmers market, peeled and hand washed them with care, sliced them up to perfectly uniformed sizes so they'd all cook at a similar rate, and then burnt the ever loving **** out of it to the point where it was inedible???

So you are comparing both conclusions to a terribly botched meal that is burned to a crisp? I believe we finally agree on something!

But seriously, if you can't see the difference between a subjective conclusion based on a fairly complete analysis of both sides, and a subjective conclusion based on questionable ("inexplicable" Dougie trade) or completely wrong (Lucic trade a "cap dump") "facts" coupled with absolutely no mention of anything demonstrably positive, then I don't know what to say.

 

[HuskyBruinPride]

Keep thinking that. Armchair GM's are the single most amusing thing about the off-season and the trade deadline. Well them, and Habs fans who post that it is time to acquire a Quebec native like Bergeron, Vinny, or Giroux.

The Sweeney apologists accepting his every move are even more amusing. There's a reason why the entire hockey world thought we were a laughing stock after the return we got for Hamilton. Find one legitimate person who defends it, I dare you. This trade will go down as even worse then the Seguin trade. Or was that a good deal to you too?

 

[jgatie]

The Sweeney apologists accepting his every move are even more amusing. There's a reason why the entire hockey world thought we were a laughing stock after the return we got for Hamilton. Find one legitimate person who defends it, I dare you. This trade will go down as even worse then the Seguin trade. Or was that a good deal to you too?

Sorry, your now deleted post denotes you as someone I have no wish to have a discussion with. Find another person to insult.

 

[LSCII]

If you wanna see hair splitting read some of your posts. One accentuated both sides, one only the negative and even turned positive in to meh.

It's your world boss. I'm just livin' in it. And I'm more than aware of what and why I've posted what I have.

 

[JOKER 192]

It's your world boss. I'm just livin' in it. And I'm more than aware of what and why I've posted what I have.

That's cheap, it ain't my world, if it was..........

 

[HuskyBruinPride]

Sorry, your now deleted post denotes you as someone I have no wish to have a discussion with. Find another person to insult.

Just telling it like it is. I'm not gonna bother either trying to convince someone who thinks that Sweeney can do no wrong that he screwed up with the Hamilton trade. You can live in your own little world, I'll stay with reality.