Welcome to the Sports Saloon
(not to be confused with salon, which would be a dangerous typo)
(not to be confused with salon, which would be a dangerous typo)
I’ll keep this to a pretty short warm up here. My name is Kevin Sherriff, I’m a 30 year old Phys Ed teacher from the bustling Metropolis of Whitby, Ontario. I'm a never has been athlete, who will pretty much watch whatever people can compete at. I figure it’s better than The Bachelor. I enjoy writing so I picked one of my few interests to write about. My thoughts on sports beat out, thoughts about sex, and thoughts about my dog (note: those are in fact two separate subjects). I figured this would be more interesting than my dog and last longer than sex, WABAM. I plan to write about whatever sports topic that catches my eye at any given time. I strongly encourage that people comment and share their opinions, as mine are based on no merit, and fewer facts.
Enjoy.
In Defense of Phil Kessel
(Why Joe Warmington is wrong about ALMOST everything)
This inaugural post is in reaction to a Toronto Sun column written by Joe Warmington that I read in the paper this morning. The article is about Phil Kessel’s actions during an altercation with John Scott and the ensuing brawl during a preseason game against the Buffalo Sabres this past Saturday night. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, you can give it a gander here (wasn’t even in the sports section, it was in the news, tells you something right there):
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/09/23/don-cherry-has-back-of-maple-leafs-phil-kessel
Now, as the title suggests the purpose of the article was to relay Don Cherry’s feeling on the subject, as I’m sure Grapes has many, but until the start of the regular season he is without a soapbox to shout from. However, during the course of the article, big Joe can’t seem to help adding in his two cents (or maybe just one cent), about the preseason melee.
Before we get into his comedy of errors, let’s address something that we can all seem to agree on. Phil Kessel should not have tried to Lizzie Borden off John Scott’s leg with his hockey stick. I can get on board with that. Though, that isn't entirely true, I thought the first hack was fine, reminded me of when anyone tried to establish a net presence in front of Ed Belfour. The second was over the line. The league will suspend him for it and deservedly so. After this point, JW took the press card out of his fedora and replaced with a name tag that read “Hi, I know nothing about hockey.”
It’s Joey Warms opinion that not only was Kessel’s ‘Donatello’ impression (purple ninja turtle, not renaissance sculptor) the wrong course of action, but that he should've fought John Scott, like, with his little sausage finger fists. He even goes as far as to question Phil Kessel’s “Manhood” also calling him, and this is in no particular order, “gutless” “big baby” and last but certainly not least (just ask Marty McFly) a “chicken”. Joe does admit that he has obviously never been in an NHL fight, but I think it’s safe to assume that his fighting experience on a whole is closer to a high knee, snapping fingers, Westside Story sort of dust up.
So why does Joe think that Kessel should have fought? Don’t worry, he provides a pretty inspired answer “... I think it could have set a tone for the season by standing up.” This I found particularly interesting, setting a “tone”. Let’s take a minute to look at this a little further, see just what kind of “tone” Phil Kessel could have set for the season by fighting John Scott.
In this corner:
Phil Kessel
Height: 6 ft 0 in (Maybe sitting on Tyler Bozak’s shoulders)
Weight: 202 lb (probably close, but let's not mistake any of that for muscle)
NHL Games Played: 504
NHL Point Total: 379
NHL Fights: 2 (up to and including the preseason fight on Saturday)
and in this corner:
John Scott
Height: 6 ft 8
Weight: 270 lb
NHL Games Played: 180
NHL Point Total: 5 (yes 5, 1 goal and 4 assists over parts of 5 NHL seasons)
NHL Fights: 34 (plus another 29 bouts in the AHL, so let's call that 63 for his pro career)
Let’s ignore the fact that John Scott is a Minotaur, who belongs at the end of a maze eating virgins and Phil Kessel is a hairy foot away from being a hobbit, and look at these players respective hockey careers. Kessel is a point producer, he is paid to score goals. Scott is paid to fight, so, essentially a professional fighter. Someone should ask Joe, who is paid to write articles, to get into the ring with a pro heavyweight boxer, with no training. Not for charity, not for jokes, not for fun, but for keeps. In the interest of protecting his “manhood” and see if ‘drops the gloves’ or puts the gloves on I suppose.
But let’s get back to the “tone” that this ‘David v. Goliath’ knuckle up could have potentially provided for the Leafs 2013-2014 campaign. I think in order to properly assess this we must address the possible outcome of the fight.
I have ranked these in order of most to least likely:
A) Kessel gets one punched before he even gets his dukes up. Suffers a concussion.
Tone set: Kessel is lost from the Leafs lineup for an undetermined period. Toronto media spends the rest of the season eating Kessel alive. Wondering why a player who gets paid 6 million a year to score goals fought a giant who makes 750,000 a year to eat small children in a mean nothing preseason game.
B) Kessel manages to throw a punch, somewhere around Scott’s nipple, (probably with his thumb tucked under his fingers) breaks his hand, gets one punched.
Tone set: See above about the small children eating.
C) Kessel stays on his skates while getting pummeled until his teammates inevitably jump in to keep their star player from getting killed (happened anyway).
Tone set: Protected “Manhood” I guess, team building? Happened anyway. Worth the risk of results A and B, not even close.
D) Kessel becomes the ‘Rocky Balboa’ to John Scott’s ‘Apollo Creed’ (Rocky II not I). He skates off the ice putting on the Tie Domi heavyweight belt to a roaring ACC.
Tone set: The Leafs dominate the season and win the Stanley Cup.
I’ll let you decide how likely that one is.
There are few circumstances in which Phil Kessel should fight, let alone fight a man that spends the off season at the top of a beanstalk surrounded by human bones. I’m not even that ecstatic over his fight with the more human sized Brian Flynn, though he did stand in there better than expected. Leave the fighting up to the Colton Orr’s and George Parros’ of the world. That’s their job, that is what’s expected of them and what they train for. Losing Kessel for any part of the season in a fight for ‘manhood’ in a meaningless preseason game would sure have set a ‘tone’ for the season, the ‘tone’ of losing hockey games. I think scoring 30 goals a year against dudes way bigger than you in one of the toughest hockey markets in the league is pretty manly anyway.
So feel free to step into the ring Joe, before you judge the ‘manhood’ of a hockey player in an environment you know little about.
And take off that stupid hat, you look ridiculous.
Until next time,
Cheers.
