ESPN

Usually, ESPN pretends hockey doesn't really exist. I was once watching PTI (unfortunately), and when one of the journalists dare call playoff hockey, "exciting," he lost points.

So, ESPN hates hockey. Yay. ESPN (or its most notable employees, anyway) also hates the interwebz. Yay? Combination of the two? *headdesk*

ESPN's 'Featured Comment (RE: NHL All-Star Voting Results):'

It's not about the best players anymore. The whole fan balloting thing needs to be removed." -- Gothica639

No kidding. Because you know, in other sports it's definitely about the best players statistically and not at all a popularity contest.

There was a great quote somewhere that I should have copy-and-pasted over here when I read it, and I can't find it now. It's wasn't from Yahoo!Sports, because their only hockey writer is McKeon. I don't read ESPN generally and can't find it on CNNSI. I suspect-- suspect-- it was a Hockey Closer article over at Deadspin, but can't find it there either and can't be sure. Who knows, maybe it was in an actual newspaper.

Anyway, it was one of those requisite 'mid-season award' articles, and my New York Rangers-fan-brain kind of scanned down to the Vezina part, because Lundqvist is generally the only player we have that doesn't suck.

Anyway, the writer awarded it reasonably to Pascal LeClaire, citing Luongo, Osgood and Lundqvist as others who would (paraphrasing), "be in their seats clapping when Brodeur wins the award."

Anyway, the point of that long, drawn-out anecdote that annihilated any kind of tone I had is: the people voting on this are either incapable, unwilling, or just plain biased. Voting for anything in any sport is a popularity contest. That is why this stuff is worth nothing. The end.


Maybe it was on purpose ESPN picked the most boring, inane, obvious comment they could. Maybe it was like, "Well, if we have to, stuff you, NHL." Or maybe ESPN is stupid. Either way.